Last Thursday night, as Spooney and I were driving home with my brother, who used to be an EMT in rural
Looking back at the last few days, I’ve reflected on just how many times I have walked through the crunch of glass and metal to survey what could be anything between a close call and a tragedy. Hundreds of times I have made that walk and the only true variable of that night would be what I would find inside that particular vehicle. The fact that I was far from home deprived me of my jump bag and the knowledge of the whereabouts of the nearest appropriate facility but other than that I knew this script well, I have played my part over and over until there are no surprises… or at least very few.
The center lane of 5 lanes, a shuttle bus that has clearly stood on its nose and was capable of holding many people, maybe as many as 10, there were no downed wires, no fire, and my ears cataloged the crunch of moving traffic across the median as opposing traffic drives through a concrete debris field. I guessed that the accident started and ended on this side of the divider from the fact that there is concrete blown 30 yards across the opposing lanes, but the reality is I have seen too many unguessable situations that I don’t put much stock in what it looks like might have happened. How it happened doesn’t much change how I will treat a patient for the first 5 minutes.
I automatically checked for a gas puddle, ignition sources and cries from within as I approached, none were present. The semi-trailer blocking traffic in the lane moved on leaving the lane exposed to oncoming highway traffic, I remember noting the increased risk without the truck in place. This time the vehicle was empty no one knew where the driver was and the two wrecked vehicles upstream of the accident yielded no injuries. I gave the very brief out-of-state-retired-EMT report to the CA cop that pulled up using as little bandwidth as possible as it was, after all, just the opinion of someone driving by on a Thursday night.
I ramped back down easily enough, again, practice, though I wondered for over a day where the hell the driver went in such a short time as I estimated that we were on scene within 1-2 minutes of the event. While I have seen plenty of drivers book from a scene, they typically weren’t shuttle bus drivers.
It is nearly impossible for me to drive by during that time between crash and help arriving. I literally had to take my hand off the car door handle to prevent myself from exiting while the car was still in motion while my sister staged her car exactly right, upstream of the site and protected from oncoming traffic.
I still don’t know the name of the highway that I found myself standing in almost 3,000 miles from home that night.
All in all this was a good night, zero patients is a good number.
As we left the scene and eased back into traffic, we all couldn’t help but speculate on what had happened to the driver of the vehicle. As he was going to fly out the next day, my brother asked to look at the news and let him know what had happened. I had to explain to him that in Los Angeles, this kind of event didn’t make the news, and that I had often felt frustrated myself and left wondering why, for instance, the police helicopters circled my block with searchlights veering crazily down the street and through my backyard for the better part of an hour, only to have them fly away suddenly without so much as a word of explanation. It is part of the random nature of life in the big-ass city, I guess, that so much of the bad shit seems to appear out of nowhere, fuck intensely with your life for a while for no discernible reason, and then disappear just as suddenly as it appeared.
11 comments:
Damn, I was hoping for the balloons/clown story but way to go bro.
Welcome home. It never ends, does it?
Glad you are home safe, and kudos to you and your bro for stopping.
is your bro a paramedic or something?
This is an amazing story. What's most impressive is that you stopped at all. I think most people (for whatever their reasons) would prefer to gawk and move past; viewing the crash as a tv event rather than a real-life event.
Thats cool that you were standing by like that, scenes like that can get really busy really fast sometimes and you would give anything for an ink pen, cell phone, extra pair fo hands, and a scrap of paper. (Which explains why we write on our hands and clothes, small furless animals, etc) during the triage phase.
I remember saying "get me in there" and then wincing with each pop of your tires hitting debris.
W'ell have to do the clown and ballon story sometime.
Bro
I am glad there are people like you and your brother.
Kiki: Sorry, I meant to hyperlink on "EMT" for you foreigners. It's there now.
Bro: Send me Clown story and I will print it. I love that story.
All: Thanks for your concerns and good wishes. My brother, who was a volunteer EMT in his local NJ township and never got paid a dime for his service, is an amazing person. I was just glad that I was able to get him in there and get him back out without freaking out or fucking up.
Volunteer EMTs are saints. We deal with them a lot through the ski patrol (many patrollers are EMTs). Nice to have you back!
I'm glad your brother continues to prevail in his struggles against the demons you've posted about before. He's a good guy, and we need more like him around.
He is a mensch in every way.
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