Memorable Moments as a Firefighter

[Desertponder]

He made a decision and charged the paddles to 360 joules. “Clear.” He said. They all stepped away. He administered a shock that stopped the heart. He looked at the clock and said,

“Time of death, 4:36 PM, August 25th.”

Interesting decision. Talk about a "gray" area.

We had a fun one Saturday night. You would have to know our Paramedic to appreciate the humor of this call.
We were paged out to a chest pain with difficulty breathing, code 3 response. Normally, I drive. Since I was floundering around trying to get my contacts in the Paramedic pulled the bus out of the bay and also chose to drive. He NEVER drives! I hopped in the passenger seat and our 3rd EMT was in the back.
So we head out to this call code 3 which is about 10 miles away. We're almost there and the Paramedics phone rings, he answers it believe it or not. I'm thinking "Bill! Put the phone down and drive!" Out of the corner of my eye I catch a black blur and then we feel "thump-thump." Ah, crap!! We hit a cat! A black one!! So, our Paramedic throws his phone down and starts agonizing over hitting this cat. He feels horrible and is totally having a fit about it. He actually wants to go back and see if its dead. I say "Ummm, don't you think we should go take care of our chest pain call??" The other EMT says "Bill, I'm sure it has Michelin imprinted on it so I'm sure its dead!" Finally I say "Bill, its o.k., you couldn't avoid it! But.......you do realize that's a quarter (25¢)?"
The other EMT busts up laughing and Bill looks at me like he just lost something really important.
On our deptartment, we have a member act as "Hose Twister." He/She collects quarters from members who screw up, do dumb things, get their mug on TV, etc. and it goes into our general fund. This Paramedic feels like he never does anything wrong that warrants getting charged a quarter and prides himself in the fact that he never gets charged. However, he couldn't back out of this one! He's one that doesn't take well to being ribbed or teased but we couldn't help it on this one. We gave him all kinds of grief the rest of the evening. But we actually had him laughing with us in the end. Poor cat!
This guy is Mr. Gadget. He has more gadgets and toys of the trade than anyone I've ever seen. He's usually carrying so much stuff that its a wonder he gets anything done. When he goes out on a fire call he's so armed with tools that he looks like a Transformer. He thinks he never does anything wrong or does anything silly so it was really pretty funny to get him over this cat. Poor guy will never live this one down. We all felt a bit bad about the cat but sorry, that's a quarter!

[Bullfrog]

I can relate to carrying a lot of gadgets. In a volunteer service you are often seriously understaffed. There is just nobody to turn to to say, "Go get this. " so you carry a lot of stuff on your belt. My favorite tool was a spring loaded centerpunch. You put that baby against one corner of a car window and push in.

The spring loads then pop out and the entire window cracks into a honeycomb of small safety glass pieces. You can then punch a gloved hand through the window and slap all of the glass out so you can crawl in and access the patient.

I also got in the habit of piling everything and I do mean everything on the stretcher before we went into any house. O2 bag, drug box and  defibrillator. This way you don't loose time running back to the unit.

We made one such call and the family was out on the porch. As we hurried to the door with all of this stuff piled high, the son said. "You can slow dow, he's gone."

I asked, "How long has he been down?"

He said, "I don't know, but he's not even warm anymore, he's cool to the touch."

We entered the room and there was an elderly couple seated in two recliners. I went to the man who was obviously dead and felt for a carotid pulse. There was none and was cool. My partner said, "She doesn't look so good either." I looked at the wife and said. "She isn't breathing".

We pulled her out of the chair and ripped open her blouse. I did a "Quick look" through the paddles and she was in V Fib. I charged and shocked her and she got a rythm on the monitor. She got a pulse back and I prepared to intubate. My oartner was holding her head back when her eyes opened and she gasped in a really deep breath and spontaneous respirations began.

We loaded her and took her in. I turned out that they both had settled in for a nap and when she woke up, she discovered her husband of 30 something years dead in his chair. One of the kids lived right next door so she called the son. They all came over and were focused on Dad. Nobody noticed that mom sat back in her chair and also had a heart attack.

I've wondered if it hadn't been better had we been a little later. She had to go through grief when they could have left together.

I went and visited her in the hospital three days later and she had no recollection of the events in the living room.

[Bullfrog]

As you can see, all EMS calls are different. Some are funny and some aren’t. Some have happy endings but most don’t. They all share one thing in common. They all leave memories in the minds of the responders.

In thousands of small towns all across America, people just like you take up the calling. They are everyday people. Moms and Dads with emotions, that get all tangled up into the training and calls. You can’t separate the two.  You can’t see someone be born or die without taking it home. It keeps you awake at night. Sometime with adrenaline, sometime with grief or horror at what you saw.

We are all just a human after all. We are all just people with feelings and emotions. A mom or a Dad, we all have children, parents and grandparents that we see in our patients. We feel the family’s pain.

My small town had a population of 1,300. You get to know the family’s that have a terminal patient living at home. You make numerous calls to their home and they get to know you on a first name basis. We had an older couple like this.

The man was dying of congestive heart failure and COPD. Congestive obstructive pulmonary disease, a really tough way to go. As his disease progressed, he was in extreme pain and anxiety just trying to breathe. He never complained like a lot of the whiners that I hauled. He always tried to smile and be brave and pleasant.

They always requested “No lights or siren “ because they didn’t want to disturb the neighbors. I had been there many times and he looked worse each time, he was dying. On this call, as my partner was tending him, his wife got me to the side. She told me.

“He won’t be coming home this time.”

I took her shoulder in my hand and told her gently, “Don’t say that.”

“No, I heard footsteps in the house last night. They were looking for him.”

This old couple lived alone. A cold chill went down my spine. I had no words for her. I believed her. All I had to give her was a sad smile and a gentle squeeze on her shoulder. I went about my job.

She was right. He never came home that time. I don’t know exactly where, but somewhere in the Bible it says something like this.

“There are many spirits that roam the earth, by day and by night, unseen by man.” I would like to think that what she heard was the footsteps of relatives, loved ones long past that knew that his time was near. That they were coming for him, caring and waiting to usher him on to the next life.

That he didn’t make the journey alone. Some things just can’t be explained but she heard them and she knew. Somehow, this was a comfort to her.

"They were looking for him." It still gives me the chills

[Mikey]

I just read the below article and got a chuckle out of it.  At least the owner will be getting a remodel, courtesy of the City 


Fire Crew Tests Skills _ on Wrong House
From Associated Press
July 18, 2007 7:11 AM EDT
BRAINTREE, Mass. - It looked like a textbook training exercise, but there was something amiss.

Firefighters drove to a vacant house on Tuesday, cut holes in the roof and walls, and broke windows to test their tools and their proficiency.

The problem? It was the wrong house.

They were supposed to be two blocks away at a house slated for demolition.

The owners of the damaged home now want the town pay for the mistake, but they're trying to keep a sense of humor about it.

"Accidents happen," said Jeffrey Luu, who owns the house with his brother, Clayton. "Luckily, nobody got hurt," added Clayton Luu.

The home had been vacant since an electrical fire last year left a scorch mark up one side. The knee-high grass had not been cut in several weeks. The owners were planning a renovation of the house - just not this much of one.

The fire department is conducting an internal investigation, Deputy Chief John Donahue said in a statement, but officials otherwise remained tightlipped and red-faced about the incident.

Meanwhile, the house where the firefighters were supposed to train was demolished later Tuesday as scheduled.

[Kittyzee]

  Weeeelll, sometimes in our hurry for a "good fire" we get in a hurry......

[Mikey]

Any of you ever feel you had a protective angel watching over you?

Firefighter OK After Hot Rod Hits Helmet
From Associated Press
July 18, 2007 4:15 PM EDT
WELLINGTON, New Zealand - A firefighter is counting his luck after a red-hot steel rod was fired into his helmet from an exploding vehicle, local media reported Thursday.

The steel rod was traveling at such speed it punched a hole through a steel door before hitting 41-year-old Gary Wright's Kevlar fire helmet, The New Zealand Herald said.

Wright was getting ready to fight a blaze earlier this month that had engulfed a garage full of vehicles in a suburb of Auckland, New Zealand's biggest city, when the steel rod fired out of an exploding van 62 feet away.

"I had only just put my BA (breathing apparatus) set on and put my helmet back on," he said.

"I had my head forward and was adjusting the headband on the helmet ... the next minute, whack.... It was a pretty hard whack, it knocked my head back," Wright was quoted as telling the paper.

"It felt like someone coming up and giving me a really good clip around my head ... but I had a glance around and no one was there. Then this glowing thing (the rod) attracted my attention at my feet," Wright said.

Waitakere City Fire Chief Bill Ellis said the rod went through the outer Kevlar layer of the helmet but had been stopped by a protective inner layer.

Wright was left with a headache and some pain on the left side of his head where his helmet strap was pulled back by the force of the rod's impact.

"It wasn't until on the way home that I saw the hole (in the helmet) and told the boss," he said.

"I think most people think I was pretty lucky," said Wright, an 11-year fire fighting veteran.

[Bullfrog]

In our small town there were abandoned houses that were way behind on taxes and seized by the city. Rather than pay for demolition, the city would let us burn them down. We would call the Texas Air Control Board and get permission.

We got a lot of good practice like that. We had a life size 150 lb. dummy that we would place in the house and set a fire inside. The rookies would then get on airpacks and find the dummy and drag it outside. After many times, the dummy was black from the smoke. They would also put out the fire inside.

After three or four burns, we would finally just let the house burn while we cooled the exposures, the trees and the neighbors houses. Once we were doing this and a firefighter from a neaby large town was driving by and saw the smoke. Being a firefighter, he got curious and came to see.

He pulled up and we were all just laying in the ditch drinking water and cooling off while the house went up in a huge blaze. He jumped out of his truck and asked, "Are you gonna put some water on that?"

When we were done all that was left was a water heater, a tub and a huge ash pile. We were tired after laying the hose back on the truck and filling it back up with water. When we got back to the station, rather that drag the dummy upstairs we just threw it under the stairs and went home. We could do that later.

About an hour later, our redneck dispatcher with her Texas twang came over the radio.

"Sherriff's Office to any Beaver Creek firefighter 10-8."

I keyed the mike and said, "44 is 10-8, what do you have Pat?"

"We keep getting reports of a black male laying under the stairs at the fire station and the police went to check it out, are you aware of this?" she asked.

"Yes. " I repied.

"Well, could you go and move him? He's bothering people."

Now how does a dummy bother people?

[Bullfrog]

I posted my really most memorable call on another board. I have it saved in my documents file. I think that the medics and firefighters here would appreciate it and could relate, but I don't want to bore the masses as it is really a very long story. I also don't want to interrupt the new stories from others but I really want to tell you about it.

I love to write down my experiences so I won't forget them but this story is really long. If the medics or anyone else here wants to hear it, I'll post it. It is the one call above all others that stands out. The culmination of my years of training that made it all worthwhile.

If the medics and firefighters or anyone else wants to hear it, I'll post it in pieces so it won't stretch out all at once. If I get a couple of yeahs I will, if not, I won't.

So, anyone care to wade through this?

[tammie]

I do!
Tammie

[Kittyzee]

me too, me too!

[Bullfrog]

OK, I got my two votes, but I don't want Shanna, LouAnn and Mikey to stop telling their stories. Should I start posting it here or make a whole new thread. I'm telling you it does go on for a bit.

[Mikey]

I vote for you to continue here with this thread.

[Kittyzee]

Sure, here is good, it works well here and we won't stop.   I just haven't had the time for the last couple of weeks     

[Bullfrog]

Texas has three levels of medics working the streets. The Basic EMT is trained in all medical emergencies and trauma but has limited treatment options. They can splint fractures and stop bleeding, apply oxygen and spinal immobilize a patient with possible spinal or neck fractures, drug administration is very limited.

The second level is intermediate, they have advanced airway skills and can place and intubation tube into the trachea below the vocal chords and above the bifurcation of the bronchi. A small cuff around the tube is inflated around the end of the tube with a syringe securing the airway against the aspiration of blood or vomit. They can also start IVs and in the past few years, the TDH has pushed more and more of the paramedics drug intervention therapy onto the Intermediate as fewer people care to become paramedics. They also can defibrillate a patient.

The paramedic is the final level of training. Paramedics are expected to perform every intervention that you would receive in the ER for a heart attack out in the field. Different doctors protocols allow varying degrees of practice such as needle decompression of a tension pneumothorax, cricothyrotomy, and other neat things. All drug interventions are learned at this level. Emergency childbirth is taught to all three levels.

All of this has been said to let you understand the pecking order of street medics. Basics have a lot of respect for Intermediates and even more for Paramedics. They know that a Paramedic has a lot more training and are really glad to hand the patient over to a medic whenever they can. Some medics let this go to their head and become arrogant, they call this the “Paragod” syndrome.

I as the senior medic was in charge of this scene and I was giving the orders. The green Basic EMT's on this call looked up to me due to my higher level of training and years of experience. I don't want anyone think that I'm tooting my own horn, it's just the natural pecking order of training levels. I was also the training officer in our department, which gave me some weight at a fire scene or on a jaws call. With that out of the way...

Now, I can start this long story.

In our small town, there were only two paramedics, my wife (now my x) and myself. We had a couple of intermediates and a handful of basics, some really green and inexperienced. When I got off work, I would turn on my radio to see if anything was happening as I drove home.

On this particular day as soon as I turned the radio on I heard frantic radio traffic. I recognized her voice, one of our new basic EMT’s was up to her arse in alligators, she was in a panic and you could hear it in her voice. “I need ALS (advanced life support or in other words, a paramedic) to meet us enroute. I have two junveniles who have overdosed.”

S.O, acknowledged and toned out Beaumont EMS. I was too far out to key up, my radio wouldn’t transmit that far. I lit up the dash laser and hauled butt toward them. They were transmitting their location so that Beaumont would know where to meet them. When I got within radio range I pulled over and met them.

Two juvenile males had indeed OD’d, but it was on crack and not an opiate thank God. Opiates can shut down the respiratory system, crack was no big deal to me on a young healthy heart and the situation was not life threatening. They were very agitated and their pupils were the size of dimes, but they really weren’t in any danger, a Shake and Bake call.

We transported them into ST. Elizabeth Hospital and were on the way back. The mood was light in the ambulance as it always was after a good call (nobody dies). These were volunteers, they did this for free because they loved doing it and helping people. My partner who was also a firefighter was a little more experienced, the two green girl medics in the back were hunkered up between the front seats in the passageway to the patient compartment talking to us. We were laughing and joking.

That changed in the blink of an eye. Our tone went out and we were miles away, twenty minutes out with no traffic. We were the only ambulance in that community and several smaller surrounding communities. The musical tone lasts about five seconds which seems like a lifetime. You can tell the urgency of the call from the speed and urgency of the dispatchers voice and as soon as she began to speak, I knew it was going to be bad. She talked fast and serious.

"Beaver Creek Fire and EMS, we have a 10-50 Major (bad, bad wreck) on Highway 123 three miles north of town, one patient is trapped in the vehicle and it is on fire." Our hair stood on end, it is really hard to convey just how much adrenaline flows at moments like this. My partner lit up the lights, turned on the siren and floored it.

The airway came alive with volunteer firefighters calling enroute to the station to get the firetruck and once that was done, they were calling enroute to the scene. This is one of the bad things about small towns that can't afford manned fire stations, they have to drive to the station to get the truck.

As soon as the air cleared I called the dispatcher.

"Five O to Kountze"

"Go ahead Five O"

"Do you have a headcount on the number of patients?"

"Negative Five O, all I have is two vehicles involved, one patient trapped and that vehicle is on fire."

"Recieved, get Med Link (the helicopter) in the air and send me three more ambulances."

"10-4"

I didn't know how many other patients we had and it's better to have too much help than not enough, you can always stand them down. It's better than waiting on them.

We sped toward the scene. I turned to my two medics in the back. "What do you need?" they asked.

"Get out two sterile burns sheets but don't open them. Pile all of the sterile water that we have on the stretcher. Spike a bag of normal saline on a blood Y and put the O2 bag, drug box and the trauma bag on the stretcher too.

The radio came on, it was Kountze.

"Kountze S.O. to Beaver Creek EMS."

"EMS, go ahead."

"Callers say the fire is getting real close to the patient and the neighbors are trying to put it out with a water hose."

This was like wizzing on a forest fire and I knew it.

"Kountze S.O. to Five O"

"Go ahead Kountze"

"Med Link is unavailable." No helicopter.

"Recieved Kountze."

Were were still about seven miles out when I heard the Fire Chief scream over the radio. His voice was a lot higher than usual.

"It's fully involved! It's fully involved!"

I don't now if you have ever seen a vehicle "fully involved" in fire, but it is a very intense, hot fire. Nobody can survive more than a few seconds at best, and the (fire) engine had not even arrived at the scene yet.

The reality of it all set in. This was no longer class. This was no longer practice or drills, someone was actually burning alive. Our hearts sank to our feet but still, maybe we could save one of the others.

This wasn't supposed to be happening, we were just everyday Moms and Dads who went to school to help people, we never imagined ourselves caught up in something like this.

Nobody told us that it would be like this sometime, we were supposed to save people but we had no control over the reality that was happening. We sped on toward the scene.

Thats enough for one post and I don't want to go too long all at once. but this story means the world to me and you will see why. Shall I go on?

[tammie]

You do know how angry I am at you right now, right?!    
Okay, I'll be nice. 
Please finish the story.
Tammie

[tracey_shafer]

If you do not finish the story we will have to come find you

[Mikey]

Ready for part 2 

[Jerry]

ve haf vays ov making yu talk

[Kittyzee]

   It's over?  Where did the rest of the story go?  Bullfrog?  Kittyzee to Bullfrog, waiting for your next transmission sir.....

[jax]

Your story in regards to firefighting had me thinking back a long ways.  My father was a fireman, my husband a fireman for 44 years and my son is presently a fireman.  I was an EMT (emergency medical technician) for many years as well as a nurse.  Those days for me are gone by now but the excitement of them will always linger.  I watched my husband go in to burning buildings to rescue others many times.  I held my breath one night as he came out with a small bundle in his arms wrapped in a blanket and as he unraveled it onto the ground, a lovely little shaggy puppy tumbled out. My husband had been told that there was a child in the upstairs room and that was all he needed to hear.  He was in there risking his life to help another.  Fortunately, there was no child in there and the puppy was rescued.  I use to ask him why he took these chances when he had a family that loved him and didn't want anything to happen to him and he told me of the story where two small children had lost their life in a fire and he had not been there that night to attempt rescue and he said he just promised himself that if there was any way for him to gain access, he was going. He witnessed several firemen killed in a grass fire one spring afternoon when an electrical line had been blown down in the wind and had caught the grass on fire. The electrical current was still in that wire as the firemen walked through the brush to extinguish the flames and two of the men walked right into the wire and were killed immediately.  My husband was next in line.  He also saw another fireman killed when rubble from a burning garage caved in on him and he could not be rescued.  In my husband's career, those were the 3 that were lost in the line of duty.  Each time that siren sounded, I was scared and proud at the same time.  I often responded as an EMT to the scene "just in case" an ambulance was needed.  I knew the day would come when my son would follow in his father's footsteps and he did, as soon as he was 18.  And, he is just as good as his Dad was, and he will be the first into the fire, just like his Dad was.  He is fighting fire for both of them now.  His Dad died 4 years ago of a brain tumor.  It was the biggest funeral for a fireman that had not lost his life in the line of duty.  His casket was placed on top of the firetruck and taken down Main Street. All three fire whistles blew for the last time for my husband.  The church and then the streets were packed for this man.  I was proud and scared all over again.  I am proud of you and we have never met.  Anyone who gives of themselves in these ways is a hero and heroine in my book and I hope you know how greatful we, the people are, of individuals like yourself for doing what you do.  I know what it's like for you out there.  I lived it, watched it and was proud to be part of it and I hope you will always feel that way about your job.  Thank you for giving so much of yourself.   

[Bullfrog]

I loved your story Jax. We had a fire at the refinery Sunday night and my wife always worries too. She doesn't understand why I still do this and wants me to stop it but there is just no way. I only have five years left to go. 

Back to the long story now, it gets a little gruesome from here on out but I;ll try to use some tact.

It's all just a game in class or skills practice. We laugh a lot while we are learning to apply a traction splint to a broken femur or stop an arterial bleed. It gets a lot different when someone is really screaming or the blood is spurting. I looked at my partner but he wouldn't look at me, he just looked determined and manuvered the traffic.

Thirty seconds ticked by and still the engine was not on the scene. I realized what must be going through my new medics minds. Fear, apprehension and an assload of stress. I knew that they looked to me for guidance and leadership. I composed myself and turned to them.

Their eyes were huge and filled with the question that neither one of them wanted to ask. "Is he dead now?" Instead, the question came out of one of them as "What do we do now?" Her voice sounded very small, like a little girl.

I tried to calm down and told them, "Take all of that sterile water and the burn sheets off of the stretcher, make room for the next patient. Get ready to triage." Jogging their memory back to their training. They got busy.

As we rounded a curve in the highway, from three miles away, we saw a huge plume of black smoke rising into the sky. The pumper was still not on the scene. The atmosphere in the ambulance was grim, nobody spoke. We all waited for more radio traffic to tell us what was going on. We prayed silently, I know that I did, I imagine they did as well, for strength, that we would perform as we were supposed to. We didn't know what we would see.

Some people might not want to hear this at all. Some may have had a family member that suffered a similar fate, it gets really delicate talking about it when you don't know who is reading this or what they have been through.

What I find interesting or fascinating others might really find repulsive, offensive or just boring. I know that on this particular call, a young girl survived against all odds.

I wouldn't have bet a nickel that she would have survived the extrication at the time, it seemed like an eternity and everything that could have gone wrong went wrong.

Regardless of all of the bad things that you see, sometime one particular call defines your life. Not just the action, the trauma or the gore, but the totality of it all when it finally comes into perspective in the end.

The healing and the recovery. The parents who are total strangers that bond from a common tragedy. There is a lot more to EMS than bandages, light and sirens.

Everyday people, like you and me man those trucks, those ambulances and fire engines. In small towns, it is just everyday fathers and mothers, not "professional" firefighters or medics and they take their barbs from the "professional" ones. They are looked down on and joked about. They don't see these things every day, life and death playing out.

In a small town of 1,300, you often know your patient or their family, it gets personal. Seeing it firsthand, it also gets a lot more emotional as they are not calloused by hundreds of calls.

“Look” I told my partner. The smoke was rapidly changing. It was going from black to a dark gray and then a light gray, within seconds it was a gray brown and then almost white, all within 45 seconds. Someone was putting a large volume of cooling water (like 125 gallons per minute) on the fire.

The engine crew had arrived on the scene and in the excitement, forgot to call Kountze with their arrival time. All of these times are later transcribed onto a run report so the families of the patients can later sue us. “What took you so long to get there?”

We were now approaching the stopped traffic and weaved around it into the oncoming traffic lane. An engine from a satellite station was on the scene blocking our view. We pulled around the engine and saw the truck.

It was no longer on fire but it was still smoking. I can’t tell you what color it once was as all of the paint had burned off of it. All four tires were flat and melted from the fire. One firefighter was manning a hose. I knew him. He too was a volunteer, he had never seen or been through anything like this and he was really shook up, I saw it on his face. He was just an everyday guy, a husband and a dad, a volunteer. He too will never forget this.

I bailed out of the ambulance followed by my crew and approached the patient to look for any sign of life. The firefighter and I made eye contact and he just shook his head “no”, still I had to check, it was my duty.

Out of respect for the dead or anyone who has had a family member suffer a similar fate, I won’t elaborate on what I saw. Suffice it to say that he was, beyond any doubt, dead right there or DRT as we called it among ourselves. Still, I had to check for a carotid pulse. What my fingers felt was not compliant flesh.

At this point, the training kicks in. You move on to the next patient, you shake it off. The nightmares will come later. You won’t be able to sleep but autopilot takes over, thank God.

I ran to the next truck, it was askance on the road and the fire crew was trying the doors, they were hopelessly jammed, bent and folded like an accordion. I could see one female patient inside. The damage to the front of the truck was incredible; it was displaced a few feet into the passenger compartment. “Intrusion” as it is called.

I saw an adult male in a ditch being tended by several people. He was conscious so the next patient was clear, the girl in the truck. The fire team was deploying the Jaws of Life to open her door. A quick look under the truck revealed no fuel leaking so I jumped into the bed of the truck, followed by my small team.

I looked through the back window and saw a young girl. She was waving a bloody stump of an arm at her forehead, like she was trying to bat away a bothersome insect. There was nobody in the passenger side so I told the fire team, “Give me the jaws.” They handed them to me, as they were not yet connected to the hydraulic hoses that would supply them power.

I swung them back at knee level and them popped a hole in the back window. The safety glass shattered into a honeycomb of hundreds of circular pieces as it was designed to do. I withdrew the jaws revealing a grapefruit sized hole in the glass and passed the jaws back to the fire team at the door.

I stuck my arm into the hole up to the elbow and told the other medics in the truck bed, ”Watch your eyes.” I began swatting the broken glass outward into the bed until I had a large enough access hole to crawl into the cab. At times like this, you don’t really notice the cuts on your belly as you crawl in, you just go.

Her right hand was almost completely severed and was hanging by a thread of tissue and skin. She was swatting and wiping at what appeared to be an open skull fracture right above her right eyebrow. Somehow, I immediately knew that it was from an impact with the rear view mirror.

She was not what you would call conscious or unconscious, she was in between those states. One of my rookies crawled in beside me. The cab was seriously compromised; there was no room. The dash was crushing her legs between the seat and metal. Both femurs were obviously broken and badly trapped. I wondered what the lower legs looked like, were the feet wrapped around the brake and gas pedal? How long would it take to get her out? Blood was spurting from the radial artery, the one in your wrist. She was bleeding out and badly trapped by metal.

I told my assistant, “Squeeze and pinch down hard right here and stop the bleeding, stabilize that hand in the normal position, she’s bleeding out.”

Intubation was out of the question as there was no room so I asked the medics in the bed of the truck for oxygen on a mask and they passed it to me. They also passed in a cervical collar to stabilize her neck and applied it from behind.

The jaws team was really trying hard to find a crack in the doorframe to get a purchase and pry the door open. They found a small crack and began to spread the bent metal; hope was on the way. Maybe we could get her out before she died. I heard the metal of the door popping and tearing; a small opening started appearing in the frame. I could see the jaws operator’s face as he concentrated on his task, it was working.

I asked the team in the bed for a 16-gauge catheter and to stand by with the bag of fluid so I could start an IV .I told the medic inside with me to hold her arm out so that I could find a vein. She was struggling against us. She was losing blood fast and her blood pressure had to be dropping.

He held her arm out straight and I went digging for a vein. She was resisting. Making a stick really hard. Right then, the motor that supplied the Jaws of Life with power died.

An open skull fracture, a right hand that was all but torn off creating an arterial bleed, bilateral femur fractures that threatened her femoral arteries, lower extremities (her shins and lower legs) crushed into bent metal and no jaws.

It gets worse, but remember that she lives and so it gets much better.

I told you this was gonna be a long post.

[Kittyzee]

Okay, I was right there in that truck with you.....you can't leave us hanging like that...I could see everything and hear everything, please finish this story!

Thank you Jax, what a wonderful man your husband was!  I wish I could tell my Dad how proud of him I was--of him being my Dad and that he was a great firefighter.  I only get emotional at times like this, it seems when I'm "on the scene" , my mind goes somewhere else and I can only focus on the job at hand.  Adrenaline kicks in and I "go away" and don't focus on horrors that I can't change.  May God protect me and those that are there with me and keep us safe. 

[jax]

Come on bullfrog..I need the end of the story.  It's those happy endings that kept us going back out there.  It's that one in a thousand rounds of CPR that gets ONE individual back that you do it for.  It's for all those bad nights, no sleep, bad dreams and risk that are taken when you can stop and think back to a good one and hope against hope that is how the next one will turn out too.  I have some stories, good ones too, that I will tell you once you get to the end of your story.  I am patiently waiting....................and, tell your wife not to worry too much.  I learned a long time ago that God really does watch out for firemen, emt's and paramedics. 

[Desertponder]

Basics have a lot of respect for Intermediates and even more for Paramedics.

We do??    
Oh sure, yes, of course we do!! 

All our I's and P's do is fight.



Please do finish your story. You tell these so well.
Reading yours brought back everything from a very similar accident we worked on Sunday.


We had a busy night Saturday night and I didn't get much sleep at all. I was also on call Sunday covering for another guy.
I did go home about 7am Sunday morning and managed to get about 3 hours of sleep. The pager went off again and I had to fly back to the
station. I didn't make it back there in time to catch the bus but they had enough people so I went back home again. My husband needed
to come into town and go to the hardware/feed store so we came back into town about 1:00pm. While we were waiting in the checkout lane
the pager goes off again. The call comes across as a multiple car accident, rear-end collision, possibly 4 patients and a possible DOA. I blasted outside for the car as I told my husband he would have to walk to the fire station to get the car but he chose to throw his items down on the end of the counter and come with me.

I didn't make it to the station in time to catch the ambulance going out but there were two others coming and we would take the rescue engine.
After they arrived we left the station headed for the scene and our captain called on the radio and said that one vehicle was fully involved. Yikes!
So myself and one of the other guys finished gearing up on the way to the scene. Our Lt. that was driving told us both to be prepared for the possibility
that there may be a body in this vehicle and we needed to be careful and preserve as much as we could.

As we came up to the scene it looked liked total chaos and there was a large active plume of black smoke. I swallowed the panic I was feeling and felt
my mind "go away" as LuAnn mentioned and I focused solely on what I had to do. My partner and I jumped out of the engine, grabbed the line and headed for the truck that was fully involved. There was no body in the truck. There had been a man and woman in the truck and they had rear-ended a SUV in front of them that had stopped to avoid hitting a dog in the road. The people in the SUV they hit got out and dragged the man and woman from the truck. The ambulance crew that had gotten there first were attending to them. The woman was critical and our ambulance crew was working her.  Her husband was conscious and sitting at the edge of the road with several bystanders. The couple had been at church and she had started not feeling well so they had left for home. They were less than a mile from their house when the accident occurred. The man had not realized the SUV was stopped in the road. He had hit it at full speed.

Chaos reined. There was bystanders, there was two state patrolmen, there was a couple of sheriff's deputies, there was a couple of city police, there was even a park ranger from the nearby state park, there were three different news crews, and it was crazy.
We didn't have enough help. Our chief put out a second page and also a page for mutual aid from the neighboring city. We had a total of 9 patients, not 4 as originally stated by dispatch!!

My partner and I got the fire knocked down on the truck and our Lt. yelled at me to come over to him at the engine. I ran over and he said "strip your gear down now, they need a driver for the ambulance." So i stripped all my gear off and ran over to the ambulance and jumped in the seat and waited for the captain to tell me to go. They had the critical woman in the back. I never got that order to go as they called it, she was gone. Before I got out of the bus a woman walks up to the drivers side door of the ambulance so I pushed the button and rolled the window down. She handed me this tiny bottle and said "The womans husband wants someone to give her a blessing.This is Holy water." I just froze and kind of went blank. I managed to snap around and take the bottle from the woman. I called back to the Captain and handed him the bottle and told him what the woman had told me. Unfortunately in the chaos of the event I don't think she got the blessing. :'(

Now my Lt. wants me to get out of that ambulance and get into our second one that has arrived on scene. We are going to take the husband in to the hospital. We leave the scene and I hear the husband ask about his wife. My captain has to tell him that she died from her injuries. He cries and screams all the way to the hospital. :'(

So, we get to the hospital, put this guy in the trauma room and I take the gurney out and start doing the cleaning and putting things away in the back of the ambulance. Its a mess. Stuff strung everywhere. Black tar all over the floor from the melted truck tires. I walked back into the ambulance entrance to get the mop bucket and here is our newest member of our dept. standing in the hall crying her eyes out. She's a brand new member of the dept. and newly certified EMT-B. This was her first big incident and she was in the back helping with the man we brought in. I figured she was freaked. I asked what was wrong and she tried to compose herself enough to tell me. She finally managed to tell me that her sister had just called her and told her it was her dog that had wandered out on the highway and caused the whole accident. Her sister had seen the dog take off towards the road and she had jumped in the car to go after it and saw the whole thing happen. O.k., just how weird can this call get?? I was speechless. I did the best I could to comfort her and then went and found the captain and told him. He couldn't believe what he was hearing. He told me to keep her busy, put her to work doing something so I went back to her and got her to start helping me clean the ambulance. About that time our second ambulance came with three more patients so we helped get them unloaded and worked at cleaning up that ambulance as well.

Once all was done, patient reports written, etc. we headed back for the station. The engine came back in from the scene shortly after. Many people have no idea how much work there is to do after an incident like this. We had two ambulances to still do cleaning on and restock. We had to take lighter fluid to the floor of the one ambulance to get the tar off, then hose it down with water and Dawn dish soap. Hoses on the engines have to be washed and put in the dryer and dry hoses loaded on the truck. SCBA bottles have to be refilled. Trucks have to be washed. Reports have to be written. A newbie EMT has to be coached and consoled.
I finally was able to call my husband at 5:00pm to come and pick me up. I was beyond tired. I was filthy and I must have sweated off several pounds at least. I needed a shower real bad.

Two days later, some of the incident still replays in my head. I can still see the chaos and sense the energy of the scene. I still see a snapshot moment of the scene as we were pulling up in the engine. I still see the woman who died and I can still hear her husband crying. Most of all I feel so bad for our newbie EMT who feels responsible for the whole accident happening. This one will be with me for awhile.

[Bullfrog]

i'm so glad that a few others are following this story and can relate to it. There are good firefighters and medics as well as bad ones. There are some medics that I wouldn't allow to work on my pet, yet there are others who really care about human life after the call is "over".

They go back and check on the patient and the family. They take this to heart. It goes beyond the call sometime. You form a bond with the family and it really means something. How can I make a difference in my life that really matters? I don't want a bridge or a library named after me. I want someone to say, "He helped my Mom or Dad."

The best thing about this work is that years later, in a bar or a supermarket someone that you don't even recognize comes up to you and says, "You saved my Mom." What could be better than that? Screw a bridge or a library, does that really wiegh much? I've had way too many Rum and cokes to address this issue properly tonight, but I do want to say that there is a bond between us all.

All we have is our life and the time that we share with those that we love, that is all that really matters when the final curtain falls. Tomorrow I will pick up my story. I was so afraid of boring people or people seeing it as chest beating but it is not that.

It was the one time in my life that I know that my presense made a difference, long after the call was "over."

Where were we? The jaws motor died right when we needed them the most. She was trapped and bleeding out. No helicopter and now no jaws. What do we do now? It's the emotion that gets all wrapped up into the call that plays into the whole picture. Frustration, anger, compassion, fear and caring. she is in my care, I can't let her die on my watch.

I had just lost a daughter and this drove me even harder. I was taking this call really personal, which is good. I knew what it was like to loose a child. I was emotionally attached to this girl now and she was really in trouble, in my care. Dammit, she is not gonna die if i have anything to do with it. Not in my care, not on my watch, not in the back of my truck. We get attached. It got really intense and personal.

This was the one call that really made a difference in my life. I was really afraid of boring people with a long post. But some stories take many words to tell properly. Those who don't like it can just click their mouse and I won't bore you.

But please, those who care, let me finish my story. Tell me that you want to hear the end. It is an amazing (to me) a story of survival against all odds. A story of injury, love and compassion, healing and recovery. It goes beyond the call.

Some die and some live. I just feel priveledged to have been a part of it all. I heard Jax talk about her pride of her father and son and it moved me. It made me realize just how many of us are tied together through emergency services.

I would like to think that heaven holds a special place for those that died in the line of duty, trying to save another. Or those that dedicated their lives to helping others, regardless of their sins. God knows that I have a heavy tab to pay when it is all said and done.

Tomorrow if anyone wants to hear the end of this, I'll pick up the story. She is trapped in a wrecked truck. Her broken femurs, pelvis and lower legs are crushed beneath the dashboard and her right hand is allmost ripped off, spurting blood from her radial artery.

 Now, the jaws motor dies, what could be worse?

Remember, she lives. shall I go on?

[tracey_shafer]

OMG! You keep us hanging. Medic, I need O2!!

[Desertponder]

Of course we want to know the rest of the story! Stop worrying about boring us!! Would this thread be 51 replies long and have 410 hits if anyone was bored?!

No worries Tracey........we know CPR! LOL!

[Kittyzee]

Good GOD man, get ON with it!      

Wow, Shanna, what a run that was!  Isn't it really freaky how everything plays into an incident?  Like that girl being there at that point in time, her dog causing the accident....are we all just players on a big stage?  It gets creepy sometimes doesn't it? 

[Sandye]

Of course we want to hear the rest of the story! 

You guys and gals...all of you who spend your lives helping others are just AWESOME!!!       

[Bullfrog]

Shanna, what a story. You were typing that at the same time that I was replying and I didn't get to read it until this morning. That call will stay with you always. It is exhausting and people have no idea of the amount of work that goes on behind the scenes and after the call, you are right.

OK.. lemme pick this long story back up. I'll try to clean up the language as I got really mad at one point.

One firefighter ran back to the power unit to see what was wrong. The seconds ticked away. The abdominal aorta branches into the Iliac arteries in the pelvis and then into the femoral arteries. Huge blood vessels under a lot of pressure, one knick from a sharp broken bone edge and she would bleed out in seconds. We didn’t have time for this crap, she didn’t have time.
 
We took advantage of that moment to dress the open head injury and address the arm. Our second in unit arrived with another paramedic who I knew. It was "hook" as we called him. He was born with a deformed right hand and only had two fingers on theat hand so he called himself Captain Hook. He could sure start an IV really well with that hand though. He got into the bed of the truck and asked me.
 
“Ditch, what do you need?”
 
“I need that f***ing door open.”
 
“I know, they are working on it.”
 
“How’s my (IV) bag and (O2) bottle doing?
 
“Bag is ¾ gone and O2 is at half.”
 
“Send someone for two more bags and another bottle, please. Bring a backboard, spider straps and headblocks too.”
 
“Got’cha man.”
 
I heard the power unit for the jaws come alive again, Pppppppppp, like a lawn mower motor and the jaws operator went back to work. He was closing the tips of the jaws and digging them into the crack in the doorframe and them spreading them open again. Little by little, he got more of a purchase on the metal. Time went into slow motion, how long had we been here? How much longer could she last? Her breathing was becoming a lot more labored, we were in deep sh*t, she was in deep sh*t. The crack in the door became larger, I could now see that we were making some progress. One inch, close and get a deeper bite, spread. Two inches, close the jaws and get a deeper bite, dig in deep and then spread, just like in practice. I heard metal tearing and popping. Suddenly, pow! The Nader bolt separated from the latch mechanism and the door popped open free from the latch.
 
The jaws operator stepped out of the way and two firefighters put their back into it, pushing the door forward, exposing the hinges, we were getting there. He then stepped back in and rested the now closed jaws on top of the top door hinge. He got a bite and began to spread the metal. I saw the big rivets pulling outward, ripping the hinge away from the frame. Finally it broke free and the door sagged down toward the road.
 
He then closed the tips of the jaws. They move very slowly so you won’t injure the patient with any sudden moves. Are you beginning to get a grip on just how long this takes? Are you recognizing what is going through our minds? We want it now but it takes time. Time she doesn’t have, she is literally dying. Although it really only takes minutes, to those involved, it seems like hours.
 
He got a bite under the bottom hinge so it would push the door upward as it ripped it off and not tip the truck any as it dug in. The jaws got a bite, it was working, I saw the metal stretch and spread. The rivets were pulling out of the doorframe.
 
Out of the corner of my mind, I heard the power unit say Ppppp pp pp pp p. It died again. No jaws.
 
“What the f**k?” I screamed. This was totally unacceptable. The jaws and the power unit were brand new and very reliable. I was the training officer of that department and we had practiced this many times. There was no excuse for the jaws dying even once, let alone twice.

The same firefighter ran back to the power unit and within a minute, it was running again. When he came back I asked him what the problem was. He told me that someone ( a lookeyloo) had slid the choke lever forward. I was the training officer of that department and I had made it very clear time and time again that when you are manning the power unit, you never leave it unattended.
 
“Who is manning the power unit?” I asked.
 
“Jim” he said.
 
The jaws operator went back to his work. Within a few seconds, the door broke free and clattered to the street. The two firefighters grabbed it and threw it to the side of the road. Now to lift the dash and free her legs. He began the slow lifting of the dash being careful not to hurt her. Her breathing was getting faster.
 
“How’s my bag doing Hook?”
 
“It’s OK Ditch, I got it back here.”
 
The dash was slowly being bent upward freeing her legs. He closed them and moved them and got another bite. It was working; I could begin to see more of her mangled legs. We were making headway, maybe it would work after all and we would get a break.
 
Again… Pppppp.ppp..pp p. The power unit died and we were dead in the water. These were brand new jaws with a new power unit. Somebody was not doing their job. I was livid, outraged. I totally lost it.
 
I asked Hook, the paramedic in the back, “Would you watch her for a minute please?”
 
“Sure man.”
 
I crawled out of the back window and ran to the power unit. I wanted to hit somebody. I wanted to find Jim and kick his arse. I was totally out of my mind and really unprofessional at that moment, but I didn’t care. This was not going to happen again, she was dying and she was only 18.

I ran to the power unit. They had positioned it between the fire engine and the wreck. There was a group of bystanders near it looking at the wreck. Traffic was probably backed up a mile by now. Sure enough, the choke lever was again slid forward, choking it with too rich of a mixture.
 
As the Jaws bind up and begin spreading metal, thousands of pounds of force are exerted. The motor begins to cycle fast and then slow, this is what they are supposed to do. To the untrained person, it sounds like the motor is bogging down, so seeing a lever with a turtle on one side and a rabbit on the other, they slide it toward the rabbit.
 
This is why the power unit operator never leaves the unit. I put it in the right position and cranked the unit. I told the bystanders "Do not touch this lever!" They all agreed. I began looking for Jim. I found him behind the engine talking to some of the crowd who had gotten out of their cars. He never heard the power unit die because the exhaust noise of the pumper was between him and the unit.
 
 I stepped between him and the people and shouted very loudly.
 
"Who the *&%@ is manning the power unit right now?"
 
I saw the shocked look, he knew that he had screwed up.
 
"I am." he said.
 
"Then get your blanking blank over there and man the son of a blank! That motherblanker has died three blanking times because those motherblankers over there keep choking it! Do not let another motherblanker put his blanking fingers on it! Do you understand?"
 
"Yes." he said.
 
I ran back to the truck and slid back into the rear window. Her lower legs were still trapped but her femurs (thighs) were about to be free of the dashboard. This was a scary part because if in fact one or both of her femoral arteries were lacerated, taking the crushing pressure off of them would now allow them to bleed freely inside of her thighs and she wouldn't make it. We got another set of vital signs to compare and try to see if this was happening.
 

"I need a ram to go any further, I'm at my limit." said the jaws operator.
 
Sh*t!! They needed to stop and switch tools. The jaws couldn't fit under the crushed dash, they were too big. A ram is a slim tool with a "heel" on either end that just pushes up or forward.
 
She was no longer struggling and her breathing was getting worse. I kept thinking, "she's not gonna make it." This is about to turn from a rescue into a recovery. We still didn't have room to intubate her and force ventilations into her lungs if she stopped breathing. I turned and looked at Hook.
 
"Better get a BVM (bag valve mask) ready."
 
"It's already done, do you need it?"
 
"Not just yet, but we could at any time."
 
Seeing Hook in the back was a reassuring thing for me. He had been a medic a long time before I ever became certified. His presence gave me a lot of reassurance.

I'll give someone else a chance to talk now and pick this up later. I'm really enjoying reading the stories. Shanna is living it. Jax has also been there. LouAnn and Mikey. So many stories and memories. Keep them coming.