My Legs Hurt Like Hell!

I became an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) in 1984. This was born out of responding to accident after accident, where they always needed just one more EMT, for just one more patient, and had to WAIT for just one more ambulance to respond in.

I was never the most studious person in the world when it came to my school studies. But, when it came to passing the EMT class, I was all about it. I recall sitting on the porch of our rental shore house in Avalon New Jersey, flipping through the pages of a text book riddled with disgusting photos of injuries, from minor to serious in nature. And this time, I was doing more than just looking at the pictures, I was actually studying the text about how to treat those pictured injuries. I studied harder for this class than any I had taken before graduating high school. And as a result, passed it the first time.

Soon, I was riding ambulance calls and helping save the lives of the sick and the injured. Since I scored really high on the Trauma sections of the class, I usually leaned toward the injured more than the sick. Soon after I received my certification, I obtained a fisherman's tackle box and converted it into a first aid kit with enough gauze to save lives at a school bus accident. The box was never far away, and usually stored in my trunk. Whenever I showed up at a call before an ambulance, I would leap from the car and whip out the box to help the nearest patient. Very doctor-like I must say, I was only missing the white coat.

One of these incidents occurred just before sunrise, some time in the four o'clock hour. When my fire pager went off, I was sound asleep in my Brookhaven home with only a few hours left before I had to get up for work.

"Station 50, Ambulance 69, Rescue 54... Rt 352 in the area of the Penn Dot shed, an auto accident reported with entrapment."

Within seconds, I was pulling on pants and sneakers and running for the door. Even in my early morning daze, I recognized the address as being close enough for me to respond directly to, instead of having to go to the firehouse and respond with the Rescue truck. I drove through the empty streets and saw only the reflection of my flashing blue light on the surrounding trees and buildings. Listening to the fire radio as I drove, I could tell I was the closest to the scene and nobody else was responding yet. As I pulled out onto the highway, I drove right into a fog. I saw nothing but the blue flash in front of my hood. I suddenly understood exactly how the accident occurred, zero visibility made it awfully difficult to get to the scene.

I travelled about a mile or so down the road when I noticed flashing lights on the opposite side of the four lane highway. I recognized it as the early morning trash collection crew, so I leaned into the accelerator again, disregarding the flashing lights. Fortunately, just as I passed by the trash truck, something behind the truck caught my eye. I slammed my brakes on and spun the car around to pull up behind the truck. My headlights finally illuminated the scene. Before me I made out the back end of a small red MG convertible which had buried itself under the back end of the larger trash truck.

I jumped out of my car, and in one swift fairly smooth motion, I popped the trunk, threw my firecoat on and grabbed the box I was so used to having with me on medical calls. I'm not sure who the man was, but as I was walking from my car to the trash truck, a man hurried back passing me as he spoke...

"That guy is in bad shape!" as he never even slowed down trying to get away from the scene.

Standing on the side of the truck were two guys wearing reflective vests, obviously workers from the trash company. As I walked closer to assess the scene, I saw a red sports car under the back of the truck, with the entire hood buried up to the windshield. I leaned down to speak to the injured driver and noticed his legs were pinned under his dashboard, and his face was bloodied. I opened the box and pulled out the penlight so I could look and see how bad his legs were injured. As I was beginning my patient care, the driver became insistant with me.

"Don't worry about me, check the guy in the truck!" I stood and looked up toward the front of the large garbage truck where the driver would have been.

"Sir, I really don't think he even felt you, he'll be okay..."

"No! Check the guy in the truck, really!" the severly injured driver became almost angry with me trying to disregard his requests.

Just as I was about to explain the difference in weight between a small sports car and the diesel trash truck, I heard an approaching siren. I stood up and stepped back away from the car and looked in each direction into the darkness. The next sight I saw will stay with me until I die. As I was glancing around the scene waiting for the approaching ambulance to arrive, my eyes caught a glimpse of blonde hair waving in the breeze. However, the hair I saw was in the back of the trash truck where all of the garbage is dumped. In other words, he was the "guy in the truck."

I stepped up and leaned into the back of the truck and saw a man lying on top of the garbage pile, face up. He looked over at me and almost nonchalantly said,

"Can you get me outta here, my legs hurt like hell!"

I looked at this man and scanned his body quickly to see if he was also injured, and discovered an incredible sight. The man's body stopped just below his waist. I looked closer to see if his legs were beneath the garbage pile, but they weren't. It suddenly became apparent that this man's legs were both amputated by the sports car as he was dumping a trash can into the back of the truck, and this was where he landed after the collision. The legs which "hurt like hell," were no longer attached.

I stepped back and turned to see the first ambulance pulling up next to the trash truck. The doors were barely opened when I shouted to them...

"Bilateral leg amputation, still in the truck, I need backboard and heavy duty bandages!" I climbed up on top of the car and stepped into the back of the truck to see how we could move this guy from the dirty position he was in. I pictured how infected his legs would get if he sat in this garbage any longer. Two more EMT's joined me at the back of the truck and started packing the leg wounds, and began trying to manuever the backboard under him so we could lift him out.

"Advise the rescue we do have entrapment in the car too...ask for a medic and additional ambulances...we will need the help!" As we worked quickly on the amputation patient, I didn't want to abandon the driver trapped in the car. The next unit to arrive was going to be assigned to his care and removal. For now, I had to prioritize. And, afterall, the driver did insist I check the "guy in the truck!"

Within minutes the scene was quite chaotic. We removed the man from the truck, which created quite an odd vision. We placed him on the stretcher but we couldn't help but notice he only took up half of the stretcher. The next thing we had to do was locate the legs and see if they could be saved. As the Rescue crew worked on lifting the dashboard from the driver's legs, we had other personnel climbing all over the truck, under the truck, next to the truck, under the bushes... we had no luck locating the missing limbs. It wasn't until the rescue crew extricated the driver, and pulled back away from the wreck that we decided the legs were under the car. One was partially intact, the second was too damaged for it to be used. We placed the limbs in bags and assigned another ambulance to transport the limbs to the trauma center in case there was any chance of reattaching the limbs.

Unfortunately, the limbs were too damaged, and the legs were too infected. The surgeons had to take both legs at mid-thigh and this trash collector ended up in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. It turned out the driver of the sports car was driving home from a night shift, and dozed off behind the wheel. There were no skid marks found behind the truck. Apparently this car just drove right into the back of the truck without slowing down, and cut the garbage collector standing behind the truck in half. The driver of the car, as with most accident victims we care for, we never heard from or about again.

With all of the tools wrapped up and returned to the Rescue truck, and all patients transported to their respective hospitals, my work here was done. Within the hour, I was back in my warm bed, resetting my fire pager on the night stand...ready for the next run.