One More Thing Before You Get Home

I had just spen the day driving an ambulance throughout the City of Philadelphia. I was a paid EMT for an ambulance company which provided routine and emergency transports, and somehow, I was lucky enough to be assigned Philadelphia as my territory. After a long day of city traffic, and city hospitals, I was looking forward to getting home and relaxing. As luck would have it, the relaxing would be delayed a bit. I was half way home when my fire pager went off...

"Station 50, Ambulance 69, Rescue 54, Bortondale Road and Knowlton Road, Middletown Township, an auto accident with entrapment..."

My mind raced trying to figure out how I could get from where I was to the firehouse as fast as possible. I realized I was actually a lot closer to the accident scene than the firehouse, so, off I went. The blue light was pulled out from under the passenger seat and tossed on to the roof and soon I was racing through back streets cutting a path toward the scene.

The "response" was always an interesting part of each call. The only thing we had to go on at this point, was the location of the call, and basically what type of call it was. Minds always wondered what we would be faced with when we arrived, sometimes we were correct, sometimes we could have never predicted. One thing was for sure, with all of the training we put ourselves through on a weekly basis, we would certainly be able to handle whatever it was we were faced with.

In this case, my trip to the accident scene only took a few minutes and I would be first to arrive on scene. I pulled past the acccident and parked on the side of the road. As I walked back to the vehicle involved, I surveyed the scene. I looked around quickly for anything that could be a hazard, like low hanging or downed electrical wires, fuel spills, then turned my attention toward any injuries.

The vehicle involved was a small pick up truck, and it had come to rest over the top edge of a steep embankment. Inside was a girl in her late teens who had lost control trying to learn how to drive stick shift. Somehow she turned right while travelling down a hill and ran off the road, with the left front corner of the truck coming to rest against a small tree. I talked to her through the driver's window and began to assess her injuries. She was complaining of pain in her right leg and arm, and bleeding from her mouth. I could only get a few words out of her before she became groggy and slightly confused. I knew she could be going into shock, but the driver side of the truck was too damaged for me to open the door to help her.

I climbed through the brush and trees to the other side of the vehicle and opened the passenger door. Climbing inside I could then see the deformity on her right leg. I was sure it was fractured at this point.

"Hey Connie, it's me Pat again, look at me..." I yelled to the injured driver trying to keep her awake. I positioned myself inside the truck so I could begin treatment as soon as the ambulance arrived.

I tried talking to her about how the accident happened just to keep her responsive. I looked out the rear window and the position of the truck hanging over the embankment, kept me from seeing the roadway. Soon I could hear voices around us, sirens getting closer and finally a fire officer walked down through the brush to the side window where I could talk to him.

"Chief I have a leg injury here, and let the Rescue know we will need to take the door and probably the roof to get her out." the Chief looked at me, the driver then scurried back up the embankment to dispense with the orders.

Soon the Rescue arrived and I saw guys from my crew dragging tools and hydraulic hoses down the embankment, setting up for removing the damaged door. Another EMT from the ambulance was handing scissors and gauze through the window to me so i could syart treatment while the rescue crew worked on the vehicle.

"Connie, it's going to be noisy for a few minutes, we need to force your door open so we can get you out ok?" I tried to explain to the injured girls step by step to keep her calm. "I am going to stay here with you the whole time..."

I began cutting her jeans from the bottom of the leg straight up the seam. I needed to expose the broken leg so I could decide how to begin treating it. I could see the fractured bone pushing out of the skin just below the knee. I placed my hands on either side of the fracture to try to keep it still as the rescue crew began tearing the driver's door off. I experienced broken bones before and knew how much pain she would be in every time her leg was jostled.

"Hey i'll need another EMT in here as soon as that door comes off!" I yelled out to the Rescue crew. With one last cut, and a mild bounce, the driver's door dropped to the ground. A breeze of fresh air blew into the truck and chilled the sweat gathering on my forehead.

The rescue crew were assessing the roof removal when all of a sudden the truck jerked forward. The injured driver screamed and I grabbed her leg to keep it steady as the truck rolled down the embankment until finally striking another larger tree. When the truck finally came to a halt, I was lying across the front seat almost upside down so I could get to the injured leg. I could hear the brush rustling as the firefighters ran down the hill to our new resting spot.

"Pat you okay!" a voice yelled in from behind me.

"We're still okay in here, but ya think we could tie this truck off so we don't do that again?" I responded from the floor of the truck to the anonymous voice. I did everything I could do to keep my voice calm so the driver didn't get any more upset than she already was.

Soon the vehicle was tied off to fire apparatus on the street, and the crew continued their extrication. By the time we had a backboard in position to get her out, I had the leg splinted and bandaged. We gathered four firefighters to grab each corner of the backboard and carry her up the hill to the ambulance.

As they walked up the hill, I sat in the passenger seat of the truck, still pointed downhill. I took a few breaths, wiped the sweat from my face and followed the patient up the hill.

"Connie, these guys are taking you to the hospital for me ok, you'll be fine. They'll take care of ya." I yelled into the back of the ambulance.

I walked over to the guys still packing up the rescue tools. I wanted to help them cleaning up but since I had no protective gear with me, I wasn't permitted to touch the hydraulic tools.

"Hey, nice job in there," a familiar voice said from behind me. I turned to see the Fire Chief of Station 50 smiling at me.

It was not often a patient got a chance to thank us for either treating them or extricating them from a wreck. But it did feel good when one of our peers recognized the work we did.