I guess I won't be a paramedic after all.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

So I got a call at nearly one o’clock this morning from this guy I haven’t seen in ages (brother’s friend) asking me for a ride home. He called me because he had a whole bunch of people with him and my brother mentioned I have a minivan. Anyway, being the nice person (read: pushover :rolleyes: ) that I am, I agreed.

Fast forward about an hour and a half and I’m cruising down the freeway, on my way home again. By myself. (Thank god, because they had four restless, tired, crabby kids with them and, while that’s understandable during the wee hours of the morning, it’s not something I want to listen to forever. Anyway.)

I see something flash on the left and, thinking it’s another damn deer, I slow down a bit. Upon closer inspection, it’s an older Chevy truck. In the ditch. It appeared to have rolled over (the top was totally smashed in), but it was resting on its tires.

Me: Crap.

So I park my van on the left shoulder and turn on the hazard lights. I step out and walk to the edge of the ditch, calling out to see if anyone is even there. After hearing no definite response, I cautiously (hey, I’m a nervous person) walk in. While I’m moving, I dig my cell phone out and start dialing.

Man, that’s about as far as I go. Needless to say, it’s not something I could see everyday. To satisfy your inevitable curiousity, the person I saw wasn’t dead (I didn’t see anyone else, but I could hear at least one more). I’ve been home now for going on two hours, and I don’t think I’ll ever sleep again. I think I might be freezing to death, too. WTH?

Anyway, kudos to the first responders, firemen, paramedics, etc. Not only the ones who responded tonight, but all of them. I can’t imagine how they do the things they do without freaking out at the end of every shift. I’m still shaky and just typing this post is making me feel like puking. Or crying. Or both.

2

Y’know, there are all kinds of people in all kinds of professions that, while we may not have the stomach for those things ourselves, we can all be grateful that someone can do it. But I’m also grateful that there are good folks like you around, to place the call and such. I’m guessing there are a fair number of people who would have driven right on by that wreckage, thinking to themselves “I must not get involved; I’ll mind my own business, and everyone else can mind theirs”. I believe that one of the things that differentiates people who do what’s right from people who don’t do what’s right is the ability to accurately decide when it’s right to mind your own business.

Good job.

3

Silverfire, ya done good, kid.

How are you feeling now? Probably pretty tired and wiped out, if you’re anything like me. It’s OK - all that adreneline your body pumped through you can really trash your system. Take care of yourself today. Go for a nice walk in the park. Treat yourself to your preferred chocolate. Take a nap. Hug a baby.

Remember that bad things happen occasionally, but good things happen all the time.

And two people could very well have died without you and your actions.

Try to put aside the historical context and think of the wisdom in the words: “From each according to his ability…” You did what you could, and all that you could. (And, as **norinew ** points out, much more than many people *would * have.) People who are first-responders are very particular (and sometimes peculiar!) people. There’s absolutely no reason we should all strive to be like them. What an insufferable, butinsky world that would be! :slight_smile: Everything in its proper porportion.

4

Congrats, Silverfire !

You’re living proof that you don’t have to be a paramedic to save lives. You’re hero.

5

Good on you for stopping. In those kinds of situations there’s always something, in my mind at least, that says, “This is an old wreck, the tow will be by any day now, keep moving.” But then the thinker kicks in and says, “No…nobody knows about this one yet” and I stop. This has happened to me 3 times in the last year.

Road accident injuries totally mess me up too–suffering that I can’t do anything about. Fortunately I don’t realize it’s freaking me out until the event’s over and my clothes are in the laundry and I’m in the shower.

6

Good on you, Silvy! You’re a strong person, and I’ve always admired you, even more so now that you’ve saved those two peoples’ lives.

7

Just want to echo what everyone else has said, you did good Silver Fire, I hope you get some sleep.

8

mrAru was crosstrained as an EMT by the Navy…every time we drive across the country we manage to be the first on scene at an accident each way=\ He ends up being the first responder-by-default so we never bother taking the crash kit out of the car.

Good job on calling it in…you would be surprised how few people will bother :smack:

9

Back in 1969, I lived in NC. While driving on a two lane road from Durham to the Outer Banks, we passed what might have been a recent crash, where an auto ran off the road on the right, and was in a shallow ditch, filled with water. The water only came up to the bottom of the car doors. But, I had no way of knowing just when the crash occurred.

I didn’t stop.

To this day, I think about that. I wouldn’t do it again, but I did it then.

Perhaps you’re more fortunate than I–you will get over your vision of what you saw quicker than I will get over what I didn’t do. I never will.

10

Awful physically. I’m suppose I’m pretty numb right now. I slept until 5:37 this evening. I have one Ambien left from the beginning of this month, so I’m hoping that’ll help me tonight so I can get my whole sleeping thing back on track. So we’ll see.

I have one of those. He’s out with his dad right now though. I haven’t seen him yet because I slept all day. Whoops.

Five. I called that county’s PD when I got up; there was another car there that I never even saw. They couldn’t give me any more information but they told me where I could find them. I haven’t called the hospitals yet though. I don’t know if they’d even talk to me. And I’m not so sure I want to know anyway.

Heh. That’s what I was hoping for anyway. When I didn’t hear any response after calling out, I wanted to leave. But I thought, what the hell? I’m already here.

I’m not really sure what to do. I tend to be fairly overdramatic anyway, but I just tell myself that it didn’t have anything to do with me, that I’m okay, and that this feeling isn’t going to last forever. Thanks for listening.

11

How are you doing, dear? Any updates?

12

Silver Fire, first of all, good for you for stopping to make sure everything is o.k. Also, in my opinion, the way you need to think about this is that you did everything that you should have done by calling in the accident. You got this person the help that they needed, and you should be proud of that fact.

St. Urho
Paramedic

13

Here’s my me too post. St. Urho is right, you did everything you could do. The important thing is to get the people with the right equipment and training there as soon as possible.

I don’t know but its really not that hard. I guess you get used to it. There are a couple of accidents that I will remember forever but I don’t dwell on them. The only thing that gives me willies are limbs that are pointing in the wrong direction or that suddenly have extra joints. But again its not something I think about afterward that much.

But really to me the thing that gets me the most is sick kids. My sister was working as a nurse in a ward of children, mostly toddlers, that were dying or severly sick. I took her dinner there one Thanksgiving and it broke my heart to see all those kids. Thankfully they had someone as loving as my sister to take care of them.

The important thing is you found yourself way out of your comfort zone and still managed to do the right thing.

14

Wow. Good for you, Silver Fire. If I were the people in the accident, I would certainly appreciate the opportunity to thank you.

15

I was going to do this earlier, but forgot… Calls like the one you’re giving me a mental picture of can be the most rewarding in a lot of ways. As a paramedic, there’s a lot of things I can do to help this person out.

Also, as long as things go well, a bad outcome doesn’t faze me as much. If we correctly assessed the patient, shocked, decompressed, intubated, medicated, whatever, then we did everything we could, too. It’s the one’s where you miss something, can’t get a tube, can’t get a line that are tougher to deal with.

16

:shrugs: Better. I know I did everything I could do and, like I said before, I know it doesn’t have anything to do with me personally. But seeing the things that I saw was just a lot. My parents rolled their Ranger on the same freeway in the winter of '95, plus I had a friend die in a car accident (head on), so I think memories of those two things kind of added to the trauma. Like, now I know what they looked like before I saw them, y’know?

I know the passenger of the truck died. I’m not real sure about anyone else.