Things can change in an instant

// October 8th, 2009 // Live, personal

We live in a world of uncertainty and change. A world of chaos and unpredictability. It was a beautiful, cool, crisp Saturday Morning the I and 11 other will never forget.

Last Saturday as i was driving to pick up a friend, I came up on a terrible 3 care accident right after it happened. From the witness descriptions apparently a car ran a red light and ran in to another car making a turn which caused one car to spin and the impacting car hit another car after.

Having been a EMT, I instantly jumped out of the car to see what i could do. I ran to the closest cars passenger side door. Inside was a man, badly injured with the dashboard of the car on his lap. I tried to open the door but it was either locked and jammed. I yelled “Can you unlock the door”. Another bystander was climbing in to the back seat. I yelled again, “I’m an EMT, I can help, can you unlock the door”. He said ” So am I, I got this go see about the baby”. It was then I could hear the screams of a woman over by another car. She was screaming “Help me!! Help my baby!” That is an image that I will never get out of my head, the absolute panicked helpless look on her face. I ran over as fast as I could but by the time I got there 5 other people has swarmed to her. He was screaming and clutching an approximately 2 year old child covers in blood, not crying, arms dangling. I decide I was not going to be much of a help there so I looked in to the smashed up car to see an older Indian woman in the passenger seat. I climbed through and unlocked the door and ran around to her, opening the door. She was breathing and in obvious pain. I asked her where she hurt. She said something, not in English, so I yelled if someone could translate. A man, the driver of the car amazingly unhurt, came over. I told him to ask her where she hurt. She said her chest, stomach and legs, the Right one worse. I reached over to pull the keys out cause the front of the car was smoking, but I could not get them out. Another guy was trying to tell me to pull her out but I said, “not unless the car is on fire. If you see flames tell me and we pull her out. At that point I climbed in to back and held her c spine as straight as i could. In EMT school we are taught to assess the airway, breathing and circulation and if that is ok then assume neck injury. The car she was in (see photo) was absolutely destroyed by the almost full on front impact. I wasn’t sure where the engine of the car was.

The White Car, It was hit almost full head on and spun. (click to enlarge)

White Car which was hit almost head on and spun.

I so I held c-spine untill the Nashville Fire Department showed up. I held it there for almost an hour since the baby was critical and the first of the Fire Personal to show up were attending and extracting the 2 guys in the other car. Once they got to me, I assisted getting the neck collar on and them moved out of the way. In the process i noticed the back seat, where the baby was, was covered in blood. I am not sure exactly what happened to it.

When they pulled the lady I was helping out, her hip was deformed and her foot had a bone sticking out of it. I hung around to see how the other people were doing. The third car (red one) has 2 younger girls, a baby, a toddler and a kid about 12 or so. They had injuries but nothing Life threatening. After all was done 10 of the 11 people involved had been transported, The driver of the white care was not hurt. I heard on the news that night that one of the guys and the baby was in critical condition. I will probably never know how they will be, or how the lady I helped will be. I am just glad i was able to help.

Life is short and in an instant things can change. On this day the lives of 11 people changed. The lesson to take for this is, never take life for granted because you never know what will happen or who will be taken. Just make sure you tell everyone you care they you care about them everyday.