Crash in Front of the Ambulance to Get the Best Service
We were sitting at an intersection late in the shift, waiting for the light to change. I was finishing some paperwork and chatting with my partner.I glanced up at a car waiting to turn left from the cross street. It was a late-model Thunderbird. I looked at him just in time to see him turn.
Then he disappeared.
Apparently, he'd turned directly in front of a large SUV, which promptly pushed him right out of my field of vision. It all happened so fast, he was gone before I heard the crash.
My partner saw it, too. "That's going to leave a mark," he said in a very matter-of-fact voice.
I agreed.
We turned our emergency lights on and drove across the large intersection to the point where the two now-entangled vehicles had come to rest. The SUV was sitting on top of the T-bird. The SUV's grill was positioned right on top of the Thunderbird's front passenger seat.
We called for another ambulance to help. I went to the driver of the Thunderbird while my partner when to check on the occupants of the SUV and another car that hit it from behind.
When I opened his door, he didn't respond. His eyes were closed and he was snoring loudly, breathing very deep and fast. Blood was draining from his left ear, the ear on the opposite side of the SUV. He was belted, but no airbag had deployed.
If one has to have an accident, this was the right intersection to have it. Not only were my partner and I waiting for the light to change, so were two off-duty firefighters. While my partner checked on the other cars, those two first-responders had the necessary equipment out of my ambulance before I had a chance to ask.
Making sure we didn't make any injury to the victim's neck worse, we extricated the victim rapidly from the car. As we placed him on the ground to finish immobilizing his spine, he opened his eyes. He was obviously scared.
"What happened? Why am I here?"
I explained to him that he'd been in an accident and we were going to take him to the hospital. A few seconds later, he asked again. I told him again. That went on for the next two or three minutes until the second ambulance arrived. When we loaded him into the other ambulance, he was still asking the same questions.
The Point of the Story
Victims of significant injury need definitive care within one hour of injury. In emergency medical services, we call this the Golden Hour. This driver was unlucky he got in an accident, but at least he crashed in front of an ambulance and two firefighters.The victim was in the emergency room within ten minutes of the accident and stayed in the hospital overnight for evaluation. His repetitious questioning was a sign of closed head injury - damage inside the skull causing pressure on the brain. There are several different types of closed head injury. He was diagnosed with a concussion.
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