Monday, February 28, 2005

car crashes

So the past 3 calls I have run have been car crashes. I really like being able to go to a car crash and really check it out. It's like having permission to rubber neck, except that I am not in a car and I get to actually look at all the fun details outside.

The first accident call of the three was pretty interesting. An 18-yr-old female tried to do a U-turn on a busy road causing a "broadsiding" accident. The 18-yr-old guy in the other car got out all pissed off and started yelling, cussing, and threatening the poor little girl who was half his size. That was not cool, and it could've gotten him into a lot of trouble with the police. They actually talked to him in front of us in the ambulance. He might have been riding with them, instead of us. He wasn't hurt too bad, but his lip had been busted because the rear-view mirror fell off and hit him. His car was totalled. Hers was nearly totalled.

The second call was scary and neat to check out when we went to the scene. Some 40s-yr-old lady had just nailed a telephone pole and chopped that sucker in half. Here's the kicker: the top half of the pole was stuck in the front of her truck and the power lines were just hanging precariously out over the road. Needless to say, we approached the scene very carefully. She walked away from the accident and would not allow us to even touch her, but that was okay because the officer on the scene was ready to haul her off to the big house where the sun shines through bars. She had been obviously drinking and the police officer was about to get off work.

We might have had a real problem had the pole fallen out while we were on scene. First of all, we were a little too close to the fall path of the power lines. Secondly, there were some onlookers in the next yard leaning on their metal chain-link fence clearly in the path of those falling lines. One of my partners yelled over for them to get away from the fence, and the man looked at him like he was a retard. "No, you are the retard... he's trying to save your life" is what he and I wanted to say. This crash became a huge neighborhood reunion as everyone couldn't help but come out of their houses at 9:30pm to check it out.

The last accident had the "worst" injury. It happened at about 1am at an intersection where a solid green light is in a left-turn lane (yield people!). My suspicion is that the daughter in the car turned and didn't see the oncoming car, and that other car t-boned the side that the mom was on. She seemed to have some sortof back injury, so we had to back-board and neck-brace her.

I have been kindof hoping for some cool calls, but checking out the damage has been very interesting. I am also still waiting for my first code (dead person) so that I can learn a lot and experience being around someone who has just died. No, I'm not morbid, I just need the experience. It is bound to happen sooner or later.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

i saw a dead guy at the scene of a car crash on the way home from georgia this year, not exactly awesome. my brother was an EMT, firefighter, and now he's a PA at a hospital so i get to hear all kinds of fun stories. i have a few of my own from my work in medical research like the rectal prolapse i saw last week. nothing like seeing an inside out anus. holla at me so we can hang out 919 356-4409