Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Three Minutes Too Late

As I came into the Morongo Valley at the start of my shift I was greeted by the sight of Medic Engine 461 on the scene of a good (which is bad) wreck. A woman driving what was once a small Honda pulled out in front of a full size van doing over 60 mph. Sorry for the lack of photos but I think your imagination is doing justice to the scene. The biggest bummer for me was that I was not on the call.

I continued on to the station where I grabbed my turnouts and jumped in the Brush Engine. 'Click' It had a dead battery! About this time I heard the Mercy Air chopper coming in to land on the highway. Figuring that the guys had the patient all packaged and waiting for the chopper I decided to go ahead and get the morning routine going (raise the flag, brew some coffee, lay out the paper). About this time Curtis showed up (in the water tender since the Brush Engine was dead) and asked if we had the spare cutter there at station 1 because the cutter on scene had broken. I told him that it was at station 2. He told me to grab my gear and that they could use me on scene. By the time we got back on scene Engine 3560 was there helping out. Using hand tools they managed to get enough of the vehicle out from around the patient to get her out. We quickly got her onto the backboard and into the chopper. Later that day we found out that she had broken her pelvis in three places and had broken her arm and collarbone. She should make a full recovery.

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