Deckmo

My first loss, I did not even know they were gone, had basic first aid training and was JR on the fire district. Responded to a man with chest pains, talked to him for some time as the funeral based ambulance came from about 25 miles away. I placed the old E & J on him and waited for the ambulance, it was 1968 and I was about 16. That and the others did not bother me. As a paragod in the 70's the codes of any age did not bother me. However, in 1994 I was working a rural ambulance station in our system. We responded to a head-on MVA on a rural road at about 0630. The were 3 trapped and a total of 8 patients. Four were class I (critical trauma) and other were class II (not as bad). No one but for a state trooper was responding with us. After arriveal we called for fire, ground, and air ambulance support. I was working with a good EMT partner and she was working the unresponsive mother (bagging her in sitting position) that was trapped with her two daughters. I started working the girls. One of the girls was 8 years old and talking to me until we got her out (about 45 minutes later). To make it short I got all three intubated, boarded, IVs, before the first back up unit or air ambulance arrived (three air units responded). As we returned to the station to clean up and restock our unit (we never transport a patient) my supervisor got a phone call. She came over to me to tell me the all three coded in the air (only one patient per air unit) before arrival at the hospital (mom, the two girls 8 and 10). Thats when, for the first time in all those year that I lost it. That was the first time that it hurt. Now I look at it all very differently. I have many more today that are like my first.

Responded one day code 3 to a person that was a visitor in a Level II trauma center on the 8th floor bathroom. Was a poss. hip. packaged and wheeled her down to the ER.