It's New Year's Day, and I'm with 3 friends a million miles from Fairview. We're a motley bunch, for sure. My best friend is an Intelligence Specialist for the Army, and he's riding shotgun. In the backseat, his ex-girlfriend (but now close friend) -- a Math Major -- and her best friend -- a 2nd year nursing student -- are excitedly talking about the wedding we're on our way to. The girls both know the bride and groom, but me and my buddy... well, not so much.
So we approach a 3 way intersection very similar to the one below. Assume that north is at the top of the picture.
 | ||
| © 2010 www.portlandmaps.com |
As the motorcycle enters the westbound lane, the rider gooses the throttle. It being New Years Day at 8 in the morning -- and a cold morning -- the predictable happens.
The rider gets tossed.
The women instantly freak out and tell me I've got to go help. Now, the rider is in full racing gear, including an armored jacket. He high-sided at 15 miles per hour. As soon as he hit the ground he popped up and ran for the shoulder so nobody ran him over. How can I possibly help?
So I pull the car out of the traffic lane and park in the (relative) safety of the buffer zone between the east and westbound lanes, just west of the intersection. I get out of the car as another rider stops his bike. We pick up the wrecked bike and wheel it to the shoulder of the westbound lanes and drop the kickstand. There's minor damage to the bike -- mostly broken plastic -- and the wrecked rider (WR) seems to be okay. He denies any injury, and he doesn't want to report the wreck. I'm totally fine with this, and asks if he can borrow my phone to call a buddy with a truck to come pick up the bike.
While the Good Samaritan rider and I continue to talk to the WR, a huge Suburban screeches to a stop near the wrecked bike.
As the Hallelujah Chorus pours from the heavens, God's gift to EMS exits the vehicle and strides confidently toward us.
Wait. Let's fix that...
The huge Suburban pumps exhaust in our face, and my worst nightmare jumps down from the truck.
"I'm first aid and CPR certified," he bellows, "and I'm assuming control of this scene!"
Really?!? Did this goober really just say that? Whatever.
"Thanks for stopping, sir" I reply, "but we've got this under control."
Ricky Rescue? More like Risky Rescue... but how about this: God's Gift (GG) pulls a cell phone from his hip holster (lame) and calls 911 to report the wreck. When SHP answers the 911 call, the first words out of GG's mouth are, "We're gonna need some help here!" I die a little inside, and once again try to get him to leave. After giving the location of the wreck, he hangs up.
He immediately grabs the wrecked rider's head. Oh, so now he's gonna hold C-Spine? Nope, he's gonna try to tug the still-strapped helmet off the rider!
WR yells, the Samaritan yells, I yell: "Hey!" GG is not to be deterred. I grab him and say, "Sir! I need you to step back! You're gonna kill somebody with a stunt that!" He slunk away in shame, never to be seen again. Or so I thought.
With GG out of the picture, the WR asks the Samaritan and I to help him remove his helmet. Since I witnessed the wreck and was familiar with lack of mechanism, it wasn't too hard to remove the helmet. For liability's sake, though, I went through the Ambulatory Post-Crash Spinal Clearance Protocol. Everything checked out, and we pulled the helmet off.
We stand around for a minute, and, with nothing better to do, we start talking bikes. WR says that his big, a brand new R-1, has just over 600 miles on it. He feels like a total chump, even though it could've happened to anyone. He's an experienced rider, and his ego is pretty bruised.
I look at the Samaritan rider, and realize he looks familiar. Being nearly 250 miles from Fairview, I take a wild shot in the dark.
"Hey, do you ride at Fairview Raceway?"
"Yeah..."
"Did you go down in turn three a few months ago?"
"Yeah! How did you know that? Are you a corner worker or something?"
"No, man, I was the one that took you back to your pit in the ambulance!"
Recognition fills his eyes and we laugh about the coincidental circumstances. I didn't even transport the guy to the hospital, and was only with him for a few minutes, but happened to both come across him AND recognize him, 250 miles and 3 months later. Crazy
We're now a few minutes into this ordeal, and the adrenaline starts to drain from WR's system. He says that his left arm is starting to hurt, and he asks for help pulling his jacket off. I ask him if there's a position of comfort (POC), and if so to try and maintain it while we pull the coat off. He lets his arm dangles much lower than the right when he finds his POC. Wait a tic...
The Samaritan helps WR pull his right arm out of the jacket, and the movement jars a big fat drop of blood out of the left sleeve.
"Hey, buddy," I casually ask, "where're you bleedin' from?"
"I'm bleeding?"
"Yep, some blood just dripped out of your sleeve."
"Well my arm is really starting to hurt."
I tell WR that we'll slowly and carefully work the jacket off, but he tells the Samaritan to quickly pull it off. As the jacket comes off, I see where the blood is coming from. Apparently WR hit the bad luck lottery. He apparently landed just wrong, resulting in a compound humerus fracture AND a compound radius/ulna fracture. Bad times.
We sit WR down on the small embankment on the northern edge of the roadway, and I explain the need for immediate medical and surgical intervention. He tells me his arm really throbbing now, and I explain that, while pain management is at the discretion of the responding medic, he is a suitable candidate for some morphine or Fentanyl.
GG, to everyone's distinct misfortune, hasn't gone away yet. He sees us sit WR down, and comes back over to be nosy. He sees the fractures, and his eyes go wide. He grabs the cell phone again and calls 911 again. The very first thing he says is "We've got a compound fracture here, tell the ambulance to step it up!" Unreal. No location information or anything, just pure wigging out. What a yahoo.
The dispatcher, God bless her, patiently talked some sense into him and calmed him down.
GG hung up and told WR that the ambulance was about 8 minutes out. He then tried to move WR's hand (WR was holding the left arm in a POC with the right hand) to look at the injury.
That's it. I'm done. No more Mr. Nice Guy.
"Sir!" To my surprise I was interrupted by the Samaritan.
"Hey, asshole, this guy's a paramedic, so why don't you just go away?" Not diplomatic, but sometimes diplomacy's overrated. I wouldn't have put it in those words, exactly, but the Samaritan made sure that GG got the message.
With GG gone again, there wasn't much to do except shoot the breeze until the cavalry showed up. Despite that compound fractures, there was very minimal blood loss. WR was uncomfortable, but he maintained his arm in a POC and didn't complain much.
Two SHP units arrived on scene about 45 seconds ahead of the ambulance, and sure enough, GG couldn't wait to give a statement. His first words to the trooper?
"I saw everything, and I think he's drunk!" Wrong on both counts. He saw nothing, and WR was stone cold sober. But whatever, stupid is as stupid does.
The other trooper approached me and asked for my statement. I kept it short and sweet: Solo vehicle/rider, cold tires, goosed throttle, high side, no booze. My statement was done by the time the rig pulled up on scene.
I approached the medic at the ambulance and gave him the quick rundown: Low speed, isolated fractures, no loss of consciousness, fully alert, significant pain. He thanks me, and I go back to the car. Despite everything, I'm sure the poor guy ended up on a backboard. Hopefully they took him to a trauma center or receiving hospital with some good orthopedic surgeons.
As I drove away, GG was still blabbering to the cops. Big surprise.
My friends acted like I saved the world for a few minutes, but it was a really easy call to run. I guess it was a good thing I listened to the women and stopped -- GG probably would've killed the patient, or at least driven him crazy, if left to his own devices.
Oh, and we made it to the wedding with about 10 minutes to spare.
No comments:
Post a Comment