I am the last of my five siblings to have children of my own. At the tender age of 29 (and much to the relief of my mom), I became a father for the first time. I watched Megans delivery and was completely captivated. When those dark brown eyes looked at me for the first time I was completely done.
Megan is the amazing gift that I waited a long time for.
I have pulled out a purple short sleeve shirt, white shorts, and socks and they are on her bed. I can hear her in the other room laughing and take a deep breath. It is a little past 10 and we are supposed to be at mom's house at around noon.
Here is my Public Service Announcement and I think it is because I was older when I had my kids. You should not yell at or train your kids or the dog you own. Kids (and dogs) follow your example, listen to your tone, and intuitively understand that you are trying to teach them the things that will separate them from everything and everyone. You should reserve training for your siblings and your favorite bartenders at your local brewery.
"Megan, honey let's get dressed we are going to Grandma's for lunch" I smile and hold my hand out. She is standing up and the brows over those amazing dark brown eyes are starting to furrow.
Damnit
She sees the clothes laid out on the bed and lays face down on the floor next to her bed. I have pulled out my entire bags of tricks and 45 minutes later she has on one sock and is looking at me with complete disdain. It is time for a break.
"Honey, I am going to get a cup of coffee and then we can finish getting dressed" I smile and hug her and walk to the kitchen sit and have a cup of coffee and figure out how I can get her dressed. I need to call and tell mom we are running late. One of my pet peeves is being late for anything. I am the guy who is sitting at the airport gate, 2 hours before my flight.
I am enjoying my cup of coffee, and I am dialing up mom to tell her, we are going to be at least an hour late. I am thinking what I can say about being late other than I cannot get my daughter dressed when Megan walks out of the bedroom and she is beaming.
She is fully dressed. She has on a white sock, a blue sock, a pullover dress (tie died), black pajama pants, and pink snow boots. She has a huge smile on her face and looks so completely happy, I cannot help but smile back and reach out and hug her. I can't help but think that this has been an amazing learning moment for me. I feel like the guy who was trying to get into a building by chopping through the bricks while standing right next to the open door.
The worry about being late is completely gone, if we were going to be late this is the perfect reason to be late.
I am sitting at the kitchen table the next morning at Station 3 enjoying the nice quiet morning when I see the familiar green light come on and hear the dispatchers voice come over the speakers.
Engine 3, Paramedic 4 respond to 107 and Yellowstone for a car vs tree
It is the wrong time of day and the wrong time of year to have this kind of call. There is not a cloud in the sky this morning and it is just after 7AM in the morning. That is not a stretch of road where the overnight shift or early morning migrant workers use heavily.
Engine 3 in route status 3
I am glad Christopher is on the Engine this morning. A former Army Ranger he is exceptionally cool and steady when we are faced with touch extrications. The address is a short 8 minutes away. I am already going through the list in my head of what resources we are going to need and what tools we will need to do an extrication, if one is needed.
As we pull up to the address dispatch has sent us to, there is a group of 4 people standing in the road waving the engine down.
Engine 3 arrival this will be Yellowstone command, we are investigating.
"Christopher and Chris grab the portable generator, cutters, and the spreaders. Tom make sure we light that tree up as best as we can. I will grab jump kit and collars" the generators are running, and Tom is getting all of the lights pointed to the free where the car is.
As we light up the tree you can see the car. I am struck by how the car is wrapped around the big cottonwood tree. The car looks to be literally wrapped around the tree. The front and rear bumper are a couple of feet apart from each other.
There is a single occupant of the vehicle that is still in the car. His arm and head are partially out of the driver side door. As I walk closer to assess him, it is very apparent due to the extent of the injuries that this will be a recovery effort and not an extrication. There will never be a way to describe injuries that are this extensive. These types of injuries offend every single sense.
I reach in the door and with my light on my helmet look into the driver's side of the car. The driver has died from his injuries, and it is almost impossible to find a place on him where I can look for a pulse or any signs of breathing.
"Grab a tarp from the engine so we can cover him". This is done out of an abundance of respect for our patient, for the time we have him, he is our brother and our son. I can't help but notice his hands, he has the big meaty hands of a teenage boy.
"Paramedic 4 respond routine, possible code black" Paramedic 4 will get on a tactical channel with me and will tell them what we have on scene. These are hard radio transmissions; I have to convey that there is not going to be an opportunity to perform lifesaving efforts for this patient. I know how many people will be listening to this radio transmissions and I want to be very careful and respectful.
Chris and Christopher are covering the driver of the vehicle. I never stop appreciating the care and respect firefighters give the people they are working to recover. The respect in attending to the more difficult details of a recovery is genuine and shared by all of us. For the time they are with us, they are our sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, and our parents. In my experience, firefighters always provide this kind of universal care. For the time you are with us, you are our brother, sister, or beloved parent. There is an ardent belief that the care we have removing him from the tree / car will help in some measure his loved ones deal with the difficult days ahead.
Tools are being brought out and laid out in preparation for the work ahead. Our Battalion Chief has arrived and I walking him around the tree, and I am telling how we are going to remove the patient from the tree and car when he is released to us by the coroner. The Chief confirms the coroner has been dispatched out of Erie and ETA is about 30 minutes.
Chris offers to stay with the car while the rest of us walk back to engine to wait for the coroner to clear the scene and release the drive to us to remove from the car and tree.
Approximately an hour later, the coroner has released the drive to us to remove. The coroner has completed the documentation of the scene. She is quick and methodical and gives us the OK to remove the young man from the tree and car. We move back to the tools, light up the tree and talk through how we are going to get this done.
We are just starting to work when an older model pickup screeches to a halt out on the road behind the Engine. An older man looks at the crew gathered around the tree and after a brief hesitation starts to walk to where we are. I only watch long enough to see that he is stopped by a State Patrolman before he is anywhere close to where we will be working. Our crew is focused on the recovery and does not need to know what the guy in the truck was about.
The Battalion Chief is telling us to get started. He is also doing a quick assessment of all of us to make sure we are OK with what needs to be done. He is not asking but he knows all of us, the calls we have been on and what is going on with each of us. Firefighters reach thresholds at different times and places and for a wide variety of reasons. I am grateful that command officers look for these thresholds for all of us. Firefighters are the worst at being able to take a step back and let someone else carry the load for them, even when it makes sense to do that.
The cutters and spreaders are fired up and I am talking to the crew about what we need to do.
The State Patrolman that stopped the guy in the truck is walking over to where we are working. I don't want to know the back story today; I want to start the process of removing him from the car/tree. He motioned me over and the crew is already starting the extrication. I tell him I need to get back to the recovery crew and he says it will take a quick minute to give me the background information.
Fuck, despite my best efforts, he is going to tell me the back story.
The kid in the car is in high school and working his first job at a grocery store in town. He was scheduled to work that morning and his boss called him to ask if he was coming in. An hour late for work, the kid throws on his clothes, told his dad he was late for work and took off. The Patrolman is estimates he was traveling at a very high rate of speed when he rounded the corner and saw the raccoon in the middle of the road. Skid marks show that when he swerved, he lost control of the car and hit the tree.
One hour later the boss called back, asked to speak to the kid. Dad answered and said that he left over an hour ago and should have arrived by now, it is a 20-minute drive. Worried, Dad got into his truck to retrace his son's drive to work. That was dad in the older model truck that pulled up and stopped.
I am glad I did not talk to him. We are discussing how to get him out as intact as we possibly can. Everyone quietly goes about getting the job done and except for technical talk about extricating him, very little is said. For the next 30 minutes he is our son and brother, and we treat him accordingly.
I am thinking of him as we are picking up our gear.
The ride back to the station is quiet. The abrupt end of a life is always sobering. The abrupt end of such a young life, leaves everyone with a momentary ache for all that was left undone.
I hate to be late for things and I am forever pressing everyone to leave the house on time. Invariably, we will leave 30 - 60 minutes past the recommended departure time should have been and I will give them hell for that. I will be sitting in the Jeep looking at my watch when they casually walk out of the house carrying shoes, socks, and coats. How many times have I told them all to hurry? How many times have I told them how important being on time is?
I think about how Megan was dressed that morning that I finally figured out what she was trying to teach me. She had on a white sock, a blue sock, a pullover dress (tie died), black pajama pants, and pink snow boots. She has a huge smile on her face and looked so completely happy. Being late, is perfectly ok.
I have made it a habit to keep the details of calls like this away from Megan and Jake. But I will try to tell this story with generic details when the opportunity presents itself. I know that without details this story will never translate well, but I tell it hoping that some of it sticks.
For every hard and fast rule, the is always a great big *
Always be on time*
When you are late, be late*
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