It’s so far. I come from this rural county asking for mutual aid, and as we get the call for a motorcycle accident, my first thought is, “it’s so far out”. My partner jumps in the passenger seat as I drive. Often the EMT will drive but this time I do, partly to give her a break and also because I know exactly where it is.
We aren’t far out of the small town we’re based out of today, when updated dispatch information makes my mouth tighten. “CPR in progress”. Sirens are wailing, LED lights are staccato, lighting up the signs facing us, even on this sunshine-y day. Traffic parts on the two lane road and we continue on. My partner and I discuss the roles and steps we’ll individually take upon arrival, in our choreographed dance thru the chaos. Our local air medical helicopter was initially on a pad standby but they’re now making their way to the same scene we are. I ask my partner if she’s comfortable with a King airway and she answers definitively, “yep!” I’ll work on IV access and medications, she’s got airway.
On and on we drive. The terrain I know from my usual work territory changes and becomes the terrain of my personal world. Usually the two are separate, since I work outside the communities in which I live, where I once was a teller & personal banker in a very small town. That town during those years became my other hometown. I know grandmas and grandpas, babies and toddlers who are now teens. Who now drive. There’s been some serious heartbreaks in my adopted hometown in the last few months. I think of all the faces I know, all those grins in the bank driveup who were at home and happy on motorcycles. I think of CPR in progress, of the survival rates of traumatic out of hospital arrests. And on and on we drive. It’s so far out.
I drive up the familiar hill and there it is. The activity I know so well. The fire trucks at the perimeters of the scene are older, the volunteers are faces I know very well. The deputy directing traffic wears the same uniform hanging at home in our closet, my husband’s friends and fellow deputies stand waving us through. The volunteer ambulance is one of the few I volunteered in, back when I began this EMS journey. I park, and we alight.
“Crystal, over here!” The familiar voices and gesticulating arms point out the obvious. A man is in the ditch. CPR is still in progress, the sun is beating down on the sweating EMTs working the code valiantly. They’ve been at it a while because, you know – so far out. Motorcycles are parked not far away, the riders and passengers standing helplessly by in their leather and bandanas. I know none of their faces. Reaching the patient, I take a deep breath and get down on my knees next to him and the EMTs. He’s a stranger. I exhale a breath I didn’t realize I was holding, and I get to work.
A short time later he’s long boarded, cervical spinal immobilization in place. We hadn’t gone to selective spinal immobilization yet, on the summer day of this call. He’s on my cot, there’s a King airway in place, ventilations are being delivered and he’s being slid into our truck, clicking into place. IV access obtained, rhythm check, epi given, compressions resumed and compressors rotated. We work the code, asystole our grim result at each rhythm check.
Landing zone secured, the flight team join us and I give them report. We go over each intervention, good breath sounds upon ventilation confirm the King placement remains appropriate. We’re at four rounds of epi now, asystole at all pulse checks. Phone call made to medical control and permission given to pronounce. Time of death is shortly after 1400 hours. All hands fall still. The flight nurse asks if there’s family, and I pass on that it was told to me there is a wife in the group of bikers outside.
We climb out of the ambulance and walk toward the group. She’s early to mid 50s, and watches us approach without alarm. Traffic is being rerouted due to the helicopter in the highway, so it’s unusually quiet on a state highway. Volunteers are still standing by, waiting to help in any way. The sun shines down on her hair as the flight nurse introduces both of us, asks if she’s the wife to the patient. She nods and then he says kindly and simply, “we did everything we could but his injuries were too great and he has died. I am very sorry for your loss.”
She looks at him, at me. Tears begin on the faces of the friends behind her, but she just looks at us. She says, “but we were just driving down the road a few minutes ago. We just stopped and got cheese curds and we are on our way to a weekend with our friends. We do this every year. His trailer tire caught the gravel. That’s all. We were just driving down the road.” Again the flight nurse explains that her husband didn’t have a pulse at any time since my ambulance arrived, that myself and my partner as well as he and his partner did everything that we could have done, everything that an emergency room would have done, and the injuries were simply too great. She nods, looks down, asks to see him.
We walk her to the truck and show her the hand rails for the big step up inside. He’s been cleaned up some but the tube is still in his mouth and the vials of epi are on the seat, IO needled drilled in just below his knee. He’s white, and very still. She gets it then, you can almost see it hit her physically. She drops down and sits on the bench seat, staring at him. Then she says the words that hit me right between the eyes. She says, “oh damn it, honey, how am I supposed to tell the kids?? How could you leave me?” And her sobs start.
We leave her with him and tell her we’re right outside. We begin the calls to the coroner, the flight team walks to the helicopter and climbs inside. It begins to spool up and I realize I’m zoned out, staring at that deputy directing traffic around us in his dark brown pants and light brown uniform shirt. That uniform I know so well. Her words echo in my mind. How will she tell the kids, how could he leave her. The deputy blurs and I fight the sudden urge to call my husband just to hear his voice.
They were just riding down the road a few minutes ago, his motorcycle right in front of hers. As calls accumulate and our witness to these stunning moments of grief and loss repeat, I think how very grateful we all need to be for every uneventful day. Every time we go for a drive and come home to park in the garage, walk in the house joking or chasing each other, juggling bags of groceries or tickling children.
Moments of fragile beauty, lives of precious safety. Completely out of our control, completely ordinary, but priceless.
We were so far out. They were just riding down the road. Cheese curds. Gravel. Who could’ve known?
