A former firefighter recalls their traumatic first call as a high school student, holding a severely injured driver’s head still, highlighting the quiet resilience required of first responders.
People like to ask first responders, “What is the worst thing you’ve ever seen?”
It’s a strange question, but I understand the curiosity. When someone finds out you were or still are a firefighter, medic, cop, or a veteran, they want to hear the stories.
I don’t know what the worst thing I’ve ever seen as there are too many to compare, but I do remember the first.
Back in high school, I was an Explorer Firefighter, an introductory role to emergency response. One of the perks of the assignment was that I could leave school for a fire call. As a teenager, that was pretty awesome.
One quiet school morning a call came in for a nearby motor vehicle accident. A driver, a young woman, had crashed into a traffic light. Apparently she had dropped something on the floor while she was driving and leaned down to pick it up.
In that short period, she veered off the road and struck a traffic light. The powerful collision forced the steering wheel to partially dislodge, and pushed off into her and ripped off a good portion of her face. The airbags failed to deploy.
I was among the first to arrive on the scene. As I wrestled with what I should do and how I should do it, it dawned on me that I didn’t have much training. Between that and the decades between then and now, I don’t recall all the particulars other than what I’ve seen and what I immediately chose to do – Hold C-spine.
For any non medics reading, “Hold C-spine” means keeping a person’s head and neck still and properly aligned to prevent movement that could worsen a possible spinal injury.
So I kept my hands on her head while other members of the emergency response team, who arrived mere seconds after me, removed her from the vehicle. As they began to pull the near lifeless body out of the mangled wreck, my face came within inches from hers.
There was blood everywhere.
As they continued to move her, she made wet, gurgling sounds as she tried to breathe. I could clearly see the damage, I could smell the unmistakable odor of blood, and I could feel the fear and misery she was going through.
There was no looking or walking away. My job required me to stay right there and keep her head still. At the time, I had never seen anything like it but I had a job to do – hold her head!
And that’s exactly what I did.
One minute I was a high school kid sitting in class. The next I was helping an innocent woman navigate her way through her worst nightmare.
Then it was all over and back to school I went.
To this day, I admire first responders for their ability to do exactly that. They show up to scenes many people only experience during the worst moments of their lives. These heroes take care of business, pack up their equipment, get back in the truck and drive away, sometimes straight to the next call.
For the person they just helped, that moment will likely change their life forever.
For the first responder, the radio goes off again, and they answer it.
If you’re a first responder or veteran, what is a call or experience that has stayed with you? Why does it stick out to you?