19 July, 2005

The half-liquid man

Mumster from Nutrisystem posted a delightfully disgusting tale of an encounter with dead chickens, reminding me of the time I had to babysit a man nearly as liquid as those chickens. Its not nearly as entertaining a tale of course, because it came about due to a tragedy, albiet a tragedy of the gent's own making.

One hot August afternoon around 1pm or so, my pager went off, alterting me to respond to the ambulance for an accident. At the time, I had been an EMT for about 3 years, so was fairly immune to most sights, but litle did I know that this call was going to be more memorable than most. I grabbed my two way radio, called the State Police to let them know I was responding, and headed the two minutes or so down the raod to pull out the rig and await the arrival of my partner for that day. We were a volunteer service, so there was always a wait while people came in from wherever they had been. After about five minutes, my partner showed up and we were off, lights and sirens easing the traffic along the way.

We arrived to the scene of a fairly nasty motorcycle vs auto crash within ten minutes of the tones going out. It seems that three motorcycists were out for an afternoon ride, and liquid man, the unfortunate hero of the tale, had a reckless streak, and had been going 100 miles an hour on the wrong side of the road, on a blind curve no less. His two buddies had been on the correct side of the road and had avoided the worst of the impact. At any rate, as they rounded this one blind curve, liquid man hit the front of a car full of a tourist family, in Vermont to see their child at college--he bounced over the hood, hit the windshield, and continued to fly over the car, hitting his buddy and knocking him off of his bike before bouncing off the pavement like a stone skipped on water. The other two riders had split formation and divided around the car so as not to hit it. The rider who was knocked off his bike had his knee opened to the bone by the impact, but was otherwise fairly ok--he was shipped off to the emergency room in another ambulance. The third rider was physically uninjured, but I'm sure he'll bear the emotional scars to this day. The family in the car was shaken up, and had a few minor injuries, but were essentially alright, although in shock because the entire thing happened so quickly that it was only just starting to sink in.

Liquid man was in the centre of the road, with streaks of blood showing the path he had taken. I'm sure he was probably dead on impact from the time he hit the car, and was blessedly unaware of the rest of his journey. His helmet was on, and one of his boots had been torn off in the crash, to be located some 75 feet away in a tree. Once we had confirmed that he was dead, we could not move the body, but had to wait until the medical examiner arrived and officially pronounced him dead. Now it was August, and a particularly hot day as well, so we were quite hot while waiting. Our rig had been returned to the base in the event of another call, so we had no shelter from the sun. Our main job was to ensure that liquid man was undisturbed--not too terribly challenging a job, as he was very well behaved and stayed still, just as we instructed him to. (Yes, we really did tell him to stay still--morbid humour to help us cope with the situation.) An hour went by, then another...we joked that they must be training the ME before he could respond. Either that, or they were still building the hearse...

Nearly three hours into our vigil, we were treated to the most heavenly sight possible--the owner of a B&B a mile down the road had come bringing us a gallon of icy cold water. Few things have ever tasted as good as that water did in the hot sun.

Meanwhile, liquid man was congealing within his riding suit at this point, and we had to shoo flies away repeatedly. When the ME finally arrived, it was a bit over five hours since the call had been placed for him--he never told us what had taken so long, but after the waiting he took about two minutes to look at the scene, check for vital signs, and declare our man dead. When we loaded him into the body bag, he had barely an unbroken bone in his body--it was like jello in a baggie--not a sensation I care to associate with a person anytime ever again. While he had worn a helmet, the impact was so severe that it quite literally served as a brain bucket. The only good side of the entire thing is that he didn't suffer--I doubt he had much time to even register that a crash was about to occur. Helmets and sturdy riding suits are a great thing, but if you drive with utter disregard for speed limits and traffic rules, they'll do little to protect you, especially at the speeds he was going. His buddies had told us that he routinely drove this way, so I'm not sure if he was suicidal or merely thought himself immortal. Either way, it was a speedy way out for him, but one that brought much trauma to those who survived and were left behind. The surprising thing about his driving was that he was not a teen, but a theoretically mature and experienced driver in his 30s. At any rate, I doubt I'll soon forget him--and I hope to not encounter another semi-liquid man again in my career. Once was more than enough.

1 comment:

Sophia said...

Well - you did it. And you're right - it's not an experience I'd want to ever live through - though I'd probably have a few 'questions' for the ME when he finally showed up...strange...it usually only takes like 5 minutes on TV for them to show! LOL

Morbid/Gallows humour - took me back to working a second night job - transcription at the police department for the sex crimes unit - sometimes that IS the only way one can deal with their job and remain human isn't it?

But what an excellent reminder about safe riding! And that poor family! Yowsers...I'd hate to be in their shoes.

Make the rest of your career have only solid people. :)