It is almost becoming routine; Melissa and I driving down the road and being one of the first on the scene of an accident. With several of such experiences under our belt we were again thrown into that situation last night.
Travelling east along Fruitville, a gentleman decided to make a left turn onto Beneva. The only trouble was – he did not have enough room and was clocked by another gentleman travelling west. Melissa and I were a couple lanes over and a couple car lengths back – so she got to see the whole thing happen. I of course was paying more attention to the road in front of me, though the whole situation was hard to miss. The screeching tires, shattering glass, and all.
Grabbing our beach blanket and kicking ourselves for taking the first aid kit out of the car, we crossed the road to find the twisted cars hemmed into the poor cars waiting at the stop light (heading south). Can’t imaging what that would have been like … seeing two cars come spinning towards you — and NO-WHERE for you to go. Anyway, in typical Melissa fashion she was quickly able to take control of the scene and assess the damage to each individual. With only one individual showing signs of distress, Melissa focused her attention on her.
When the paramedics arrived (only about 5 minutes thanks to 911 and the fire station being 2 blocks away) Melissa passed off the patients name, age, condition and currently known medical conditions. The paramedic then left Melissa in control, only as a secondary thought asking if she was ok to stay at station. Returning with further equipment and staff, he then had Melissa help with the ‘roll’ onto the backboard. After he was verifying that she was a nurse only to be shocked when he found out she was a regular jane. He mentioned that she did a better situation assessment and patient handoff than several of his partners. Which of course was a huge confidence boost.
In the end thanks to both vehicles having airbags, everyone only had bumps and bruises. Only the one lady was taken away, and that was more of a pre-caution. Turns out though that the cops decided to take down my license as ID due to us being witnesses; which now means I am going to have to get to the DMV soon and get my Florida license and Melissa is going to have to get some form of ID down here as well.
Hopefully that is the last of the accident scenes for quite some time, though it re-iterates the need for me to get in and do a First-Aid course.
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Well there will probably be an EMT basic course here at METI someday. This being the state of Florida you probably will be seeing another accident soon enough. Though usually you’ll see the afteraffects and not the accident itself.