My Favorite Ride (Miracles do Happen)
Yesterday, my good friend and his wife started our yearly ride of the North Cascade Hwy Loop. I met Clark and his wife for the first time 6 years ago at the Diablo Lake view point. We have been great buds ever since.
We left Clarks house around 9:00 am to start the ride. We made our "usual" stopping places before reaching my favorite part of the 600 mile ride. It's call Diablo Canyon. Great twisties you can take without breaking. Except for one spot. A 25mph corning at the bridge over the lake. It doesn't mean you can go 26mph. As we were making our approach to the bridge from the opposite end and could see the bridge, I fixated on the object I saw on the other end of the bridge. It was a pop-up tent trailer. I soon realised is was a down bike. we stopped short of the wreck behind a car that was in front of us.
I'm a trauma nurse, so my instincts kicked in. I stopped the bike, got off and approach the scene. That's when I noticed a second bike, a later model Road King up against the guardrail. A car in front of the scene saw the accident in their mirrors. The rider of what I then realized was a Gold Wing was sitting leaning up against the guard rail. I was walking toward him when the man driving the car in front of the accident yelled, "I found him, he is down the embankment". This was the rider of the Harley. I climbed over the guard rail to look down where he was pointing. At the bottom of a steep 20 foot embankment with large rocks covered with moss was a man with most of his body on the edge of the lake shore with his right boot in the water. About this same time a lady behind me came up and said I'm a cardiac nurse. With no thinking involved I grab her hand and we jumped off the 20 foot embankment to get to the Harley rider. "Who says white men can't jump.....and ladies too. She didn't hesitate when I grabbed her hand. It was like she had the same thought. WE JUMPED! We landed on our feet without any after stutter steps. That's one miracle right there. I still had my jacket and gloves on. I don't remember doing it, but before we jumped I took my modular helmet off and dropped it to the ground.
Upon reaching the victim he was flat on his back with labored snoring respirations and blood coming out of his mouth. He was unconscious. Within seconds a 3rd person is down the embankment. He says "I'm a Paramedic." God's timing is impeccable. 3 total strangers arrive at an accident within seconds of each other. All 3 first responders have medical experience....Cardiac Nurse, Off duty Paramedic, a Trauma Nurse. God has our lives under control. There's no other way to explain it.
The 3 of us begin to administer aid. The paramedic is holding the victims head and neck, the cardiac nurse is palpating to check pulse, I have the paramedic's knife and start cutting his leather jacket and shirt off to be able to assess the injuries and was doing the "knuckle rub" on his chest while saying to the victim, "stay with me buddy, stay with me". Each time I did this he would try to open his eyes But then the pupils would rolled back and I would start the knuckle rub again. By this time the forest service ranger, and county sheriff arrives. The have more advance life support equipment with them. The people up top formed a bucket brigade line down to the victim and us and start to lower the equipment we needed. I yelled to have the sheriff to invoke Medi-Vac as the victim needed to be air-lifted out. The 3 of us instinctively together took different jobs to stabilize the victim. The paramedic applied a c-collar to stabilize the neck. The cardiac nurse using the blood cuff to palpate a blood pressure as I applied oxygen with a non rebreather mask. We we able to stabilize the victim to a point that we could with what equipment we had.
We heard from the others at the top of the embankment that land paramedics were 30 minutes out and medi-vac air lift was 50 minutes out coming from Seattle. When the 3 of us hear the times, we all 3 said at the same time, he doesn't have 30 minutes. From the assessment, I knew he was bleeding out in the chest. You could see the blood pooling under the chest. We could not get a blood pressure which means he doesn't have enough blood volume to supply the vital organs. However, we do not have a IV equipment to replenish the blood volume loss. We have to wait until the paramedics get to the scene. I started what is called secondary assessment now that we had the patient stable to a point the best we could. I saw a circular blood spot ring with an inner ring of different color on his jeans over his right knee. That is a sign of a compound fracture. The inner ring of the stain come from bone marrow. I begin to cut his jeans away and could then see he had a compound fracture at his knee. I could see the bone.
We monitored his breathing and pulse while we waited. The conversation turn to how we plan to move the patient as it is a very steep embankment with large rocks covered with moss. I asked the ranger if they had a boat that once we have the patient in the rescue basket we could transport the patient across the lake to the boat dock. The ranger said they did have a boat but will need to go get it. We loaded the patient into the rescue basket and decided not to wait for the boat and manually lifted the patient back up the embankment.
At the same time we got the patient to street level the paramedics arrived and we loaded the patient on the stretcher while he is still in the basket. Once I let go of the basket when he was put on the stretcher, I collapsed to my knees. I was totally exhausted. Between the adrenaline rush and working on the patient with my legs bent underneath me, I could no longer stand. My friend Clark later told me we were down there for 57 minutes.
Within ten minutes of getting the patient in the ambulance, Medi-Vac flew over ahead and made a beach landing on a very small spot. It was incredible to see the skills of the pilot make that landing. ......more to come
Nothing happens in God's world by mistake!
That's all I got!
God Bless each ya!
