Last night we got called to an MVA around 2230. When I arrived there were two cars strewn across an intersection with one slammed into the bushes on the side of the road. As I got out of my jeep and walked toward the cars I saw some people standing together on the side of the road in the rain. I ran up and asked them the usual questions;

"Is anyone hurt?"

"Who was in that car?--->"

"Who was in that car?<---"

"Is this everybody that was in the cars?"

a chorus of voices met me with a dozen different answers to each question as I shone my flashlight over each one and into their faces looking for blood or deformation, guarding or supporting of any body part or altered consciousness. The last face I shone my flashlight into looked back at me and my heart skipped a beat. It was an old friend of mine, Phil, a fellow who had been a member of our firehall for ten years. The first words out of his mouth were "Bryant, I'm okay, go have a look at my kid, he's still in the car".

in a case like that it's hard to remain professional. My first urge is to focus on my friend and his kid and exclude the other accident victims. I checked his kid out and was relieved that he was just bruised and sore where the seat belt caught him. Personally these are my favourite injuries. they're living proof of seat belt effectiveness. Anyway. I was able to tell him that his kid was okay but needed to be checked at the hospital as the ambulance was coming anyway. Things calmed down rapidly as my crews arrived. Traffic was controlled, all cars had their batteries disconnected to reduce danger of fire, forms were filled out. Then things got harder.

A pickup truck drove slowly through the scen with a familiar face behind the wheel and cut around the corner. I had recognized the wide-eyed face of Phil's wife staring at the wreckage of his car .

I took off around the corner after her truck in time to see it pull violently to the side of the road and the door fly open. She hit the ground at a staggering run, her face slack with terror. She had seen the firetrucks, the cop cars and the ambulances. She had lived with a Firefighter for ten years and knew what it could mean. She saw the smashed car that had held her husband and son. Her mind was grappling with the realization that everything in her life could have changed forever.

I wasted no time, I approached her and said "They're fine Linda, just some bruises" She looked at me without comprehension for a few seconds "Phil and Danny are fine, Danny is a bit bruised so he's going in the ambulance to be checked out" Linda looked at me for another few seconds as her face collapsed and she grabbed my shoulders heaving great howling sobs. Then she started punching me. I've had it happen before and I don't really know why people do it. There was this little lady cursing and swearing like a trooper and laying into me with everything she had. It was only three or four punches then a lot more crying. I held her tight and took her to see her son.

As much as I regret that Phil and his family went through that trauma, I'm also glad that we all were able to be there. It reminds us that the people we serve are very real people, they may be people that we know and care about, or they may be strangers. A call like this one serves to remind us all that they are always people that someone knows and loves and that we owe them all no less than we give our own.

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