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Death of a Sapling

While responding to my first motor vehicle accident with the Vaughan Fire Department I was overcome by many strange sights and sounds.

It was the August long weekend, a Saturday if I recall. We had just supped on Domino's pizza and post feed grogginess had overcome most of the crew. We were dispatched to an address just down the street for a vehicle rollover, person trapped.

Our regular driver was off on a trade so the task of getting us there fell on the square shoulders of "Jane" (name changed to protect the innocent) and we arrived within minutes.

As we approached the scene I recall two things quite vividly; what a nice neighbourhood, and the smell of barbeques in the late summer air. It was a very picturesque street.

I heard "Jane" exclaim as we rounded a corner, "Oh yeah, here we go!" I turned to see a car on its roof at rest at the foot of a young maple tree that had been damaged as a result of the obvious impact. My Captain and I exited the pumper and were yelled at by several bystanders that someone was trapped. We jogged quickly and efficiently, as all firefighters do, to approach the vehicle in a timely manner.

We were presently joined by "Jane". This was when I spotted an arm at an obtuse angle protruding from the drivers side rear door window.

I crouched and peered, as all firefighters do, and saw the top of a head. Unable to get a good look at the rest of the victim I proceeded around to the other side where I again crouched and peered.

From this vantage point I was able to see the rest of the body. A teenaged male had been ejected from, and come to rest under, a blue Honda Accord. I could clearly see the cranium pinned under the vehicle, crushed: diferential diagnosis, bad case of Carskull. The large, quickly darkening pool of rich arterial blood from the ears, nose, and mouth, told me that this person was code 5 (dead by obvious signs).

I reported to the Captain the patient was V.S.A. and that removal or rescue was unlikely. He relayed this information to Big Brother (dispatch). The driver and I, now on our knees next to the passenger side window, made a final assessement of the victim; ascultation of the chest for any heart or breath sounds (more for my own sanity than was medically necessary).

Our crew by this point had cribbed the car and was beginning to drape the vehicle with salvage covers.

Over the next five hours we did crowd control, waited for the coroner, and did the body removal.

Then I cut down the tree with a chainsaw and went home.

The End.

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3 Firefighters

 

Choose an Emergency

FIRES These are stories about recent fires;

MOTOR VEHICLE ACCIDENTS These are stories about car and truck accidents;

RESCUES These are stories about rescues we have made;

HAZARDOUS MATERIALS These are stories about emergencies involving Hazardous Materials;

  • No Calls

MEDICAL We go to a lot of medical calls, but it is not fair to the people involved for me to describe their medical problems here. I can tell you about one incident and how it effected me;

OTHER Sometimes interesting things happen around the Firehall;