NEVER HOPELESS

The sound of the screaming boy has never left my mind.

The overcast day was just like any other.  Nothing spectacular had happened all shift and we were winding down with paperwork and more coffee which we really didn’t.  People had locked their keys in their cars, a shoplifter, a couple minor civil disputes and a lost dog were all we had to show for our day and our minds were wondering onto other things hoping the next shift would get in and on the road fast so we could get home.

Its so strange, but what I’m about to tell you is actually true.  There are times when you know there is something bad coming before it happens.  I bet you even know what I mean.  I remember the title of a Stephen King book, “Something Wicked This Way Comes”, and that’s the feeling you get when you know there’s a bad call coming.  Even though my shift was ending, I knew that call was about to break.

“Base to all units, be advised we have multiple reports of a traffic accident with injuries on route 524 just east of  route Saylorsville Pike.  Fire Department is responding for possible entrapment.  Possible ejection as well.  One victim is on the ground near the vehicle.”

“Enroute”

Lights flashing, siren wailing, tires sliding and speeds approaching the wreckless zone, I quickly forgot how close to the end of my shift it was and was excited to feel the adrenaline pumping through my body.  It was so exciting to drive like that knowing that something bad was waiting for you when you got there.  It was a rush.

Pulling up on scene, it was chaos.  An ice cream truck sat on the shoulder of the road with no obvious damage while another vehicle sat across the west bound lane with its left front end completely destroyed.  The driver was still in that car, stunned behind the now deflated air bag, unable to collect himself enough to move.  My attention was then drawn to an older model, light green station wagon that was off the road way and resting in someones yard.  I could see that there was heavy damage to the drivers side of the front end and I could hear screams coming from the car.  I ran to the car and found a scene you could never forget.  Laying on the ground outside the car was a little girl no more than 8 years old.  She had beautiful medium blond hair that was streaked with fresh blood.  She was shaking and I knelt down beside her and held her uplifted hand that she was reaching out with, to anyone.  Tears filled my eyes as I knelt on the ground talking to this bloodied little girl.  She was conscious and semi alert.  She told me her name was Stephanie and she had a cat named Snowball.  She asked me how her mom was and I promised her that I would go check as soon as I could.  She asked why her brother was screaming.  I didn’t know.

A paramedic or EMT arrived and dropped his bags next to Stephanie and she jerked at the nearness of the noise.  This idiot had startled her and I let him know to take care with her and if he scared her again he would have me to deal with.  I promised her I would come and see her again, let go of her hand and went to see what was going on inside the car.  EMT personnel had the car surrounded along with fire personnel and they were gearing up for a full extraction.  Someone had called for the Lifeflight helicopter to be called in and a hasty landing zone was set up in a field across the street.

I managed to get a look inside the car and what I saw was horrifying.  In the front passenger seat there was a mentally challenged early teenage boy pinned sideways between the front seat and the dashboard.  How people get twisted around in car wrecks always amazed me.  He had somehow been turned so that he was still in a sitting position but sideways, facing the drivers side and was now pinned as the dash and front end had been pushed back just enough to wedge him in tightly.  If that’s not bad enough, there, laying across the front seat was his mother with her head laying on his lap and she was obviously taking her last breaths.  That was the reason for the screams.  He had every right to scream.  My heart went out for that little boy.  Here he was, trapped in a car with his dying mother on his lap.

Firemen swarmed the car and in almost no time the car was cut apart and the crying  boy was loaded onto a stretcher and taken to a waiting ambulance which took him to a local trauma center for treatment.  The mother was taken out and life saving measures were performed on her as she was removed and as she was loaded onto a stretcher.  I recall an EMT up on top of the stretcher, straddling Stephanie’s mom, doing chest compressions as she was wheeled across the road to the waiting helicopter that was kicking up dust and debris.  She was loaded into the helicopter and it lifted off.  She died on the way to the hospital.

I needed to get back to Stephanie.  I had made a promise to come back to her and I meant to keep it.  It had taken some time to assess her since she had been ejected from the car upon impact.  She was stabilized and the EMT who was so rude initially had now become almost attached to her and was tenderly explaining each thing he was doing.  I walked with the stretcher, looking down at her as we went towards the waiting ambulance.

“How is my mom and my brother?” she asked.

It’s very easy to sit back now and analyze what the best way to answer that question is.  But at the time I only wanted to make things feel better for her, to give her hope to heal and get better.  I didn’t want to be the one to tell her that her mother was dying.  I don’t know whats the “right” thing to do.  You tell me how you handled it after you have been through that.

I fought back the tears and held her hand just a few moments longer.  “You’re going to be OK.”  I told her.  “I don’t know about your mom.  Your brother is going to be OK too but he has a few hurts that have to be made better just like you.   Hang in there Stephanie, you will be OK.”

I had to let go of her hand and that was the last time I ever saw her.  I hope, I truly hope, that she is “OK”.  I hope her brother, whose name I never learned, it “OK”.  But what is ok?  How do you ever forget, or even deal with, being mentally challenged and having your mother literally die right in you lap?  All I can do is hope for them. I talked about this in other posts.  Sometimes there is nothing you can do and so all you do is hope for someone who really doesn’t seem to have any hope at all.  That’s what I did.  I did all I could do, felt empty and hurt for Stephanie and her brother, but hoped all the same.

Hope for someone today.  You will run into someone who it hurting but you may not know it if you don’t look for them.  Hope for them.  Who knows, somebody might have been hoping for you when you needed it.  And there’s something else you can do;  pray.  Pray for them.  There is a loving God who hears and who comforts and strengthens.  Pray for them.  Thats where our real hope comes from.  Give it to someone.  Hope is more than a wish for someone or something.  It becomes action when we do something.  You can pray and thats the greatest thing you can do.  I hope for Stephanie and her brother.  And I hope for you.