The rain had been falling for almost an hour when I left for my job at St. Joseph Hospital ER that day. It wasn’t so much a rain, as it was steady drizzle. The temperature had dropped to 40 degrees at 4:00 PM; it was October, so that wasn’t out of the ordinary. By the time I reached the highway two miles east of town, the drizzle had changed to sleet. “Great,” I thought to myself, “Looks like it’s going to be another busy night in the ER.” I worked full time in the hospital, and when I wasn’t there, I was on call with our local volunteer ambulance service as a paramedic. I enjoyed both jobs, not so much the work as the satisfaction I got out of helping people in their time of need. As I turned my truck onto K-96 highway toward Wichita, I noticed how the sleet was beginning to pile up on the shoulders of the road. Also, looking back, I noticed almost subconsciously, the lack of traffic coming from the west, which was unusual for that time of day. A few miles up the road, I met a State Trooper running westbound with lights and siren. “Must be a blood run to Hutchinson,” I thought to myself. The local hospitals often used the State Troopers to run blood and tissue back and forth for emergency operations. Before I reached 167th St. West, about 8 miles from home, I met a Maize Police officer running westbound with lights and siren. It then dawned on me that the lack of traffic coming east from Mt. Hope must be due to an accident at the north entrance to town. Maize is 14 miles from Mt. Hope, and the officers there often come out to assist our officers on emergency calls. I knew the accident had to be at Mt. Hope, or at least within two miles of there, because Mt. Hope is two miles inside the Sedgwick County line, and Maize wouldn’t cross the county line. I made a U-turn at 167th Street West and pushed my Toyota as fast as it would go back to the west-northwest against a strong wind. My heart raced, my mind was already in overdrive, thinking over my plans for patient care. As I neared the intersection of 279th West and K-96, the north entrance to Mt. Hope, I could see the array of flashing emergency lights along the south side of the road, and could make out the shape of a semi-truck through the drizzle in the south ditch. I couldn’t see anyone around the semi, nor could I see our ambulance or rescue squad. “Rats, must be a 10-47.” A 10-47 is a non-injury accident involving property damage only. “But why would Maize PD be here?” Then I saw a commotion in the tree row about 150 feet southeast of the intersection, and our ambulance. There was a full-size pickup in the trees, with only the rear foot or so sticking out of a mass of broken branches. I steered my truck down through the ditch and killed the motor, leaving it with the emergency flashers on. Our EMS director met me halfway across the wide ditch and said, ”We have two code reds. Grant is the driver, and I think Jack is about to code!” The fear in her eyes sank into mine as I realized the truck belonged to her son, a long-time paramedic with our service. I recognized the name Grant as that of her grandson. I had known Grant for several years, as I did most people in the town of about 900. He was a good kid, honest and well liked. The name of the other patient didn’t ring a bell. I approached the passenger side of the truck, which had taken the impact squarely on the passenger door, to find our Police Chief in the cab, straddling the patient. Larry had been an EMT for several years before moving on to the Police Department, and I felt reassured to see him attempting patient care. He stepped out of the cab so I could assess the patient. From the look of the truck, I feared the worst. I leaned in to see Jack, another youth I had known for several years, stretched out over the broken seatback, alternating between decerebrate and decorticate posturing. Posturing is the rigid tensing of all muscles in the body, and is indicative of a massive head injury. I did a quick overall assessment: airway, breathing, and circulation. His airway was clear, he was breathing rapidly, and had a rapid pulse. He had a stream of blood coming from his nose, and a young girl I recognized as an EMT from nearby Haven was crammed in behind him, stabilizing his c-spine. I didn’t detect any other bleeding or obvious injuries as I made a quick sweep down his body with gloved hands. That was reassuring, but it was a shallow reassurance. I knew the head injury was life threatening, and began to doubt if I would get him out of the truck alive. His feet were pinned under the dashboard; all I could see were his shoelaces. Two of our EMT’s were attempting to place an oxygen mask on Grant, who was unconscious and bleeding from an unseen laceration on his head. Grant was very combative, another less threatening sign of head injury. I ordered the EMT’s with Grant to forget the oxygen until they had him removed, and to get him out on a long spine board as quick as they could. I needed the room in the now-compressed cab to work on Jack. “Please, God, let me get him out of here alive!” A feeble attempt at prayer, but in this situation, anything was a hope. Grant was removed, and Mike, an EMT/Firefighter, had arrived with a manual spreader tool to try to get the dashboard off Jack’s feet. There wasn’t enough room to get a good position with the spreader, so Mike and I began tearing the dash apart with our bare hands. I yelled for an IV of LR and a 16-gauge needle. Sandra, our director, brought me one before the command was barely out of my mouth. That’s what I admired about our crew, everyone seemed to be able to read each other’s mind. Unfortunately, I knew Sandra didn’t need to read my mind to know that Grant and Jack were in critical condition and may not survive. She had been one of the first in our community to volunteer as an EMT in 1977 when the ambulance service was started, and I knew she had been in many similar situations. I found a suitable vein on Jack’s forearm, swabbed it with alcohol, and attempted to insert the IV. He was thrashing around so much at this point that the three other EMT’s were unable to hold his arm still enough to get the needle in the vein. I made the decision at that point to continue with the extrication, so I would have more room for emergency care outside the vehicle. People often speak of gaining superhuman strength in emergency situations. I don’t know if that’s the explanation in our case, but by the time we heard the thunderous drone of the LifeWatch helicopter overhead, Mike and I had managed to dismantle enough of the dash to free Jack from the wreckage. A long spineboard was moved into place from the rear driver’s side, Jack was slid onto it, strapped down, and removed. Two paramedics from Sedgwick County Medic 37 had arrived, and with the LifeWatch crew, loaded Jack into the chopper beside his best friend, Grant. I watched the chopper take off into the Autumn drizzle, and thunder away toward the Level 1 Trauma Unit at Wesley Hospital in Wichita, about 30 miles to the east. I stood there for what seemed an eternity, the cold drizzle dripping off my cap, mixing with the sweat and tears. I had done my job to the best of my ability, and now another set of trained hands were caring for Jack and Grant. And above those hands, their lives were in a far greater set of hands, without which, none of us would be able to perform our duties. I prayed at first for God to save Jack and Grant. I knew in my heart that Grant would make it, although I didn’t know what extent his injuries would be or the long-term effect they would have on his life. I also had the gut feeling that Jack wouldn’t make it to the ER. Head injuries are hard to predict, as far as the outcomes go. I then began to pray for God’s will to be served. That is the hardest prayer I have ever had to make…to let God take over. I prayed for God to take Jack, if that was the best solution. Despite all my feelings, I began to think of his family, and the hardship caused by lingering head injuries. I knew Jack’s parents were strong people, but I also wished they could be spared the agony of losing a son. Whether Jack lived impaired by a head injury, or if he died on the flight to Wichita, they were in for a lifetime of sorrow and pain that no words of kindness can ever erase. Life would go on for them, but not a full, happy life. A gentle hand shook me from my thoughts. It was Sandra, thanking me for my help. I turned to her and hugged her, noticing that the fear I had seen in her eyes earlier had been replaced with the strength I was used to seeing. I couldn’t speak, but the feelings were conveyed through that embrace. I walked to my truck, radioed in to the ER and told them I’d be late. That night at work, the ER was a blur of patients, most with very minor complaints. Several times I caught myself in a trance, tears rolling down my cheeks, thinking of Jack and Grant. Once in the Trauma Unit at Wesley, neither Jack nor Grant was found to have any broken bones. This was surprising, due to the massive impact they sustained. The semi that hit them was fully loaded with bulk packaged salt from the mines in Hutchinson. Grant was driving the pickup when it was struck. Witnesses, including Jack’s older brother who had crossed the intersection just before the two boys, say it appeared Grant never even saw the semi coming. It is speculated that the falling drizzle may have caused a blindspot on the windshield that obscured Grant’s vision. The driver of the semi, who was uninjured, said the pickup pulled out from the stop sign gently, not as if the driver were trying to beat him across the intersection. Neither boy has any recollection of the accident. The force of the impact threw the pickup airborne nearly 50 feet and it then careened another 100 feet into the large stand of trees on the south side of the roadway. The passenger seat that Jack was in was smashed to only about a quarter of its original width. Both boys were wearing seatbelts. Grant spent six days in the hospital, and was released home with his parents. Through the following year, he suffered many ongoing symptoms of head injury, including disequilibrium, short term memory loss, and eye-hand coordination problems. His ability to write was affected; his writing was described by his mother as being chicken scratchings. He began to have serious problems at school. His teachers and parents at first attributed this to guilt and anger over the accident, but persevered in a better diagnosis. Finally, after many tests, it was discovered that Grant had suffered permanent damage to the part of his brain that controls his impulses, reading comprehension, and memory. Grant has just finished a year of chemical and physical therapy and seems to be doing much better, according to his parents and teachers. Jack was in Wesley from October 21st, 1996 until December 7th. He was then transferred to the Skilled Nursing Unit at Our Lady of Lourdes rehabilitation hospital in Wichita, where he stayed until March 17th, 1997. After that he spent time at an Acute Rehabilitation Hospital until May 9th. Jack is now at home with his family, and has returned to school, attending an art class and an English class for two hours a day. His mother attends with him to assist him in the classroom, and also in his physical therapy at the school. Jack undergoes several hours of therapy a week, and is slowly improving. He has regained a lot of the motor function on his left side; although still has tremors in his upper extremities that cause some difficulty with his daily routine. He can feed himself, and has graduated from pureed food to a mild soft diet. He cannot speak, except for now uttering the word “Mom”. He spells out his abbreviated conversations on an alphabet board by pointing to letters. Before the accident, the two 15 year olds were inseparable as best friends. They spent so much time together that many people thought they were brothers. The two families seemed to blend into one when they were together. Following the accident, Jack’s family was very supportive of Grant, going out of their way to assure him that they held no ill feelings toward him as a result of the injuries to Jack. “After all,” said Jack’s mother, “these things can happen to anyone, at any time.” The support between the two families remains strong, as does the friendship between the two boys. Grant and Jack are in the same English class at school, and Grant still spends a lot of time with Jack, visiting him in his home in the country. Jack still has dreams to be an architect, and his mother says he has the determination to reach that dream. “It will be a long, hard struggle, but he’s come a long way already.”

This is a true story; some of the names have been changed to protect the privacy of the persons involved. Eric J. Stites was a paramedic with Mt. Hope Community Volunteer Ambulance Service in Mt. Hope, Kansas, serving from 1991 to 2000.

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The Night They Lit Up Ol’ Sparky