Tragedy can strike anywhere

I need to vent, so here goes.

Yesterday there was a horrific accident in my community. I am a member of the trauma team at the hospital and my husband in on the local fire/ambulance department. A van carrying 10 students and an instructor from Utah State University blew a tire on the freeway just outside of town and subsequently rolled four times. All occupants were thrown from the vehicle, none were wearing seatbelts. 6 occupants were pronounced dead on the scene, four were transported to my hospital, and one was "life flighted" from the scene. Of the four transported to my hospital, one died at the hospital (he was breathing at the scene of the accident and crashed enroute to the hospital), the other three were flown from our hospital to other facilities. One of those three died enroute to the larger facility, another died this morning at the other facility, and one is still alive, but extremely critical. Now that the public has been notified I can speak (albeit cautiously) about my involvement.

As the ambulances started arriving at the hospital I was partially responsible for triaging patients. We expected to get so many that we might have to pass one who likely wouldn't survive in order to save one who could. Thankfully it never came to that. Instead we received 4 extremely critical patients and ran a trauma on each one. We were fully staffed to run all 4 traumas such that each patient had 2 nurses, a lab tech, a doc and a nurse assistant to record all vital info. I was intimately involved with three of the patients.

I pulled the first boy out of the back of the ambulance and into the hospital. I asked the EMT if we had a name, I was given the information and asked the boy if he could hear me. He looked straight at me, made eye contact and tried to speak. Later we discovered he had a broken jaw and couldn't speak...but he tried. This is the patient who died later on his way to the larger facility. He crashed twice at our hospital and we were able to get his pulse back each time. I watched this poor kid die twice and come back, although he never responded to me again after he crashed the first time.

The other boy I was involved with arrived last. He at last check was still clinging to life. He recently was married and his poor bride is standing vigil at his side hoping her eternal partner will remember her, if he wakes up.

The third person I was involved with didn't actually come to my hospital because he was flown straight from the scene to the a larger facility, however his story is the hardest for me to relate. His mother works with me in the laboratory and she was by my side working the trauma when she got an emergency phone call from a hospital in Ogden. Her son had been in an accident and she needed to get there as soon as possible. We hadn't connected that her son was in the same accident we were working, but at that moment everything hit home. Because of certain regulations I am unable to disclose much more information, but this boy is still alive and in better condition than any of the others. I believe two blessings came to this family yesterday. First, their boy survived and will likely be the only one who walks away (although that won't be happening any time soon). Second, the boy didn't come to our hospital. Not that we couldn't have treated him, but his mother would not have survived seeing her boy in that condition. At least by the time she got to him he was cleaned up, and all his twisted body parts were somewhat back in order.

I realize this post lacks the emotion I sometimes have, but these thoughts and feelings are still so raw I am having a difficult time voicing them. Perhaps tomorrow after the "debriefing" I will be able to put the words on the screen more eloquently. But until then, here's a recap. Of the 11 total occupants 9 are dead. One is clinging to life and one will likely survive. What a terrible tragedy. Each of the boys had served a mission for their church and was on there way to a successful life. Why do these things not happen to a bunch of gang banger, drug seeker, delinquents who need a rude awakening?