Update 2/2/10 Day 86

Dear friends,

I'm still flabbergasted at the discovery of our army medic angel on the scene of the trouble that changed our lives and created the very vehicle (this blog) on which we now communicate. This evening I am going to give Dear Daniel Lane the platform, and you can read in his own words what his perspective was at the crash site. I was both gripped and grateful as I read the drama he described. Can you imagine the intensity of purpose these first responders experienced? Well, read on and you'll get a glimpse. Any other first responders who wish to add to this, please feel free to comment. I'll be happy to email you too if you have any questions for me. I know some of you read this blog. Your dedication to saving lives thrills me. My gratitude overflows...

Here it is, in the words of the fabulous Daniel Lane:

I don't know how much of the details you want to know about the actual accident because some of them are somewhat gory and i don't want to bring up bad parts of what is probably a touchy subject. When we finally meet I can go into full details if you would like and please feel free to ask me any questions you want to. I was driving home from one of my army drills. When i passed the school on Luther rd 2 police cars went flying past me and i got a really bad gut feeling. As i approached miller road i saw flashing lights and stopped on the corner seeing the crumpled wagon and flipped pickup and immediately jumped out of my car and approached one of the officers and stated that i was an army medic and if i could help. The officer told me there was already medical personell on scene and to go back to my car. At that point i realized there was in fact no ambulance there yet and proceeded to a firemen (Mr. Teets) and offered my help. He handed me an aidbag and said to do whatever i could. I then approached the passengers side of the vechicle and met up with another EMT and began to asses Hannah who was completely unresponsive other than moving her left hand around her face. The EMT stabalized her neck as i climbed into the back seat behind her and put a neck stabilizing coller on her and returned to the passengers side. I checked her pupils only to find that they were the same size as the colered part of her eye indicating a searous head injury. At this point we cut the seat belt and not knowing if she could hear me or not i kept talking to her telling her that we were going to get her out and to the hospital. During this time the firemen had cut the roof beams and we began to pull the roof back. as soon as the roof was back the EMT a firemen and myself pulled Hannah from the vechicle and placed her on a back board and streight into the ambulance. She was very lucky and must have pulled her legs up seconds prior to the crash because when the dashboard came into the vechicle it pushed her legs back up towards her rather than her going under the dashboard and breaking her legs. Once she was out i immediately got into the passengers seat where she was and began to assess Mr. Smith. I had already noticed his mangled arm the minute i first looked into the vehicle. I stabalized his arm against mine so the protuding bone could not cause further damage. I noticed there was no significent bleeding showing he had not severed any major veins or arteries in his arm, i also noticed that he was wiggling his fingers which showed that the nerves were still intack meaning less chance of loosing the arm. He began to get very aggitated and tried pulling his neck coller off with his left arm. All the while the fire Dept. was working as fast as possible to cut the car enough to get him out. The car had to be cut where the door meets the bottom of the car and a jack was used to lift the dashboard up away from the car. One of the pedals was cut out to free his left leg and we had to cut the hinges that make the seat recline as well as the steering colom to make enough space to get him out. Once the car started opening up i noticed he had obvous major trauma to his left lower leg and an obvious broken femur on the right leg. When we finally lifted him to the backboard (guessing roughly 20min after i got on scene, Hannah was out within 5min by the way) i realized how bad his left leg was. I asked the paramedic if he wanted me to ride with him in the ambulance to assist with Mr. Smith and he said yes. Once in the ambulance the paramedic asked me to treat the patient while he spoke with the chopper nurse and paramedic by radio who were waiting for us. I began by starting an IV in his left arm. Then myself and one of the EMT-B's began to cut off his pants to see the severty of his leg injuries. I noticed his left leg was bleeding pretty badly and was cut about 70% of the way through his leg, there was a gap where it looked like 3 or 4 inches of bone were completely shattered. With the aid of the EMT-B I wrapped his leg with 2 large bandages one on top and one on the bottom and then used 4 to 5 packages of rolled gauze to wrap the leg from bottom to top as tightly as i possibly could to make a makeshift tourniquet. Once that was finished i moved on to the right Femur fracture and noticed there was blood on the bottom of his leg. I placed my hand under his leg to find a hole a little bit bigger than a golf ball where the bone had punched through the skin only to pull back into his leg when removed from the car. Noticing his leg was beginning to become firm (indicating bleeding into his leg) I used what in the army we call cravats (fancy name for a strong piece of cloth that looks like a hankerchief) and a dressing to put pressure over the area. The chopper medics were amazing within less than 2 minutes of them getting in the ambulance with us they had him intubated and sedated with demoral. By the time the one EMT-B and I were done with his legs the other had just finished bandaging up his arm. We took him out of the ambulance and put him into the chopper and he was on his way down the long road to recovery.....I am sorry if reading this brings back painful memories and please, please, if you have any questions of me feel free to ask. P.S. i will get you a picture still trying to find one. and feel free to put anything we talk about into your blog for now and the future.your friend,Dan Lane

He certainly is my friend. And yours. Let's pray the Great One returns his loving, life saving service back to him a thousand times.

Your blown-away friend on the pilgrim road,

Loriann