By Uniform Stories
This is a guest post by retired Sgt. Donald Gill of the Puyallup Police Department in Washington State.
You never get used to finding people like this, sometimes breathing, sometimes not, sometimes only pieces here, pieces there.
And then there are the times like the accident I encountered on highway 167: Three people, all struggling to stay alive, all desperately needing some sort of help. Two men lying in the road, both close to needing CPR. A 50-something-year-old lady still pinned in her car with a leg bone poking through her skin just above her knee, blood pumping freely.
Like most cops, I got into the business to help people, and this was a time when I was desperately needed by three people, but that meant two would be released to their fate. Who lives, who dies?
I quickly unbuckled my trouser belt, pulled it free from my pants and began wrapping the belt around the woman’s leg just above her wound, hoping to slow the bleeding down just enough till help arrived. She was still conscious, and I showed her how to hold the belt in place, keeping the pressure on.
“Look at me. Don’t look down; just keep looking at me, ok?”
She nodded her head.
“I’m going to check on those two men over there, I’ll be right back.”
She blinked at me, and with that, I ran to the others. I glanced back at her and she was still alert and watching. I told her to watch me, and if I happened to see her head go down I would know she was probably passing out and I’d have to return to her.
The first man I came to was a teenager. He was flat on his back, his head rolled over to the right side of his face. When he would gasp in a breath, his head would roll up facing to the night sky. When he exhaled, his head would roll back to the right side of his face. It was rhythmic, and the rhythm was slowing. I noticed his right eye had dislodged from his skull, and the top of his skull appeared flattened, but strangely there was no blood, except a few small cuts and scrapes.
I checked the other man, and he too was lying on his back, struggling to breathe. I looked at the woman and she was watching me, but her head was low.
I looked at the older man in front of me and I said, “Hang in there, don’t let go, hang in there, I’ll be back.”
I ran to my patrol car and found a Kotex pad that I always kept with me in case I got shot and couldn’t wait for an ambulance; I’d use it to control bleeding and drive myself to the hospital. Now seemed like an appropriate time to use it.
By the time I got back to the lady, her eyes were slits, but she was watching me. I slid the Kotex pad over the wound and re-tightened the belt. This time, I cinched it down properly so it would not require her help.
“I can hear sirens, angels are close, fight, stay with me, ok?” I said.
She blinked in acknowledgment and I ran back to the young man.
His head was just falling to the right, then nothing. I checked his neck artery and nothing. As I did, I looked to the other man and saw no motion from him either. “Sorry,” was all I said, and I ran to the older man.
He too wasn’t breathing, but he didn’t look nearly as bad as his younger friend. I began CPR about the time I spotted the first ambulance slowing to a stop. Behind that ambulance, was another. I had been relieved by professional lifesavers.
“A woman in the car over there is bleeding out and that young man is gone,” I told the medics. “The lady has a fighting chance if you get to her.”
With that, they gave a quick glance at the young man and turned and ran to the lady.
I surveyed the accident scene and realized the truck had been occupied by the two men and had crossed the center line and hit the lady head on. The two vehicles were probably doing a combined speed of 120 mph at the time of impact. “Amazing anyone is alive,” I thought to myself.
Minutes later, Washington State Patrol began arriving. Soon the area would be shut down and a lengthy fatality investigation would begin. After I spoke with the first trooper arriving, I gathered up my gun belt and retreated to the police department to wash the blood from myself and equipment.
Shane, a young dispatcher working his way through college, didn’t say much when I came into the police department.
“Pretty bad, huh?” he asked.
“Yes, bad, very bad, don’t want to talk about it,” I responded.
The next day I found out that the older guy was still alive and fighting, and the woman was going to be fine. I even got a note from the chief saying I’d done a “hell of a job.” As for the younger man, though, he didn’t fare so well.
I thought about what had occurred and what I could have done differently. Nothing, really. In those moments, you just do the best you can and hope that it’s enough.
