brynn1982

Don't Tell My Mom
2002-10-07 04:18:46 (UTC)

Ghost Car

I'm going crazy. I have been volunteering for an ambulance
corps since February. That's 8 months with no problems.
Two weeks ago I was sitting in my house getting ready to go
to bed when the tones dropped. One car MVA (motor vehicle
accident) with entrapment. That was the first page. I
woke up my stepfather who is an EMT and told him about it
and we were on our way. Second page came. Now not only
was it entrapment, but ejection as well. When I heard that
my stomach did a topsy turvy and all I was thinking was how
I'd wished I would have just went to bed. We got to the
scene and ran up to help. So many people there, medics,
volunteers, fire fighters, police officers, but none of
them I saw. The only person I saw was the man lying dead
on the ground. I couldn't fight the wave of nausea that
came over me. I fell to my knees and started to vomit. I
finally summoned the strength to get up and go over to the
man. We all knew he was dead but we did everything we
could to reverse it. My stepfather called me over and told
me to artificially ventilate him while he and another medic
immobilized his neck. We put the man on the backboard and
put him on the gurney and he was on the way to the
hospital. Meanwhile, the woman was still in the car.
Firefighters were trying to get her out so I went over to
see if there was anything I could do. Big mistake. I have
never seen so much blood in my life. The brain is quite
disgusting when it's hanging out the back of someone's
skull. One look was all it took. I turned away and
vomited again. They finally got her out of the car,
strapped her to the gurney, and took her to the LZ to be
airlifted to the trauma center. She was still alive when
we took her out of the car. She had severe trauma to the
head, obviously. She died an hour after she got to the
trauma center. Then I looked at the car. A red
convertible. Weird thing was I had told my father that
same day that I wanted a convertible and he said no way,
not without rollbars. Odd how I found out why that night.
He was not wearing his seatbelt, was thrown out of the car
and probably died instantly. She was wearing her
seatbelt. I can't imagine what kind of pain she endured,
if any. Drinking and driving. You never realize how many
people you affect when you make stupid choices. I went to
the hospital to pick up my stepfather about 20 minutes
later. I could still smell the man's cologne mixed with
blood and alcohol. In fact, I can still smell it every
once in a while. We left the hospital and went back to the
scene to see if they needed any help cleaning up. They
didn't. We then went to the ambulance corps to help clean
out the rigs and everything. So much blood. I couldn't
take it, I sat out in the car shaking, smoking cigarette
after cigarette. We finally went home. I cried myself to
sleep that night. Slept for about an hour and woke up
crying from a dream. I sat in my bed for the next 3 hours,
and went to work. I did absolutely nothing at work.
Couldn't keep up with anything. I couldn't concentrate,
all I kept seeing was everything from the night before. So
a week goes by, no sleep, no food. Everytime I closed my
eyes all I could see was the man, the woman, and the car.
I couldn't fight the nausea every day. I couldn't keep
anything down so all I did was drink soda and smoke
cigarettes. About 4 days after I went on a drinking
binge. Drank so much that I don't even know what
happened. All I can remember was that I passed out and
woke up puking. Exactly one week later, I went to do duty
again. I finally started talking about the wreck and how I
felt about it. I told the medics about my drinking binge,
how I couldn't eat or sleep, about the nightmares and the
smell. They convinced me to talk to the ED doctor at the
hospital. So I did. She put me on some antianxiety muscle
relaxants and gave me 2 days off work. I power slept for
those two days. Not restful sleep, but no nightmares.
It's now been 6 days since the power sleeping. I've had
one nightmare since. I thought I was finally going to be
ok...until tonight. I went to work today on 4 hours
sleep. Had a pretty good day at work. Came home and fell
asleep at about 5:30. I woke up at 9:30 and watched the
last half of The Silence Of The Lambs with my parents. I
went to smoke a cigarette. Shit, I was almost out. So I
went to town to get some for me and my stepfather. On the
way back I took the same route I always do. When I turn
onto my road I always look in my rear view window to make
sure nobody's going to hit the ass end of my car. Well
when I looked tonight, I saw a red convertible fly by with
a man and woman. There was nobody behind me the whole
time. I kept looking and the car just disappeared. I
cried the rest of the way home. I got home, got on the
computer and asked my uncle if he still had the paper that
had the article about the crash in it. He did so I went
out to get it. I needed to tell somebody about what I saw,
but I was afraid that if I told my parents they wouldn't
believe me. So I called Jodi and told her. I need to tell
someone else, but I'm afraid to. I don't want to go to
counseling or be put on any more meds. I think that's the
only thing to do though. So that's where I'm at right
now...afraid of the dark.




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