There's nothing quite like the thrill of excitement of rescuing a life when a person is said to be in danger, particularly if the patient involved happens to be an infant or a child, or a person you happen to know all too well.

This particular incident happened three years ago, when my co-worker, then just new to the team, was involved in a bad MVA.

She was seriously injured.

Patricia Eileen Moss was cashing her (meager) paycheck, her first one, at a drive in, at the ATM, at a local bank, when another car came careening out of nowhere and slammed, full speed, into Patty's vehicle. The impact of the crash sent Patty's brand-new Toyota Tercel itno the rear end of a brand new HUMMER H2, which was in the parking lot, near the ATM. Nobody was in the HUMMER, thank goodness, but all three vehicles sustained heavy damage, leaving Patty badly hurt.

We just didn't know it was her at the time.

We were at the fire station, trying to scare up something to do. It was early Friday afternoon, around 1:30 p.m.; already, it was proving to be a slow day, slower than most. We had no calls whatsoever since the beginning of the shift, which was unusual, very unusual for a Friday. We were all getting bored, just waiting for the tones to sound their warning.

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The emergency tones sounded, scaring us half to death. We grabbed what lunch we could, raced out the door, grabbed our gear and coats, and piled into a waiting ambulance. We soon raced to the scene; we were there within moments.

The call was for a three-vehicle MVA at the local CitiBank. Three vehicles were involved; both the front end of two and the back of the other were heavily damaged, and there was a person's arm dangling limply from the one car. It was a small, delicate arm.

at first, we thought it was a child, but once we got beside the victim, we saw that it was not a child as we first thought, but a female in her 30's. The woman's face was covered in blood, she was unconscious, and she was unresponsive. Worse, she was gasping for air.

I had Johnny Easglefeather grab a long spine board as Mike Tajeira and myself carefully placed it behind the woman's back and tied her to the board; at the same time, Johnny placed a rigid cervical collar on the woman's neck, so she wouldn't purposely move her head or cause permanent damage to her spinal column. We then gently, but carefully, removed the unconscious woman from the crumpled remains of her Toyota and laid her onto the ground, where we immediately set to work.

Johnny immediately got the woman hooked up to an IV line while Mike hooked her up to a portable EKG (electrocardiograph, a machine that showed the rhythm of the heart, to see how it was functioning) and then hooked her up to supplimental oxygen via nasal cannula (small twin prongs attached to tubing that fit around the person's ears and underneath the person's chin; the prongs fit into the patient's nostrils), to ease her labored breathing. It helped immediately; soon, the woman was breathing easier.

So were we.

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We got the woman's vitals: blood pressure 120/70 (normal), resp. rate 12 and labored, temp 48.2 (normal, rather slightly below normal), and pulse racing along at 100 beats a minute. She was suffering from tachycardia, or an abnormally fast heart rate, probably due to her being in shock or her injuries.

We radioed the hospital (Nashville Memorial, or as we called it, etierh NMH or Nashville Mem); the doctor on call at the time told us how to care for the patient and told us to bring her to the ER, STAT (immediately) once we got her stabilized.

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The woman had a head injury, cracked ribs, abruised back (no fractures, thank goodness), and two broken legs. She was in rough shape. It was while we were getting her to the hospital when we found out her identity. (The woman, by this time, was looking vaguely familiar.)

IT was Patty. Patricia Eileen Moss. One of our own. Suddenly the situation took on a whole new sense of urgency.

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