i-15 fatality

I thought you guys would be interested in this story. The picture to the left is the car wreck I responded to on friday on I-15 where the vehicle blew a tire. It was all over the news, you may have been stuck in traffic for hours that day.... Let me give you a quick run down on my experience.

Do you see where the top of the car is laying on the road, directly up from the Exit 261 sign? That is where the body was laying when we pulled up. There were 5 victims involved in this wreck. Two were ejected, and one of those was an obvious fatality. When we arrived, there was an 8 year old boy laying in the middle of the road and 3 other people trapped in the vehicle. We called in Life Flight to fly the 8 year old boy to Primary Children's hospital where he could get the best care possible for being ejected from a vehicle going over 65 MPH. We called in AirMed to fly the passenger of the car to the nearest hospital... we weren't sure the extent of her injuries. The driver of the vehicle was sitting behind the passenger seat when we arrived. Provo Fire and Rescue had to remove the entire top of the car to get both of them out, hence the reason it is laying in the road. Their ambulance crew cared for the driver. My patient was a 4 year old little girl who was trapped in the trunk area of the car. She was laying on her back with her legs were up over the seat. I am convinced that had her legs not gotten stuck, she too would have been ejected. 

We later found out that my little girl walked away with minor injuries. However the other family members were not so lucky... the damage done to their bodies is equivalent to the damage done to that vehicle. (Which is a ford explorer in case you were wondering.)

I bet you can guess where the point of my story is going... WEAR YOUR SEATBELT. Not one of these 5 people had a seatbelt on. If they had, the mother would have lived and the injuries sustained would have been minimal. 

I love my job and what i do, but situations like these really hit home for me. This is one of the worse car accidents I have ever responded to. I have a perspective on life that most people do not get to see. Yes, people like me are there to save lives when unfortunate situations like these present themselves, but I feel it is my responsibility to relate these stories to hopefully prevent that from happening. Drive safe and buckle up.