While doing my ambulance clinicals in Indianapolis with Rural/Metro Ambulance I encountered many new experiences, but none quite the same or more impacting than the last call of my second night there.
At about 2:30 AM on a Sunday morning the truck that I was working on was called as the fifth back up ambulance called to a head on collision between a minivan and an SUV. Upon arriving to the scene, I observed what I thought only happened in text books and in practices. As Jeff, the truck paramedic, Ben, my brother and an EMT, and I walked up we saw eight people strewn about the pavement on backboards. As we made our way past the plethora of fire trucks, ambulances, and police, we spoke to the scene commander and he told us to find the restrained driver and unrestrained passenger of the SUV, two 19 year-old boys. We found them and loaded them into the back of the ambulance. While I was loading the patients we started to learn more about what had happened and the full gravity of the situation.
The restrained driver of the SUV that we were now caring for was extremely intoxicated. He had been turned around joking with his friends in the SUV and swerved over the center line and hit the minivan head on. In the minivan were five young women coming back from a bachelorette party, they were all also drunk, except for their designated driver. We were now entrusted with the care of this by who had mad a bad decision and almost killed seven other people. Most of the ride to the hospital he was concerned with the care of his two friends that were in the car with him. At no point did it even dawn on him that he had hit another car that also had people in it, and that were also going to the hospital.
The care for our two patients included starting IVs and doing a full trauma assessment on the 20 minute drive to the hospital. Both patients were probably lucky. Being drunk, their bodies were so loose and relaxed that they did not try and catch or guard themselves in the original accident.