Early Morning Adrenaline

FD extricating the woman from her thrice rolled and air launched minivan.

How did your morning start?

A little coffee and off to work?  Maybe got the kids rousted and made some breakfast?  I could only wish.  I'm fine, I wasn't involved, other than in the aftermath so don't worry as I spin the tale.  My adrenaline is too high to concentrate, and I want to get this down in case I'm called to testify for this lady.

I get the boy and I out of bed this morning a little early.  Summer school doesn't fire my boy up.  He's a bit of Mr. PokeyPants in the morning, but it's his last day of school, so he's up and at 'em like a squirrel on a bag o' nuts.  I get us in the ride and I head up the hill, dropping him off a few minutes early.  I'm stoked, for the first time this week I'm not running late.  Or REALLY late.  I'm in the right hand turn lane to get on the freeway and about 100 yards from the onramp.  This onramp sucks, there's a street directly across on the left and people are constantly doing the Tijuana Sprint to make it across four lanes and onto the onramp.  It's so dangerous that I made the boy walk to school on the far side of the street when he was at the elementary school up the hill. 

So as I approach the onramp, this black Honda Prius bolts out from the left and DRILLS a minvan headed downhill.  The minivan goes into a spin and launches into the air, ten feet up, easy.   It hits and rolls three times, scattering shit and glass everywhere!  The guy in front of me and and I pass the Prius and go past the onramp to park on the right hand side of the road.  The minivan is on its top pointing uphill, steam coming from the underside.  I check left and right, everyone is stopped, hit my hazards and run across the road to look for survivors.  All I can think of is whether or not there are kids inside.

I can't seem to get in from the side that it's facing me, so I run around and hear a woman screaming.  I crawl in through the second row passenger's window as it seems to be the largest access and the glass is blown out.  As I check the van, the driver (who is the only passenger, thankfully) is hanging from her seat belt screaming and stuggling.  She's beginning to panic.  I hear the engine die (thank goodness for rollover sensors!) and start talking to her.  The combat first aid they teach you in the Corps, the boyhood Scouting, and working with my cop dad has set me into triage mode- Start the breathing, Stop the bleeding, Treat the wound and Check for shock.  She's beginning to panic hard, so I start talking to her.  Calm and authoritative, give her a strong voice to listen to.  Don't get mixed in her emotions, you're both fucked if you do.

"Help me! I'm trapped!"

"It's okay, you're going to be fine. I'm here to help."

"Get me out of this seatbelt, I'm trapped!"

"I can't let you out of the seatbelt until I'm sure it won't injure you further."

She calms down right away, good, I'm reaching her.  She was thrashing pretty hard, she's hanging and there's blood dripping from her head and it is scaring her badly.  Fuck, she's HURT, but she's moving all her limbs, so I'm guessing her struggling upside down will be worse for her than letting her down.  No obvious spinal injury, so I tell her we're counting to three and I'll desengage the seatbelt.  She says okay and when I hit the button, she comes down on all fours and curls into the fetal position, face down.  She tries to crawl out toward the passenger side, so I back out of the rear of the vehicle and run around the van.  I see people running towards the van-

"YOU! You call 911!  You- You check on that asshole!" pointing towards the Prius.  It wasn't intentional, but I had to get people working the problem, and everybody standing around staring at the van isn't helping.  I get to the front passenger door and it's window is shattered, but in one piece.  Thankfully the door was unlocked, but jammed.  So I pop the latch, which is gives me pause, as I've never tried to open a door that is UPSIDE DOWN.  It springs open about an inch and stops.  Fuck it, this thing is totalled. 

Once, as a teenager, I saw one of my Dad's patrolmen wrench a VW Rabbit door off the hinges.  I still remember it vividly.  So I grab the edge of this door and HEAVE. 

SCREEEEEEECH!  The door swings open and actually stops the van from rocking.  I hit my knees, thinking that kneeling in shattered glass fragments isn't really smart, but she's in there alone.

I see her stopped just inside and holding her head.  As I bend down, I see her cellphone and hand it to a lady standing next to us.  The woman inside is moaning softly, but I can sense she's at the onset of shock.  I start asking her questions but she really doesn't want to talk, so I get a little more firm, and begin using the knuckles of my hand on her spine, enough to annoy, mindful of her reaction.  I'm very afraid that she's hurt her back, but if she slips into shock with a head wound is very bad juju.  So I rub a little vigorously to let her know we're talking and tell her to stay with me.  I run through the standard questions, Do you know what day it is, what is your name, when is your birthday?  Just to get her mind in the here and now, thinking about things other than how badly hurt she is.  She's got her hands on her scalp. thick thick hair, so I can't see her headwound, but it's not pouring now.  She's got pressure on it and the bleeding is slowing.  Once it stopped running off her head, I was able to get some answers out of her.  Nothing that made much sense, but she was trying.  She began asking for her phone and using her free hand to grab her purse, which is now covered in blood. 

"I need to call my husband..."

"We will, hon.  Can you tell me what the listing is on your cell phone, we have it right here.  If you tell us, we can call.  Does your husband speak English?"

"Yes........Three, two, oh.." She pauses, but her voice is quavery, but clear.

"Okay, good, what's the rest of the number?"

"Three, two, oh......"

This ditzy blonde cougar rolls up and squeezes in, trying to be Super Yuppie Save the Day Bitch.  She starts babbling- loud.

SYSTDB:  "ITS OKAY, SWEETHEART!  IT'S A BEAUTIFUL DAY AND I'M GOING TO TAKE A WALK WITH MY DOG.  YOU'LL BE JUST FINE!"

 I understand her wanting to help, but at this particular moment, her tone is strident and pushing the woman farther into her fear-shock.  I tell this woman to get me a towel or something to help staunch the blood, and she offers her sweatshirt.  No No- go get me a towel.  Make her feel helpful away from this injured woman.  She scampers and I continue to speak- I'm hearing sirens by now.  I keep trying to calm the woman who is now pretty still, and of course, here comes SYSTDB. 

"HERE'S A TOWEL!"

"Thank you, that'll do.  We need to talk WITH her, not at her, she needs to respond."

SYSTDB realizes she's a threat, so she settles down, but has to interject here and there, still loud.  The injured woman is Korean, not deaf, bitch.  Then she starts to stroke the woman's scalp.  That got a response:

"DON'T TOUCH ME THERE!!!!"  If I've got a scalp wound and you start rubbing my head, I'm swinging.  SYSTDB promptly stops and finally shuts the fuck up.  I continue trying to get her to answer simple questions.

By this time, the Glendale PD shows up- Officer HumptyPants asks if there is anyone else in the vehicle and I respond.

"No other passengers, one victim, middle aged asian female, scalp laceration, possible neck injury, reponding to questions."

"Good, stay there until help comes."

WTF??!??!  Aren't you the fucking help?  He walks off and starts securing the scene and working traffic.   I continue talking with the woman.  He comes back in five minutes and says he's taking over.  I tell the woman that the police are here and HOLY SHIT, this asshole cop has hold of the back of my belt and is tugging to get me out of the way!!!  WTF??!!??  First he treats me as a first responder, now I'm some rioter?  I smack his hand and keep an even tone to the woman- everything will be fine, help is here.

As I back out to let HumptyPants and his blue latex gloves in, I see his watch commander has shown up and told him to unfuck himself.  Shortly thereafter the FD paramedics arrive, along with the Sheriff's Department.  I retire to the side of the road and ask the SD to give me some antibacterial and start checking myself for wounds.  Scraped knee, minor cuts on my hands, but most of the blood is the poor lady's.  I was careful not to get into the blood, but I had a little bit on my hands and a spot on my shorts.

The SD is taking statements and one deputy is talking on the woman's cell phone in the car.  I get into a discussion with another female officer about how we go about getting the traffic enforcement stiffened in the area.  Every witness to the accident in the area is coming up and thanking me.

After a few minutes, I've taken a couple of pictures, spoke with the authorities and am free to go.  I drive the 100 feet to the corner 7-11 for coffee.  Or beer, I hadn't decided, but a beer to settle my nerves might have been in order. 

I get into 7-11 and a neighbor spots me and asks what happened as he saw me in the van.  So as I tell the story, every person in the 7-11 is standing around listening.  My hands are shaking so bad a woman offers to pour the milk into my coffee since I'm spilling it all over the counter.  I finish my tale and exit the joint, time to head to work.

I call the Pops, he tells me I did the right thing when I let the woman down.  As a 25 year vet cop, he's a huge reassurance.  I was scared to death that she was seriously screwed up because of it, but Dad says I done good.  Whew.  And to let you know, I was on my Bluetooth Douchebag headset, to minimize my endangerment of the public, and I also obeyed all posted speed limits and traffic signs.

You can see where her skidmarks ended- that's where the minivan launched into the air!

What I realized later, that while every civilian in the area thanked me, not one person from any public safety department did the same.

Fuckin' Po-lice.  Always tryin' to keep a brotha down.

Ain't nothin' to a G.