What's the worst ...

[The Stig]

....trauma situation you personally have had to deal with?

If you aren't ready or in a position to share the details, for whatever reason, please don't. But if you do have a situation and how you handled it, supplies used, skills used, improvised techniques, lessons learned, outcome, etc that you could share I think it might be informative for the group.

[apssbc]

As you can imagine I deal with quite a bit of trauma on a regular basis. One of the worst Ive dealt with is my ND incident.

When it comes to improvising things I have used pillows, magazines, sticks, ect to make a multitude of splints. Superglue for smaller cuts works well and I keep it in my first aid kit. Ive used these types of things when I was a medic for a militia group for a year or so. We had someone end up with a back injury during a training excercise I rigged up a litter from a couple long sticks and my tarp. I grabbed his ruck and we carried him to a trail so we could pick him up in a vehicle.

Worst trauma Ive seen was a father who lit his daughter on fire and burned 99% of her body with 2nd and 3rd degree burns. We cleaned her wounds with sterile saline and water. Used up all our burn dressings and a ton of cling. We knocked her out placed a tube and started breathing for her. She fought for a few days but ended up passing. He was deported back to Jordan where its rumored they didnt like him and he met his end.

Ive got more trauma experience than I can list. As I remember some of the better ones Ill post them up

[Echo2]

First on scene at a three car accident.

Quick triage of scene.....pop flares while calling 911....gloved up....multitask...

First car....1 male 1 female.....male obvious broken arm...both coherent....told her to contact 911 and guide the EMS in if needed.....she was ok but needed something to do.

Second car.....2 men....facial lacerations.....obvious broken leg....knee damage.....lots of beer cans.....relatively unresponsive both individuals.

Third car....1 female....head trauma w/ lacerations....leg injury.....both shoulders dislocated.....broken thumb.(or dislocated)....child seat....no child....buckles not damaged.

Sprint to other side accident by about 60 yards.....pop more flares....run back to single female car....entered driver side back seat as front door would not open.

She began to come to and began flailing about....was worried about more damage to arms...tucked one arm in right side seat belt.....positioned mirror to have eye contact....reached up and held neck traction from behind and rested my left arm on hers to contain. Began to talk with her to try to calm her down. her endorphins kicked in and she began to communicate with me....her leg hurt...her arms hurt when she moved them...her thumb was throbbing.

I got her to start talking about her kid...found out that she was headed to pick her up from grandparents.

First EMS crew arrived on scene....1 stayed to help me....I gave quick run down of other 2 cars to second EMT.

The one helping me came in from passenger side to take over traction.....I went to truck to retrieve bar......checked on 1st car occupants they were OK...opened drivers door of single females car.

Crash truck, fire truck and 2 more ambulances showed.....I backed off....went to find some wipes to remove massive amount of blood from ladies head wound. checked myself for small cuts and scrapes

Cleaned up and gave report to lead EMT on site....went home changed clothes.

THEN....is my freak out.....I've always been the one to handle the emergency task at hand....but it's the after math that I have a problem with. The thinking of the therapy that woman was going to have to go through with a kid in tow.....the brand new Porshe the male and female was in....was totaled (it was his dads...and less than a week old).....and the 2 drunk assholes that was the cause of it.

I have been certified as a EMT 3 times....Wilderness First Aid...MedCore....Ropes....Fire fighter 1....rigging and extrication....

Both parents were EMTs and I have been "Victim" since I was about 4 yrs old. I have had (guessing) about 45 cast put on.....strapped to countless backboards.....MAS trousers so many times I can do it faster than the FRs. Rigged in Stokes baskets and moved from one side of EMS building to the other 4 times a year for over a decade. I have had enough bandages on me to fill 10 ambulances....no joke.....been pulled out of cars....school buses...and even one airplane.

Fun fun fun.....I can handle the "right now".....it's the after math that messes with my head.

[izzyscout21]

I pulled a 6 year old out of a car on the side of the interstate. Dodge minivan demolished by a semi.........happened right in front of me, both parents were DRT.
He had a arterial bleed on his leg that I slapped a CAT on until the EMT's got there. Did my best to keep him away from the van while his folks were still in there. Rode with him to the hospital and stayed with him until his next of kin were notified.
State troopers took me back to my car.

[realist]

I guess the worst are the kids that get injured and the gunshot wounds. I had a three year old hit by a train because the doper that was watching the child was to busy watching cartoons, I should have shot them. We transported and worked the child up en route to the hospital. The child later died. I had to interview the engineer of the train and he has to live with that now. All he told me is that he saw the child and there was no way that he could stop the train in time. I have had to deal with several gunshot wound victims. and every time I knew they were fatal. The worst part is trying to comfort the person and know they are going to die. To add to this two of the suspects were never convicted because the DA is not present a decent case.

[ak474u]

When I was a kid, I lived next to an elevated train track probably 200 yards away in a flood plain, there was a large trestle with a creek flowing beneath, the walls of the trestle were probably 35 feet up, and stair-stepped up from the ground. We got off the tracks when we saw the train light a mile or so away, but some other kids just moved down several steps from the roadbed and waited. The kids had put large granite fist sized rocks on the tracks, and one of them shot off the rail, and tagged their 6 year old sister in the temple, I saw the rock bounce off her head, and saw her fall down 2 steps, surprisingly, she didn't plummet to the creek bed below. Her brothers, probably 10-12 years old, froze, and I ran across the creek, picked her up, and headed for the street closest to the subdivision across the railroad tracks, one of the other kids ran home, and called 911. When I got off the railroad embankment, I wrapped my shirt around her head (there was a round hole, about the size of a quarter in her head, and I could see her brain). She really bled a lot, and probably due to shock, didn't really cry much, she was conscious the whole time. The kid who called 911 told the operator a little girl had been "hit by a train" so every first responder short of FEMA fell out of the sky in maybe 3 minutes flat. The little girl made it, no thanks to her big brothers, and I got a certificate of appreciation from the fire chief. That was the first life threatening trauma injury I'd ever seen. That bridge was a dangerous place, an acquaintance of mine either fell or jumped from that bridge a few years later and died, and several other kids have been hit by trains along that stretch as well. I guess locating a really popular park right next to it might've been a bad idea. This bridge was a popular spot for rappelling because of the sheer block wall, and it's height as well. It's actually the first place i ever rappelled as well.

[ladyhk13]

Got a call while pulling duty at the fire station just before turnover that there had been a shooting at the armory. Partner and I went over and found a young man (21 y/o) who had a fight with his wife the night before and decided it was easier to just end it so since that's were he worked he took the keys in, went into one of the vaults, got a gun and blew his brains out. That was my first dead body. We had to transport him up to the next closest base since we had no morgue where we were. Since it was the end of our shift already we had to had off the ambulance over to the next crew so we ended up taking him on a cot in a van. I had to sit on the floor in the back with my foot against the cot to make sure it wouldn't slide around. We got him up there but still to this day I can see his big brown eyes staring up at me. They haunted me for years in my waking hours as well as in my dreams.

Another horrible situation was when I was stationed in Hawaii in 1982 and we had one of their worse hurricanes come through. The island was a mess, trees uprooted and thrown into the roads, sidewalks were ripped apart when the roots came up out of the ground, no power for weeks (when on an island that means no ice BTW) in many areas, buildings were destroyed...a complete mess. Anyway, as the clean up started the guys went out in trucks to clear the trees from roads on base and a very large tree rolled out of a truck onto on of our men crushing him. When he was brought into the ER I could tell he was in critical condition as he was passed off to us from the EMT's. I took over CPR and with each compression blood would come out of his ears, nose and mouth. The Dr. wanted to continue to try and "save" him by pushing meds but I knew that from the feel of his chest and the fact that he was gushing blood the boy was already dead in reality. He should have let him go and called it right away and I will never understand it ... it was a horrible sight and I'm sure that everyone in the room that day will never forget him and his death all because a tree wasn't secured properly.

But on the upside, we all had a shtf Thanksgiving.

[apssbc]

My very first call ever doing EMS was a man who was working on his truck in the middle of the night on the side of the road. He had no lights on and was rear ended by another vehicle. He was run over twice and paralyzed. My second call was my sisters best friend riding a dirt bike racing a truck. He was also run over and busted his femur and back. It was a interesting start to my career.

When it comes to gsw's I've seen my share. Most self inflicted to the head. I surgically cric'ed someone in the field that shot himself with a 22 and messed up his airway.

For some reason dead people and massive trauma does not haunt me. I am very good at not letting it emotionally bother me. I have been called cold, and I'm ok with that if it's true because I am able to keep working without pause. Average EMS career length is 3 years I'm I'm for six so far.

I once tracked blood trails to body parts from a dude who went head on with a pickup truck.

[msomnipotent]

Thankfully, the worst trauma I had to deal with is minor. I have had broken bones, my daughter (toddler at the time) split her nose open, and my nephew (4 at the time) split his head open. The biggest problem is keeping everyone calm. When my nephew cracked his head, I heard screaming and ran down the stairs. It is shocking how much blood can pour out of a minor head wound. My mother was staring at him with her hands over her mouth screaming, my sister was actually running in a circle while flapping her arms and screaming, and the poor kid is sitting in a pool of his own blood asking me if he is going to die. I told everyone to STFU because they were scaring him, and my mother just kept repeating, "You're right, your', you're right....", and I actually had to grab my sister and shake her to get her to stop. Long story short, he was fine after 6 staples to his head.

I wondered what the hell was wrong with them until my own kid got hurt. It was Christmas time and I was just hanging up the phone with my husband at work. Just as I said, "Luv ya, bye.", my daughter pulled a stocking off the mantle and the stocking holder smashed her face. Again, it is shocking how much blood pours out of a small wound. It was spurting from the top of her nose, she was screaming, the dog panicked and started barking uncontrollably, there was a trail of blood from one end of the family room to the other, and I panicked. All in the space of 1/2 a second. I called my husband back and screamed, "There's blood everywhere!!!! Meet me at the hospital!!!" and hung up. I didn't tell him which hospital. There are 3 in our area. Then I load her up into the car and drive like a lunatic to her doctor instead of the hospital, and the office isn't even open. The cleaning crew had the door propped open and I burst in there like a maniac. Lucky for me, a nurse was just walking in and was able to calm me down. It wasn't serious at all, and she didn't have cartilage in her nose to break yet. The Christmas picture I had scheduled for her had to be canceled, but that was it. And I am known as the calm one of the family!

I definitely have to work on the panic.

[ladyhk13]

Head wounds are always the worse...so many blood vessels.
When I got my first suicide I was 18 and had never seen anyones brains before. But it was his eyes that got me and there wasn't a damn thing I could do for him. Also had a little girl who was running to get in line for the school bus and fell while the bus was still moving and she slid under it's wheels. When we got there (the whole fire dept dispatched for that one), I had my bag and was out to her before my partner even stopped. We had this firefighter that was really overweight and everyone made fun of him but I really liked him and he had parked right next to me. He got out and asked what he could do. I gave him instructions and he followed without ever asking a question, he just did it. We had her in MAS trousers and ready to transport before my partner had even checked in with base and did his stuff in the ambulance. The girl's leg was a mess and foot as almost torn off.
The doc said it was our swift response time and getting her into those trousers right away imobilizing her that saved her foot. Thank God that child still has 2 legs today. Some really gross things do have a happy ending.

My son pulled an 85 lb glass top table on him when he was 2 and it landed on his forehead (it could have been worse) and as I ran to catch it I saw as it hit and watched it split his head. It was like in slow motion and then all of a sudden there was blood everywhere. I did not deal with that one as well. Something about it being my own child. Within 2 days he no longer had a nose..his face was totally flat due to the swelling...and black and blue/purple. Poor kid.