Sunday, September 23, 2007

Motorcycle accident

Nick and I decided to go to lunch today at Ruby Tuesday. On the way there about 1/2 block from the restaurant a guy on a motorcycle flew off going about 60mph. I am not sure what happened, he was with a bunch of other motorcycle riders, and they were riding 2 per lane, so maybe he hit handlebars with another. Anyway, we were on the frontage road next to the highway that it happened on. Suddenly cars were stopping and running out to this guy. I called 911, and literally within 30 seconds I could hear the police sirens. We were less than 1/2 mile from the police station. About 5 squad cars were there within 2-3 minutes.

Nick and I didn't want to be lookey-loos, so we went in the restaurant and ate our lunch. You could still see all the flashing lights from our booth. While Nick was at the salad bar, I went outside to see if the ambulance had arrived. It had, and I could see him laying on the road and the paramedics were working on him. I went back in, and ate my lunch. I wasn't hungry anymore, and I was shaky. They worked on him for about 1/2 hour before the ambulance took him to the hospital. I hope he is okay.

I have a weird reaction to ambulances sometimes. Not very often anymore, but every now and then, I still get teary eyed and shaky when I hear the sirens. Almost 6 years ago, my mother had a heart attack while recovering from hip replacement surgery at my house. I called the ambulance and like today, the police came first. They put her on oxygen, took her pulse, etc. When the ambulance came, they got her on a stretcher, and just as they were putting her in the ambulance, she went into cardiac arrest. I was in the front seat of the ambulance when it happened. The paramedic kept yelling her name, then they hooked her up to the crash cart and started shocking her. It's not like on television. Every time she was shocked she made this awful screaming noise. I was crying, and the police officer tried to make me go in the house, but I stayed there. (I wasn't getting in the way or anything, she just didn't want me to see it) They worked on her for 10-15 minutes before she had a pulse and we were finally able to drive to the hospital. I was horrified at how many people don't pull over for ambulances! She was rushed into the ER, and had no idea what was happening. I for some reason was really calm at that point and told her she had a heart attack, had gone into cardiac arrest, and that they were going to take care of her. I told her she would be okay and to behave herself in surgery. (That was my way of telling her not to die) One of the ER nurses told me I was really strong and that she appreciated it. She said patients don't need family members freaking out when they are going into surgery. So with that they took my mother into the cardiac unit and did an angioplasty on her and put in two stents. She was in the hospital for a couple of days, and came back to my house to recover for a couple of weeks. She is fine now--crazy, but alive.

3 comments:

Nessa said...

Def scary time and I am sorry it happened. I am glad your moma is doing good now :)

I read about scary accidents on a daily basis (insurance, go figure) I hope that guy is ok :(

Ron said...

Crazy happy to be alive. Thanks to you, you realize of course!

Walt said...

I have never understood why people refuse to yield the right of way to emergency vehicles. It's a major pet peeve of mine. And I don't mean to be ageist, but in my travels, it seems to me that the older the driver is, the less likely they are to pull over to let an ambulance or police car by.

Thank God the police and ambulance reacted as quickly as they did. When Ken had his accident a couple months ago, he waited over a half an hour for a police car to come (after 3 911 calls) and almost an hour for an ambulance, which he demanded after waiting for the police for so long. The odd thing was, his accident happened about 6 houses down the street from the hospital. Go figure.