be more confident

What the hell, I’ve actually got something to Blog today.

Today was totally odd.

Since this school year started last week, I’ve been riding my bike to school each day. My bike is a mile and a half from the campus at my grandparents house. Today I was running late for my first class, so I decided that I would park my car over at J&B’s and just walk to class. It would be a little bit quicker this way. So I park my car, and take off walking. As I’m nearing 21st and Boston BAM, a minivan got T-Boned by a jeep. The minivan was going north on Boston and the jeep was going east on 21st (This is important for later). The minivan is turned around 180, and the jeep had punched in the driver side. The jeep goes into the yard of a corner house after hitting the lightpole and killing a tree. I was 10 yards away from this and it happened instantly.

Crazy.

I immediately ran across the street, threw my bag down, and went to the minivan people. I really had it set in my head why I would check them first.
1_ I initially saw that there were more people in the minivan than the jeep. 2 vs 1. Mini-wins.
2_ The minivan got creamed. Mini-lost
3_ The minivan didn’t cause the wreck (This is a big one for me). I saw the wreck decided the minivan people didn’t deserve what happened. Sympathy vote goes to mini.

Alright, I’m at the minivan, I look inside. 1 adult male driver dazed/moaning, 1 adult female passenger dazed, and 1 female toddler (in carseat). I crawl into the van from the broken window. I check the little girl, she’s okay, said she had an “Ouch” ... I asked where and she showed me her finger. A tiny cut on her finger. Whew. The man on the other hand was trying to slump over and pass out. I made him sit up and checked him out. He was bleeding in several places from the head (this was from deep glass cuts) The window behind him had shattered on impact (you could probably think of it as 42 mph glass imbedded in your head. That is if you’re a physics dork… both cars going at 30MPH). One of the gashes on the back of his head was from hitting the seatbelt adjuster on the side.

So he’s doing somewhat okay after a minute, realizing what has happened. He said he blacked out for a second and couldn’t remember what had happned. His wife was doing good at keeping him talking while I took his vitals. She had a cool British accent. The wife was doing well too, she wouldn’t stop moving around trying to phone her work. Okay.

So they’re okay, I’ll go look at the individual from the jeep. The door is open and she’s up and walking around. wtf. Not a scratch, just had a bit of glass dust on her.

I go back to the minivan and stabilize the driver’s neck, he got the brunt of the impact. There was woman who came and sat on the other side of the little girl and kept her talking. Cool. So we did that for a little bit until the paramedics got to us. Paramedics start doing their thing so I get out of the way. The officer arrives and is going around to everyone trying to find a witness other than those who were directly involved. I told him what happened and he said, “Humph, let me go ask her again.” She stated to the officer that she had been the one going down Boston on the right-of-way. Bitchface. You could TELL by the accident how it happened by giving it a little thought process. Driver side door was hit on the minivan. If it were the van that was going eastbound its passenger side would have been hit.

Went inside of the home of the house that the accident killed the tree and washed the blood off my hands. Asked the officer if he needed me anymore, and went extremely late to class. All well, I got to practice some skills.

Since my medic training in the Army, I have only (thankfully?) had to really use my training civilian side. The first had been in Arkansas/Missouri to a 1 vehicle accident (she ran into a mountain(?!)). I was one of the first to react and help put the injured person vitals together and get her stablilized. I was fresh out of my training so I had it pretty much together.

I complain at my unit Battle Assemblies that “If we don’t use the skills we trained for, you lose it.” And it rings true to a lot of stuff: IV sticks, patient care, drill & ceremony, marksmanship, ect…. Today a LOT came back to me when I was helping out those folks, which is pretty damn cool. All in all what this entry has to do with my 43 Things, is that I think I’m confident enough in my skills and myself.

Maybe I’ll update something else sooner than 6 months.