However, the day before was another story. The story begins with some awesome sushi eating at Sushi Chocolate in Sunnyvale w/ Ray and Ed with in pouring outside. After lunch I went to Trader Joe's to go buy some salad for Norman and some other groceries for our dinner party at night still- it's still raining like crazy. Going back home southbound on 85, I see a pretty gnarly accident on the northbound side in the fast lane (I am unable to hop the median cause it splits into a ramp/overpass w/ the VTA lightrail moving through the middle. I immediately phone 911 and let them know the whole situation while I get off at the Blossom Hill exit and illegally flip a bitch and put the car going back northbound on 85. By the time I do this it's only been a minute after the crash and already a law enforcement unit is helping move traffic, but it wasn't who was dispatched. It was some police firearm instructors for the range and happened to be in a code 3 car! (I thank god they were there to help with scene safety).
I immediately got to work and realized there was only one injured person who was a 66 y.o lady in the driver's seat of the vehicle that was spun around facing oncoming traffic. The other couple only had some minor arm injuries. Her door was already opened and a bystander was trying to console her w/ a towel on her head to prevent her from getting wet by the rain? I have no idea why he did that cause as soon as I got there I removed it to get a good look at her and assess her. Told him to hold c-spine and showed him cause he already was kind of holding her head to calm her down, but it was definitely not c-spine. It was hard to get vitals on her while she was sitting awkwardly, but I did. Thank god for my Nonin Pulse Ox; her sats were kind of low at 93% so I put her on a non-rebreather at 15L. Her sats went up in the next two minutes to 99%. Her chief complaint was trouble breathing/SOB; but it was most likely positional. She had a open fracture to her left leg which I didn't even bother dealing with at the time. Her head was bleeding and so was her nose. She had a heavy MOI for trauma but was A&Ox4. Her pupils were quite constricted and a little bit sluggish to respond, but PERRL. The rest of her "kill zone" was not bleeding and unremarkable. She was getting on the freeway via a "loopty loop" onramp and as soon as she got to the entrance of the freeway she fishtailed and was hit by a car in the second lane which spun her, and the car continued laterally into the third/fast lane where she was hit again and then pinned onto the median. These two cars are very lucky because on the median you could see how high the tires actually went up the median (they almost fell over the overpass). Engine 12 and AMR arrive on scene along with CHP and we extricate her. I am completely soaked cause I have now been on scene for over 10 minutes and I wasn't wearing proper clothing for a rescue. After we swap her off my O2 to AMR's and get her on the stretcher I was able to complete the hand off and snap the photo below. I stayed on scene for about another 30 minutes until both cars were hauled off and debris was cleared because I was parked directly behind this mess. I was thanked by both AMR, fire, and CHP before taking off. I told them this was my first freeway rescue in the rain in a very, very long time, but they said I did awesome. I'll be the first to say that after working hospital care for so long, you kind of get used to it and forget all about your pre-hospital EMS training. I almost forgot scene safety and to put on my ANSI lime jacket and SAR helmet; thank you Engine 12 for keeping me from getting hit by a car. Also Santa Barbara County has different protocols on backboarding than Santa Clara..... similar but different- why can't we just standardize it nationwide?
And this concludes the story and as far as I know she was transported and treated at SCVMC's Level 1 Trauma Center.
