Wednesday, June 08, 2005

Tuesday Miracle - The Firewalker


There are a lot of things I've been thinking about blogging while I've been on the ambulance for the past two days. But, this will have to be THE blog entry for tonight.

I thought I was going to see my first burned-beyond-recognition, dead-at-the-scene, traumatic-death patient tonight when we responded to the last call.

There was smoke before we reached the scene. There was a ball of fire with a car so far inside of it that it didn't even look like there was a car there.

I was preparing myself for what I would see after the firefighters put out the flames. It was a BIG fire. The smoke was thick. The fire was making sounds. I wanted to approach, but I slowed down because I was thinking 'what if it blows up?' and 'what if things fly out of it if it explodes?'.

The medic said, "Get him into the truck!" and turned over a young man to the EMT and me. He had been the only person in the car when it was struck. He was in the car when it began to burst into flames. He got out of the car and ran away seconds before it became a fireball.

At the hospital, I told him, "You can get a tattoo saying, 'I walked from the fire'." An emergency nurse said it better, "Firewalker."

Life is amazing and fragile. It can be gone in a flash.

So many things could have happened differently that would have resulted in that fireball being the scene of tragedy for that young man, and those who know him and love him, rather than a reminder of the miracle of life.

Fortunately for everyone, the Firewalker is still among us.

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