It is February, 2014. I am 22 years old and I am about to graduate with a BSN. I am dating a man who loves Jesus. Though I'm not exactly sure how this all happened, I praise God it did. This is the time of my life I've always wanted to see. At this point, I've begun to make a life for myself. I have a place of my own, I pay my own bills, and I work my butt off. I don't always have time to do the things I want to do, but I make time for important things, and more than that, the people God has placed in my life.
I've become exceedingly aware of what matters and what doesn't in the past month. On February 4th, I witnessed an awful wreck. Out of respect for the victims, I'm not going to go into detail of what happened, or tell much about them, may they rest in peace…but I am going to tell how it has changed me.
That afternoon I left my clinical - weary and irritated from a long morning of less than ideal patients. I'd already been someone for a confused elderly woman to roll her eyes at as I explained her medications and the importance of finishing antibiotics. I'd already had to clean up multiple rounds of feces from different incontinent patients. I'd already felt like an idiot for blanking on what class of drug Olmesartan is (it's an ARB for hypertension, by the way). I'd basically already been a babysitter, a hand holder, and a just another student who tried to understand where the angry man, the confused woman, and everyone else I came in contact with was coming from that day.
I expected to be home in three minutes when I pulled out of the parking lot. That three minutes turned into three hours all because I heard a crash. When I saw what was making the noise, my heart sank. It was two vehicles colliding and then spinning apart. I immediately felt the need to pull over and try to help, or call 911, or something. I just knew I needed to do something, so I did all three. I dug my phone out of my backpack, pulled over, turned on my flashers, checked out the scene, and approached the vehicles. One person was alright so I went to the next vehicle. One was breathing, albeit gasping breaths, but breathing…and the other in that vehicle was not. This is where I'm not going to go into detail about what I saw because I want to show respect for the human being I saw pass away right in front of me in that intersection, and the one I tried to help, but learned that that person died as well while being transported to the hospital.
As I stood in that intersection surrounded by police, EMS, and firefighters I was still shell-shocked at the scene unfolding around me. Multiple people asked if I was okay, if I needed to talk to someone, did I need anything? Multiple people asked about my uniform that I was still wearing from clinical and what kind of nurse I wanted to be. All of these questions served to distract me from the tragedy that had just happened, and at the moment, I was fine with that. In the next few days, I realized just how greatly it had affected me. My heart was not as strong as I thought. The whole time I was there, people kept saying, "Oh, she's going to be a nurse. She works in an ER, she's seen people pass before." But when I see people pass, it's because they are already in a hospital with a problem that could potentially be fatal. I didn't see the initial event that brought about their death. When I see patients in the hospital, I know that there is a possibility that they may die. When I am driving to my home that is three minutes away, I don't expect that at all.
Thursday morning I drove to school. On my way to school I saw someone run a red light. When they ran that red-light, I was immediately back at the accident scene watching two souls live out their final moments on this earth. I cried. And for those of you who know me, I don't cry very often. That afternoon I called my mom. She talked me through what normally happens at a scene like the one I saw (she's a paramedic) because she has seen it all before. She told me I did good. She told me I did what I could, and she told me that sometimes all the medical equipment and knowledge in the world just isn't enough to save people if it's truly time for their souls to vacate this planet. I knew she was telling the truth, but it took until we did our disaster drill with the nursing school for me to realize she was right.
During our disaster drill we learned how to triage patients, how to label them as needing immediate care, delayed care, having minor injuries, and simply being dead. We learned to have the minor injuries wait, treat the worst patients first if they were viable, and leave the dead to God. Although it was a drill, I finally understood that I really did do all I could with the extremely limited resources I had. I'm still not sure exactly how God is using what I witnessed that day, but I am very grateful that He allowed me to be a peaceful presence to two souls as they passed from this world. I am very honored to have gotten to be there for those people, and it is something I will not soon forget. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away, and I pray often for all involved in that accident.
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