THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 9, 1994 TAG: 9410070295
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 03 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Town Talk
LENGTH: Medium: 79 lines
Etta Bright, a grandmother who lives in Northwest Chesapeake, offers a cautionary tale about the quick-thinking professionalism of three Chesapeake paramedics and a motorist who impeded the progress of an ambulance, causing injury to the three and almost causing severe injury to an infant.
Paramedics Terry King and Les Rouse, out of the St. Brides Fire Station No. 7, received an emergency phone call at about 9 p.m. Sept. 27 concerning a 12-month-old child who was experiencing a seizure because she was choking.
In such emergency/crisis calls, the paramedic team will often tap a firefighter to drive the ambulance while the two take care of the patient, King said. On that evening Rouse and King had firefighter Bobby Hoffman, from Fire Station No. 5, drive the ambulance.
As Hoffman was speeding down Battlefield Boulevard en route to the Children's Hospital of the King's Daughters in Norfolk with lights flashing and sirens blazing, Rouse and King were working feverishly to get their patient, Bria Harris, to breathe.
They had put a tube down her throat and were working on her breathing when they came to the intersection of Battlefield Boulevard and Volvo Parkway.
``A woman in a car failed to stop for the ambulance, and the ambulance had to swerve to avoid hitting her,'' Bright said.
``Everyone else stopped, but this one car pulled out in front of us,'' King confirmed.
With deft driving, Hoffman avoided what seemed like an inevitable crash, but his maneuver caused both King and Rouse to tumble in the ambulance.
``Les went into the (ambulance's) wall, and I was thrown back and had to jump to avoid the IV line,'' King said. ``Before we knew it we were lying side-by-side on the floor. We realized we had an accident, and we knew we had to tend to the child as quickly as we could.''
``These two men didn't think about their own safety, they just went back to work on my grandbaby,'' Bright said.
King said the child was not breathing, her breathing tube had come loose and medical debris was strewn all over the floor.
``While one of us was checking the other for bleeding or injuries the other was working on the child,'' King said. ``We're both very aggressive patient care givers. We give it our best shot every call.''
King suffered abrasions and contusions to his head and neck and severely sprained his wrist. His partner sustained injuries to his back and the back of his head.
Both came back to work just a few days ago, and King still wears a brace on his wrist.
``At that time we didn't really feel our injuries; we were just concerned for the child,'' King said. ``We had to do some fast assessments and figure out what was important.''
The ambulance had to pull over to the side of the road on Interstate-64 to re-administer the tube to the child and work on her breathing. The emergency vehicle finally arrived at the hospital. Little Bria was released from the hospital on Sept. 26 in fine shape.
``I commend that ambulance crew 100 percent; they did an excellent job'' Bright said. ``All they cared for was her well-being. And later that night, they called the hospital back to make sure she was all right.''
Bright and King said the incident could have been avoided if people only paid attention.
``I'm concerned about people not getting out of the way of an ambulance,'' Bright said. ``In this case, the ambulance people were needlessly injured and my grandbaby was in danger.''
``We see it all the time,'' King added. ``Most times people just panic and slam on the brakes. They need to get off on the right side of the road, out of the way. Most modern cars are so well built that they can block out a lot of outside noise. Many people have their windows rolled up, their air conditioners on or have their radios very loud and they never hear us.
The moral of the story?
Chesapeake has an excellent and caring group of paramedics, and motorists should pay more attention to emergency vehicles.
One more thing: King said the woman who caused the accident was finally arrested.
- Eric Feber by CNB