In another life many years ago, I was a volunteer firefighter and a paramedic. There were probably twenty to thirty volunteers, and two of them were women. These two women were always willing to do whatever it took, including going into a fully involved structure, but we tried to avoid that. I am sure that they could have handled it, but it does take a lot of strength to pull hoses and move heavy objects, and there were usually enough young men to go inside.
Where they were most valuable was on medical runs. They stayed calm, and it seemed that the victims were more at ease under the care of a woman. This was especially so one terrible night. We were called out on a vehicle accident many miles from our station. At that time the stations in that rural community were sparse and very far apart. Each station had a large georgraphic territory that often became a problem with the speed of arrival.
We finally arrived on the scene about two o’clock in the morning. A driver had lost control and, after having hit a ditch on one side of the road, the car rolled over several times till it hit a wooden power pole on the other side of the road. The impact broke the pole into, and it was leaning over the car with live wires. We had to carefully approach the car to avoid letting the wires come into contact with the car.
The driver was a young boy who was dead at the scene. The only other victim we found was a young girl who had broken through the rear window with her head, and was, surprisingly, conscious and hanging upside down with only her head suspended through the rear window. She had probably been in that situation for close to an hour before we arrived.
The captain radioed for the power company to come and kill the power. We knew that it would take a long time for that to happen, and the girl needed immediate attention. While several of us were reluctant to approach that smoldering upside down car with live power lines just inches away, one of the women, Marie, walked right up to the car and cradled the girls head and began to calm her down.
We learned from that girl that there were four people in the car, not two. We began to search the long crash scene, and eventually found the other two victims, also deceased. So she was the only survivor out of the four, and her chances did not look good. It was impossible to fully assess her condition under these circumstances.
Through the two hours that it took us to finally extricate her from the crash, after the power company had arrived and cut the power, Marie stayed right there holding up the girl’s head and keeping her calm. Keeping a victim calm is important. It can help avoid a state of shock, which can be fatal. The girl kept calling Marie “Marty.” I will never forget how many times she called out that name. The girl miraculously survived with minor injuries.
As long as I was a volunteer with that station, and it was a number of years, I often told Marie how impressed I was with her bravery and compassion. She always said the same thing. “Oh, don’t be silly. If I hadn’t been there, one of you would have done the same thing.” I am not so sure. And even if one of us had stepped up, we could not have demonstrated the same calm assurance that Marie did.
Some of those volunteers were very big and very strong. They came in handy when brute strength was required. But what I saw that night was a real strength that I have seldom seen since.
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