One of the worst things about this job is having to work at weekends. I’m always acutely aware of the things I could be doing when instead I am rising at 5am to go and sit in a stuffy control room wearing green and talking to idiots, timewasters and the occasionally critically ill person. My general procedure for working Saturdays is to sit with a glum look on my face moaning “The football will be kicking off about now… and now my friends will be in the pub… and now they’ll be out clubbing… and POOR ME”.
And then sometimes, something happens to make you stop feeling sorry for yourself, and that there are much worse places you can be.
An ordinary family, consisting of a man and a woman in their late twenties and their ten month old son, who apparently were not similarly cursed with weekend working, were on a busy single carriageway A-road on the outskirts of our patch. Perhaps they were returning from a picnic in the forest or a day by the beach. Dad was driving and Mum was sitting in the back seat with baby on her lap.
Going the other way on the road was a black taxi.
Who knows what happened to make the family’s car career into the path of the taxi? Perhaps baby grapped at Dad’s hair, causing him to momentarily lose concentration. Perhaps Dad was distracted by the news that Portsmouth had won the FA cup. Maybe he swerved to avoid a squirrel. Whatever it was, it was enough to make the two vehicles meet head on when both were travelling at 70mph. The taxi driver was jerked viciously in his seat, hitting his head against the steering wheel and slumping forward, semi conscious. Mum crunched into the seat in front of her, and felt a crack in her spine followed by the contrast of the numbness in her legs and the agonising pain of her splintered arm. The unsecured baby, meanwhile flew unimpeded into the front of the car, smashing his head against the windscreen, shattering the glass and collapsing in a bloody heap on the bonnet, just in front of his shellshocked father.
Before the FRU paramedic even touched the patients he phoned control for urgent back up. Three ambulances, preferably paramedic crews, and the helicopter, please. Unfortunately, the helicopter was out, so a Delta Alpha was sent instead - that is, an on-call HEMS doctor from their home address in a blue light car. The FRU reported that the baby had a GCS of 3 (ie. was totally unconscious), that he had a head injury and that one pupil was completely blown (indicative of brain damage).
Three ambulances arrived on scene, their blue lights flashing and sirens blaring, and over the next hour, three ambulances left the scene, one by one.
The first ambulance contained the baby. The baby was now in cardiac arrest. The massive head injury he’d suffered had proved too much, and there was nothing anyone could do. Perhaps the only reason he was taken to hospital, rather than being pronounced dead at the scene, was to show the parents that everything that could be done was being done.
The second ambulance contained the taxi driver. With a serious, possibly life threatening head injury, he had little idea of what was going on, which was perhaps a blessing in disguise.
The final ambulance to leave the scene contained Mum and Dad. Of course, they weren’t anyone’s mum and dad any more, but they didn’t know that yet. Mum also had very little idea of what was happening. Collared and boarded, all she knew was that her body didn’t feel right, that pain was everywhere and her baby was not with her.
Seated in the same ambulance, clutching a compress to a dripping wound on his head, watching the paramedics work on his wife, silent, in disbelief, was Dad. He was conscious and alert and not in any real pain. He’d been the lucky one - the only person to escape from the crash without life threatening injuries. Yet his life would be ruined by this family day out just as much as if he had been the one who died.
Edit Since this incident has reached the national news and is now the subject of a criminal investigation, I need to add a bit of a disclaimer. In case it isn’t obvious, this post is a dramatisation of events based on bits of information relayed back to the control room. I was not there and therefore do not and cannot know exactly what happened that day. While all information given is true to the best of my knowledge, please do not accept it as gospel.
The police are still investigating the cause of the crash and the baby’s death.
May 17th, 2008 at 9:08 pm
This is why I’m so fucking rabid about baby carseats. Really, rabid.
May 17th, 2008 at 9:12 pm
I’m still crying about this. BTW, they *are* still mum and dad. They are. No amount of deadness can undo that.
May 17th, 2008 at 9:21 pm
Re car seats, I totally agree with you and I hope this post makes that point to any other parents out there who take similar risks. I deliberately didn’t say anything in the post because I didn’t want to be critical of the parents when they have been punished enough. And re your other point, still being mum and dad, yes, in their hearts they are, but in a practical way (and you tend to think practically doing a job like this, or else you’d go mad) - they’re not, because their baby is gone.
May 17th, 2008 at 9:24 pm
A friend-of-a-friend type link knows someone who knows someone who was the attending police officer at a scene where the baby WAS in a car seat.
They’d just undone the straps, while moving, to clean up vomit, because the baby was sick. The cleaning up led to the crash.
May 17th, 2008 at 9:52 pm
Heartbreaking. I feel anger at the senseless loss of life, but the parents are going to have to live with this, one way or another. for the rest of their lives. Nothing I can say right now will make them feel any worse than they already do, but when oh when will the message get through. How many innocents need to die before people realise that children do not bounce?
Would you object if I post a link to this post on a couple of other sites? If this post makes ONE parent strap their child in properly it would at least give a little purpose to that poor little babys life.
Fly High Little One xxx
May 17th, 2008 at 9:54 pm
Sure, link where you like…
May 17th, 2008 at 10:24 pm
*shakes head in disbelief* why oh why was that baby not in a car seat?
Ok so it may have been the case the straps were undone to clean vomit, but was it really worth it?
Whats better a baby and seat covered in vomit or a dead baby? I know which Id chose and have done many times too, my son is constantly sick on his car seat and as harsh as it sounds, it can always wait until we can stop safely.
Luckily my mother is also a paramedic, so I have had in car safety drummed into me from a very early age. So this isnt the first time Iv heard something so horrific and sad like this that could so easily of been avoided.
May 17th, 2008 at 10:49 pm
I find it incredible that, away from this family’s particularly horrific incident, so many parents will happily have children sat on their laps - front as well as back of the car.
And, also, dogs perched on parcel shelves.
Articles, never mind living creatures, left on parcel shelves can become deadly missiles. Please remember to remove things form the shelf when out and about.
Very very sad story, Mark. Hoping you’re ok. Despite being removed from the scene i know that it can felt in the control room.
May 18th, 2008 at 12:18 am
What a senseless waste. I am a volunteer trainer for Brake, the Road Safety Charity, and the only way I am qualified to do my job is that I lost my Dad in an horrific Road crash and I go and talk to to the police Family Liaison Officers about it. Knowing what I do, those parents will suffer enough.
Another thing I can never understand is when I see vehicles stopped on the hard shoulder of a motorway allowing their child to take a bathroom break. I wish I could tell them what I know about losing someone in a way no less horrific, sudden and violent than a brutal murder. Only I don’t have the compounding factor of being responsible for stopping where I did, or being responsible for strapping them in. That, would be too much for me to bear.
May 18th, 2008 at 12:31 am
When my brother was a junior house officer in A&E a family was brought in. A dying woman in labour; an expectant father, driving over the speed limit while on a ban; and a never-to-be-born baby with its head smashed in the womb. His recounting this experience has haunted me several years.
May 18th, 2008 at 1:51 am
Awesomely written, and giving me thoughts about my own children’s safety whilst driving in my car.
Don’t worry they were always in car seats and now they all were seat belts.
May 18th, 2008 at 8:28 am
I think these parents have suffered enough without passing judgement I doubt they would advocate it now. None of us know how our decisions will turn out - will i cross the road here instead of walking 10m up the road to use the crossing??
However, re baby being sick in car. Our child has severe reflux and heart defects his vomitting can be lifethreatening as it stops his breathing. So whilst I wouldnt undo his seatbelt in most cases i feel it is not nice to judge a friend of a friend for whom you do not know the full story.
fly high little one x x
Mr M you obviously do a very good job and are to be applauded.
May 18th, 2008 at 8:51 am
What a tragic story.
Re. baby being sick in the car. I don’t wish to judge the parents now that they have lost their child, but if they were going to unstrap and clean the baby and the car they should not have done it at 70 mph! It reminds me of a news story I recently read on car accidents because people were changing into their work clothes while speeding down highways.
Mark, hope your double-shifts end soon and you can return to your partying ways.
May 18th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
OMG the poor family, but why oh why was the baby not in a car seat.. Its makes me mad the times I have seen toddlers clambering over backs seats of cars too,, its totally pointless..
Rest in peace little man,,
May 18th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
How sad. I used to ask my mum, what did we do as baby’s children back in the 70’s. It was just common place then though wasn’t it. Now I just look at people with their baby on their lap in the front of a car or children climbing around the back and makes me feel sick.
My eldest is 3, and on the 2 times we have forgotten to strap her in, she starts shouting “my seat belt, my seat belt”. thankgoodness for that.
May 18th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
How sad. I used to ask my mum, what did we do as baby’s and children back in the 70’s. It was just common place then though wasn’t it. Now I just look at people with their baby on their lap in the front of a car or children climbing around the back and makes me feel sick.
My eldest is 3, and on the 2 times we have forgotten to strap her in, she starts shouting “my seat belt, my seat belt”. thankgoodness for that.
May 18th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
How sad. I used to ask my mum, what did we do as baby’s and children back in the 70’s. It was just common place then though wasn’t it. Now I just look at people with their baby on their lap in the front of a car or children climbing around the back and makes me feel sick.
My eldest is 3, and on the 2 times we have forgotten to strap her in, she starts shouting “my seat belt, my seat belt”. thankgoodness for that.
May 18th, 2008 at 4:21 pm
Dear God..
My stomach is still churning at that post, I don’t know how you do it. I honestly don’t. Sometimes I think I’d like to go into that kind of job, and then realise I’d never be able to deal with everything that happens, I’d burn out really quickly.
Reading Gert’s comment just further honed in the reasons for car seats, and seat belts… When will people learn?
May 18th, 2008 at 7:47 pm
I do not have children,but am a strong advocate of car seats and seat belts
for all ages. As described in the situation,the parents had their child in a car seat and did what,I believe,most parents or other caregivers would have done,which is to say”Try to clean the child up without taking them out of the car seat”. I believe the most horrendous consequence of all has been visited upon this family,death of a child and potenetial permenant diability of the Mother. No other punishment or ridicule in my opinion needs to be heaped upon them. They have enough to last a life time.
May 19th, 2008 at 8:41 am
This one made the Beeb…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7407459.stm
May 19th, 2008 at 11:37 am
Joanne, my parents were reagrded as odd in the extreme, because even in 1972, they were strapping me into a proper carrycot harness, and all three of us kids were ALWAYS restrained in car seats in the back. My parents were very conscious of road safety, even back then.
This post has left me very sad and shaken up. I will also link and re-post on a parenting forum I moderate, if that’s OK with you, Mark.
May 20th, 2008 at 8:00 am
This is really, really sad but i can’t help but think that is only made sadder by the fact that possibly all this tragedy could have been avoided if they used a proper carseat and seat belts.
This coming from a guy that survived a 90Km/h slide followed by a couple of rolls (ending up with the car upside down in a ditch) with just a minor scratch on the forehead only because he was wearing his seatbelts (and was amazingly lucky).
We can only hope that from this tragedy something good comes and more people realize that seat belts and carseats save lives.
Marcello
May 20th, 2008 at 6:19 pm
This reminds me of a similar case when I was a junior doctor. A family of 6 (4 children) had a head on collision. 3 of the kids were strapped in - they used to “take turns” to be the 3 wearing seatbelts because it was only a 3 seater back-seat. The 4th child was killed; the other 5 menmbers of the family walked away with minor injuries. I see families all the frigging time without car seats. All the time. If you ever go to a certain NW London hospital I reckon that 90% of the families driving through the car park gates do not have their kids strapped in. I am so rude if I have a family come in after an accident where the kid has bruises (luckily just a minor accident) because they weren’t in a seat. I actually wind down my window at lights and tell people to put their children in a car seat - and I am about the least confrontational person ever in real life. But it’s stupid and, well, criminally stupid… (I’m not saying it’s always easy though. My daughter used to make a terrible fuss about her car seat when she was about 2. We literally had to wrestle her into it. Every time. It got to the point where it would take ages to leave because she would fight so hard not to be strapped in. Then one time a couple of Community Support Officers wre walking past the driveway. I asked them in and asked them to tell her that she had to go in a seat strapped in or the police would be very angry. She never made a fuss again).
May 20th, 2008 at 11:06 pm
That’s one of the most upsetting things I’ve ever read.
May 22nd, 2008 at 10:36 pm
[...] So instead I will leave you with a post that will at least - I hope - remind you all to use seat belts in your cars. All the time. [...]
May 22nd, 2008 at 10:59 pm
One of my colleagues died recently in a car accident on his US holiday because he didn’t have a seatbelt on.
It’s shocking that people still don’t understand the danger of not using them.
May 23rd, 2008 at 1:45 am
This is why I get so upset and want to just jerk parents out of their cars and beat the crap out of them! It’s one of my pet peeves. Sorry to hear about this case. Unfortunately, it happens all the time.
May 26th, 2008 at 9:16 am
Hi there, I just thought I would mention about a website called http://www.paramedictv.com (sorry, I’m no good at doing links but i think that is the right web address). I found it through a link from the paramedics diary blog. Anyway, it has a video on there called ‘Room to live’. I found it incredibly poignant and moving and something that I think should be broadcast the world over. It is basically promoting how incredibly important it is to wear a seatbelt. I have 2 boys and I know I would be lying if I said that I had never been a culprit of undoing straps to sort one of them out when they were little. I am due to start uni this September on one of the London paramedic courses and this kind of call is probably my worst fears as I have no idea how I will handle it. Blood guts gore, I think I have a pretty strong stomach, but when it comes to kids? - becoming a paramedic has been my dream for what seems like an eternity but I can honestly say that until I am there with the situation in front of me, I don’t think I am worthy of passing judgement on whether I think I will be any good at it at all.
Great to have you back by the way
Maz
May 30th, 2008 at 9:33 pm
I was at the scene of a devastating accident in Australia back in 1984, which showed just how effective a good rearward facing baby seat could be.
A semi-trailer had stopped for roadworks, while a small hatchback and a light van had stopped behind the truck. As they were all sitting there, a second semi-trailer drove into them from behind, never braking and doing 100-110km/h. (The driver was high as a kite on speed and Nodoz, a caffeine pill.)
The cab of the second truck came to rest in the rear of the first one, having crushed, driven over and rammed the two smaller vehicles into and under the first truck.
Rescue crews were able to get the driver of the second truck out reasonably quickly, but after that it was a very difficult and very messy job to find and extricate the people who had been in the car and van.
After a couple of hours, it was decided there were no survivors so most of the ambulance personnel, the doctor and the helicopter were sent away as it was now recovery and not rescue.
About 20 minutes after that, one of the SES rescue team thought he heard crying from what looked like a solidly crushed piece of wreckage. Further investigation confirmed the crying.
The rescue operation resumed, with the teams eventually finding and freeing a seat containing a young baby (only a few months, but I can’t remember exactly). Amazingly, the baby had not a scratch on it although the seat was cracked and dented in several places.
Our own kids have always been strapped into top-quality seats that fit the vehicles they’re in—even when it’s cost us several hundred pounds to replace the seats when we’ve changed cars. I have that image—and several like you describe—firmly graven in my mind, so there’s no way any child is going in my car unless they’re in a baby or child seat.
June 6th, 2008 at 10:25 am
You know, I went to the BBC and searched for “baby killed in crash” to find the original story. It made my stomach drop to see how many different stories came back.
June 14th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
[...] Source: What Maked You Do This Weekend? [...]
June 16th, 2008 at 11:27 am
I have always read you blog as my Husband & daughter used to work for Ambulance service. Glad you are back & although I have never commented before what I saw today will also send a chill through most persons. A women who had left her car parked on double yellows as there is limited room in center of town, goes to Bakery for breakfast fix. I watch her return to passenger side & wondered why she was struggling to get in, while the door is open i can see why. ON THE FLOOR -IN THE FRONT FOOTWELL was a Baby of about 4-6 mnths on a blanket .My daughters dogs travel better in harnesses! By the look of all the stuff around it’s a regular thing. She never picked it up, just hoisted a leg over the baby & begun texting on her phone whilst waiting for the driver! Lorries struggle to get through this section, It’s dustcart day.Who the hell can I report this to? have got the car reg & colour & make.
September 12th, 2008 at 11:02 am
As a Trauma Nurse here in the US, and a father of a nine month old, I cringed just reading this post. It really pisses me off to see children bouncing around in a car un-tethered. If the child had gotten sick, for God’s sake pull over.