Divine Intervention

     Just a little short story about the very first accident I ever worked as a paid EMT on the ambulance. I had experienced quite a few calls in the years as an explorer and a first responder, so i wasnt completely green, but there is something different about it when you roll out in the unit and are the one responsible for getting these people to the hospital. I was on the call with a man that had been an EMT for years and years before I came into the picture. I felt comfortable with him and relied on his experience to make me less nervous. 

     We responded to a one vehicle MVA (motor vehicle accident)  on the open highway not to far out of town. When we arrived, we found a car had run off the road and slid into a fence row, continuing down the fence row dragging it down the side of the car. The kicker was the momentum of the car threw the driver sideways across the seat, causing him to have his back hanging out of the car window as the barbed wire fence ran across him as the car slid. Needless to say, his back looked like hamburger. A helpful (read as idiot) bystander had grabbed the patient and pulled him up onto the highway. The one detail I will never forget about this call was.....Rain, and lots of it. It was pouring down on us in buckets as we pulled up to the scene. A group of ladies that were passing by, on their way to a prayer meeting I guess, had circled the patient in the highway and were holding a blanket or something in the air above him in an attempt to shield some of the rain. We pushed our way in to the patient, with the women all praying and jumping around...speaking in tongue so loud we couldn't hear what the patient was telling us. After several attempts to hear, my partner stands up and loudly tells the women.. "God sent us to take care of the patient, if you really want to help, pray for this rain to stop!" I chuckled in disbelief but continued to do my job. Without pause, the women switched gears and began to chant about the rain and asking for a pause in the weather. We were able to get the patient boarded and on the cot with all the extra hollering going on, and began rolling to the ambulance as the rain stopped. As we loaded the patient in the unit, I acknowledged  the ladies on scene and thanked them for their help. I assured them that the patient would be okay because they apparently had a hotline to the man upstairs. 

     So every time i step out of the unit, and walk towards my patient, I know that I am only a tool of a higher power, and that God is with me in my attempts to help reduce the suffering of the people I encounter.