I was looking for mag wheels and found this

[jabba]

I was looking for Mag wheels on the internet when I came across this on the search engine. It is a bloody good read and a reminder off what can happend when things go bad. So when you are driveing with a bit of enthusieasam allways allow for the unexpected. Please read and learn. Also the links dont work

Matt


Mag wheels and Daggers

What was it about Saturday nights that I loved. Was it the fights, stabbings, shootings, drug overdoses, or a miriad of other shit that dribbled on till the wee hours of Sunday morning. Probably a combination of them all. The best fun on Saturday nights, was the weekly special; the big fat car into a pole. Guaranteed this would happen once a week in my area, and it was lottery as to who went to it.

This night happened to be my turn. woohoo !

So, me and this guy Dave were working together for the night. He had been in the job longer than I had, which was nice (I'd been training Probationers for about 12 months solid before this).

We we're cruizin the streets of Bankstown when we get THE call.

"Sydney calling car 803. 803 do you copy" ?

"Yeah 803, we hear ya. You call, we haul" (my partner fancied himself as a bit of a radio jock)

"Thanks 803, got an MVA (Motor Vehicle Accident n00bs) down on Rookwood road for ya, just outside the golf course.

"No worries, we know where it is. Hold our case details and we'll get 'em later".

Now being a wet night, and with myself behind the wheel, an emergency run was always the goods when the road was a little slippery. What fun ! 6 or 7 minutes of rippin it up through the streets with no traffic, sliding through the corners etc etc. Nothing but joy :P

As I pulled up to the scene, I could see a lonely cop car pointing us to the prang. What I didn't see till it was almost too late was the power pole which lay down over the road. Nearly hit the bastrd too !

I pulled up behind this car, a maroon Commodore with the ol' "P" plates on the back. Typical ! The picture didn't look right from the start. That pole we nearly hit was laying on the road about 100 meters behind us. They must have been travelling pretty quick. It was easy to see that they'd lost controll and hit the pole, and as most of the damage was to the passenger side, we focussed our attention there.

As we walked around the other side of the car, it was plain to see that this smash was a nasty one. The copper already mentioned he thought the guy in the middle position, back seat was dead, and the bloke we found on the ground wasn't having a great time either.

There was this young asian fella sort of wedged under the car. Now before become too invloved with this bloke, I'll give a quick scene assesment to give you the big picture.

Quickly looked inside the car to see 5 asian youths (2 in front, 3 in back). Guy in the middle was dead. I.m guessing he snapped his neck. Rear right passenger (female) possible fractured pelvis and clavicle, concussion and abdominal bruising (classic seatbelt trauma). The 2 males in the front were fine. Not a scratch !

Between the 2 ambos (me and Dave) we took about 3 minutes to asses all 5 patients and prioritise our work load. Dave nicked off for more equipment and gave operations a quick run down of how many patients we had, live wires down, fuel on the road, how many more blood busses we'd need etc etc.

I left the chic in the back alone as she was awake enough to maintain her own airway, and got cracking on the fella under the car.

Turns out he wasn't trapped under there. It just happened to be where he landed. He was out cold though, so treating him was easy. Unconcious patients never complain :P

With the help of Dave and a few more hands that had now shown up, we stabilised his neck and pulled him out from under the car. I cut his shirt and pants off (what was left of it anyway) and found some nasty wounds. He had a gnarly series of fractures to his left femur, and 2 deep lacerations to the right sub-clavicular region (just below the collar bone). They almost looked like stab wounds, and given his nationality and the area he was in, I wouldn't have been suprised if they were stab wounds.

Now, for reasons I can't remember, I looked over at the car and noticed the rear left mags had shattered. The spokes of the wheel where sticking out like daggers, and the reason behind his chest injuries came to me like a shining light.

Turns out (and I figured half of this out through hindsight) that the car had side swiped the poled, bumping the back door off, the guy didn’t have a seatbelt on, and was ejected from the cabin. As part of the impact, the mags snapped when they hit the gutter, the guy got pulled under the car, and dragged along for 100m or so before the car and his body came to rest against the gutter as can be seen in link 1.

http://www.users.bigpond.net.au/nodnerb/crash.jpg

Now, the significance of the mags snapping, was that he was dragged under the wheel at some point, and the protruding spokes penetrated his chest like two large daggers. This caused injury to the top part of his lung, resulting in a pneumothorax (punctured lung), which is not good. The fractures in his leg must have come from being trampled by the car as well. To boot, he must have had a wicked closed head injury, signaled by his dilated pupils that were un-reactive to light. Suffice to say, he was not very well !

As more back up arrived, other patients were attended to. The Paramedic unit made a bee line for our bloke, and “Doc” immediately hit the dirt to get a tube down the guys throat (pictured laying down at the top end of the body).

We finished prepping this guy for transport, Doc shoved a cannula into the blokes chest to prevent the pnuemothorax from tensioning (which pushes against the heart and causes cardiac arrest), and we we’re off to Westmead at greyhound pace. In total, we had actually spent 45 mins on scene treating this guy before he was ready for transport. It felt like about 5 minutes. Other than some basic life support on the way to hospital, there wasn’t much else to be done. We handed over to the trauma team at Westmead, and our job was done (except for cleaning up the back of our car which was a bloody mess).

I found out the next morning that our guy had died in theatres that night from a massive bleed to the brain. Couldn’t be stopped unfortunately.

Upon hearing that, I wandered down to the morgue to pay my friend a visit, and chaeck up on the progress of last night patient. As I expected “Moe the Mortician” (as he was affectionately known) had wasted no time investigating cause of death. He had the chest completely open, innards removed, the top of the skull cut off with the brain laying in a bowl next to the body. It was easy to see where the bleed to the brain was. A piece of skull had been pushed in and had sliced one of the main arteries. Ouch !

I saw the holes in the chest from the inside caused by the mag wheel, which Moe was very excited to hear about. He knew everything that happened except that. It was the one thing he hadn’t been able to piece together yet.

(here some more picture too)
http://www.users.bigpond.net.au/nodnerb/crash1.jpg
the girl with the fractured pelvis. I won’t explain the body under the sheet !
http://www.users.bigpond.net.au/nodnerb/crash2.jpg
Lots of fireman standing around pointing at things. The smokies aren’t much use at these things, except for having bloody huge lights, and the willingness to carry anything you ask them too. (I’m not dissin them, they’re a great help when you need them).

So, as you can see, there wasn’t much to it in terms of a story, so I guess sharing this one has more of a lesson within rather than entertainment.

The moral of the story ?

Seatbelts ! No doubt it probably would have save this guy’s life had he been wearing one. I can’t speak for driving around recklessly, as I do that myself. The difference I guess, is that I’ve had years of practice and advanced driving courses to get me out of a tight situation should I come across something at speed.