TEANECK, N.J. — An EMT and bystanders used a blanket as a makeshift stretcher to move a patient having a heart attack, from the scene of 30-car pileup caused by icy roads to a waiting ambulance.
“Sometimes you have to improvise,” EMT Michael Rothschild told the Cliffview Pilot. “One thing I’ve learned through 6,000-plus calls is that there are no textbook cases.”
Icy road conditions caused multiple motor vehicle crashes and medical calls for Teaneck Volunteer Ambulance Corps, including the 30-car pileup Rothschild and his partner responded to.
“My partner was taking care of our first couple of patients and I went to look for others,” he said. He saw a man in the rear seat of a car that had symptoms of a heart attack, and knew he had to get him out right away.
“I had no equipment and the only thing I could think of was to make a sled and drag him over the ice to the ambulance,” Rothschild said. “I asked people in their cars if anyone had a blanket.”
He and bystanders dragged the 58-year-old man, one of 16 people injured in the Sunday morning crash, more than a quarter-mile down icy Route 95 to an ambulance. He was taken to a hospital by the Teaneck Volunteer Ambulance Corps.