By Megan Hollern
Have you recently heard about the little 2-year-old girl ran over by a lawn mower in Pinellas county, Florida?
Well, it’s making national news because this little girl and her family are amazingly strong!
This was one of the most heroic and lifesaving calls I have ever had the honor of assisting on, and, yes, I say honor, because all our God-given skills and talents came and aligned in the right way to save this girl’s life.
This one particular evening, I was working as the north county supervisor. I heard a call go out for lacerations and more notes involving a lawn mower. I rushed out and over to the scene in a three minute response time, where I noted my assistant supervisor as the paramedic on the ambulance and the fire crews involved.
The police department was also on scene and assisting as we called for a help and shut down the road for an LZ. I used my vehicle to help secure the roadway, set up and help with the crew at the LZ.
The patient care this little girl received that day was second to none. From community neighbor nurses using pressure on her amputated legs, to tourniquets quickly controlling bleeding, IV therapy and even use of paralytics by flight crew, all came forth with excellent patient care and teamwork.
The call goes beyond teamwork in patient care as we were there to comfort family members on scene, offer rides to the hospital, call the hospital for progress and stay updated on her with all the news reports and follow her progress.
The fire department, police department and our ambulance crew that day attended 2 CISM classes to help get us through this event.
Thank you to so many people involved and so many agencies — this is the true essence of teamwork.
Teamwork doesn’t just happen one day on that particular call, but contiues after the call with follow-up, CISM teams and being forever connected through this one lifesaving call that could have gone another way if the teamwork wasn’t there and everything didn’t fall into place so perfectly.