Emergencies happen anywhere and anytime, and sometimes, medical professionals find themselves in situations where they are the only ones who can help. Is There a Doctor in the House? is a Medscape Medical News series telling these stories.
A week earlier I'd had a heart surgery and was heading out for a post-op appointment when I saw it: I had a flat tire. It didn't make sense. The tire was brand new, and there was no puncture. But it was flat.
I swapped out the flat for the spare and went off base to a tire shop. While I was there, my surgeon's office called and rescheduled my appointment for a couple of hours later. That was lucky because by the time the tire was fixed, I had just enough time to get there.
The hospital is right near I-35 in San Antonio, Texas. I got off the freeway and onto the access road and paused to turn into the parking lot. That's when I heard an enormous crash.
I saw a big poof of white smoke, and a car barreled off the freeway and came rolling down the embankment.
When the car hit the access road, I saw a woman ejected through the windshield. She bounced and landed in the road about 25 feet in front of me.
I put my car in park, grabbed my face mask and gloves, and started running toward her. But another vehicle — a truck towing a trailer — came from behind to drive around me. The driver didn't realize what had happened and couldn't stop in time…
The trailer ran over her.
I didn't know if anyone could've survived that, but I went to her. I saw several other bystanders, but they were frozen in shock. I was praying, dear God, if she's alive, let me do whatever I need to do to save her life.
It was a horrible scene. This poor lady was in a bloody heap in the middle of the road. Her right arm was twisted up under her neck so tightly, she was choking herself. So, the first thing I did was straighten her arm out to protect her airway.
I started yelling at people, "Call 9-1-1! Run to the hospital! Let them know there's an accident out here, and I need help!"
The woman had a pulse, but it was super rapid. On first glance, she clearly had multiple fractures and a bad head bleed. With the sheer number of times she'd been injured, I didn't know what was going on internally, but it was bad. She was gargling on her own blood and spitting it up. She was drowning.
A couple of technicians from the hospital came and brought me a tiny emergency kit. It had a blood pressure cuff and an oral airway. All the vital signs indicated the lady was going into shock. She'd lost a lot of blood on the pavement.
I was able to get the oral airway in. A few minutes later, a fire chief showed up. By now, the traffic had backed up so badly, the emergency vehicles couldn't get in. But he managed to get there another way and gave me a cervical collar (C collar) and an Ambu bag.
I was hyper-focused on what I could do at that moment and what I needed to do next. Her stats were going down, but she still had a pulse. If she lost the pulse or went into a lethal rhythm, I'd have to start cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). I asked the other people, but nobody else knew CPR, so I wouldn't have help.
I could tell the lady had a pelvic fracture, and we needed to stabilize her. I directed people how to hold her neck safely and log-roll her flat on the ground. I also needed to put pressure on the back of her head because of all the bleeding. I got people to give me their clothes and tried to do that as I was bagging her.
The windows of her vehicle had all been blown out. I asked somebody to go find her purse with her ID. Then I noticed something…
My heart jumped into my stomach.
A car seat. There was an empty child's car seat in the back of the car.
I started yelling at everyone, "Look for a baby! Go up and down the embankment and across the road. There might have been a baby in the car!"
But there wasn't. Thank God. She hadn't been driving with her child.
At that point, a paramedic came running from behind all the traffic. We did life support together until the ambulance finally arrived.
Emergency medical services got an intravenous line in and used medical anti-shock trousers. Thankfully, I already had the C collar on, and we'd been bagging her, so they could load her very quickly.
I got rid of my bloody gloves. I told a police officer I would come back. And then I went to my doctor's appointment.
The window at my doctor's office faced the access road, so the people there had seen all the traffic. They asked me what happened, and I said, "It was me. I saw it happen. I tried to help." I was a little frazzled.
When I got back to the scene, the police and the fire chief kept thanking me for stopping. Why wouldn't I stop? It was astounding to realize that they imagined somebody wouldn't stop in a situation like this.
They told me the lady was alive. She was in the intensive care unit (ICU) in critical condition, but she had survived. At that moment, I had this overwhelming feeling: God had put me in this exact place at the exact time to save her life.
Looking back, I think about how God ordered my steps. Without the mysterious flat tire, I would've gone to the hospital earlier. If my appointment hadn't been rescheduled, I wouldn't have been on the access road. All those events brought me there.
Several months later, the woman's family contacted me and asked if we could meet. I found out more about her injuries. She'd had multiple skull fractures, facial fractures, and a broken jaw. Her upper arm was broken in three places. Her clavicle was broken. She had internal bleeding, a pelvic fracture, and a broken leg. She was 28 years old.
She'd had multiple surgeries, spent 2 months in the ICU, and another 3 months in intensive rehab. But she survived. It was incredible.
We all met up at a McDonald's. First, her little son — who was the baby I thought might have been in the car — ran up to me and said, "Thank you for saving my mommy's life."
Then I turned, and there she was — a beautiful lady looking at me with awe and crying, saying, "It's me."
She obviously had gone through a transformation from all the injuries and the medications. She had a little bit of a speech delay, but mentally, she was there. She could walk.
She said, "You're my angel. God put you there to save my life." Her family all came up and hugged me. It was so beautiful.
She told me about the accident. She'd been speeding that day, zigzagging through lanes to get around the traffic. And she didn't have her seatbelt on. She'd driven onto the shoulder to try to pass everyone, but it started narrowing. She clipped somebody's bumper, went into a tailspin, and collided with a second vehicle, which caused her to flip over and down the embankment.
"God's given me a new lease on life," she said, "a fresh start. I will forever wear my seatbelt. And I'm going to do whatever I can to give back to other people because I don't even feel like I deserve this."
I just cried.
I've been a nurse for 29 years, first on the civilian side and later in the military. I've led codes and responded to trauma in a hospital setting or a deployed environment. I was well prepared to do what I did. But doing it under such stress with adrenaline bombarding me…I'm amazed. I just think God's hand was on me.
At that time, I was personally going through some things. After my heart surgery, I was in an emotional place where I didn't feel loved or valued. But when I had that realization — when I knew that I was meant to be there to save her life, I also got the very clear message that I was valued and loved so much.
I know I have a very strong purpose. That day changed my life.
US Air Force Lt. Col. Anne Staley is the officer in charge of the Military Training Network, a division of the Defense Health Agency Education and Training Directorate in San Antonio, Texas.
Are you a medical professional with a dramatic story outside the clinic? Medscape Medical News would love to consider your story for Is There a Doctor in the House? Please email your contact information and a short summary to access@webmd.net.
Read more in the series:
An ED Nurse Crosses Busy Freeway to Save a Life
A Mid-Marathon Cardiac Arrest, a Doctor's Crisis of Confidence
Heart Doctor Saves a Man's Leg – and Life – On NYC Street
First time CPR: Med Students Jump in to Save a Friend