I was actually off duty that day and was sitting in the drive-thru at McDonalds waiting for my lunch. To my right is a huge intersection that actually intersects the city with the highway, so lots of wrecks happen there. I heard this noise that sounded like brakes locking up and turned just in time to see a truck plow into the driver side door of an older model car, an old Lincoln or close to it. I left the drive-thru and drove over to the accident.

When I got over to the car, I could see the driver, an older lady about 75+. She was in the passenger side floor board under the dash. I couldn't get in her side because she was half way against the door, so I had to have someone help me pry the driver side door open enough for me to climb inside. I got in and started climbing over broken glass trying to get to my patient, but I ran out of room, so I had to lay  over the arm rest and try to treat her lying down. I was so twisted and she was rolled into a ball, that I was really unable to do much for her until help came, but I did manage to hold a half decent C-spine on her.

I was more concerned about her mental status than her injuries (she had massive injuries that I couldn't take care of, but I was worried about her slipping in and out of consciousness.) I started talking to her and letting her know that I was there to help. I asked her name and told her mine. She was trying so hard to answer me, but she was really in bad shape. She had a bad compound fracture of the ulna that looked like the only thing keeping her arm from falling off was a two inch strip of skin.

I was trying to talk myself out of the trauma because I had no bag with me, all I could do was talk to her and let her know that help was coming. At a certain point I remember asking her if she was a church going woman and she said she was. I asked her if she would like me to pray with her and she started to cry and said she would like that. We prayed, then she started singing hymns, so I started singing with her.

When the fire department and ambulance arrived on scene, that's what they walked up on. Me laying over the seat trying to hold C-spine on this poor little tiny lady and we were both singing our hearts out.  The medic asked me to stay in the car to help, but since there wasn't any room, he said that the only way he could get in there was to lay over the top of me.  I just said "do it". He climbed on top of me and started working on her. I don't think I have ever felt that much pain in my life. He was a lot heavier than he looked and I was laying with my chest over the arm rest of the car. I had glass digging into me and could hardly breathe because my chest was getting it from both sides, but I still sang with my patient. 

The fire department came over and said they were ready to cut the woman out of the car and covered us both with a yellow tarp to keep us safe from flying glass. I have cut many people out of cars and never had a clue as to how scary it might be for the people trapped inside, but I got an education that day. The woman became terrified and was trying to move, so I tried to explain to her that we were both safe and would be free in just a few minutes. She calmed down and we both started singing even louder. You could barely hear her, but she was working it.

They finally got us free and got her on a stretcher then came back to help me out because I was now trapped by the steering wheel and way laying on so much glass that they couldn't just drag me out. When I got out of the car, I ran over to her and told her that she was gonna be fine now and stopped to dig a chunk of glass out of her eye. She did make it and was released a week later.

After the ambulance pulled away, the boys on the fire department pulled me over to the truck to help clean me up. I was covered in my own blood because of the glass and metal. I was wearing shorts that day because Texas summer is too hot for anything else, so my legs, pelvis and chest got the worst of it.

They cleaned me up pretty good and then the Chief came over to me and gave me a big hug and said that I did a great job. I didn't do anything except sing and pray trying to keep the woman alert, but he thought it was a pretty big deal. ( He was also my EMT instructor at Texas A&M) The next day I saw the paper and it showed a picture of me laying in the car with a paramedic on top of me. The head line read "Singing Medic". The picture was funny because I looked totally naked under the paramedic.