Maureen and Sean – VIII

As I took the ramp from I-81 onto I-64 east toward Charlottesville, my mind was taken back to a Saturday night a few years previously. We were having a dinner theatre in the fellowship hall, produced by our youth group. The evening had concluded; there were folks in the parking lot leaving while some of us were still inside making sure things were tidy for use the next morning. As I was sweeping the kitchen floor Ron Gentry came running through the front door, “Call 911, there’s been an accident. A motorcycle crashed.”

Vera Green picked up the phone and pushed the numbers while I, along with others, ran outside across the parking lot to Route 11 towards a small group of people gathered in a circle. Inside the circle Ray Hammond, one of the men in the church, was bent over a pretty big man, asking questions, taking a pulse, and giving directions to others about finding coats or blankets to cover him – Ray had been a medic in Vietnam and was a volunteer EMT. Since emergency services in our area were nearly all volunteer, and since the nearest rescue squad was six miles away over dark Route 11, with one lane in each direction, we didn’t know how long help would take.

Ray turned to Frank Bishop and said, “Frank, call 911 again and tell them I think they’d better alert the medi-vac team, he’s going to need to be air-lifted to Charlottesville.”

The thing about a helicopter transport was where in the world would a helicopter land at night in our immediate area with hills, bordered by mountains, with no lights anywhere to speak of, and winding roads? Assuming he was alive when the ambulance arrived, how far would the ambulance have to drive to rendezvous with the helicopter – assuming the paramedics on duty concurred with Ray’s assessment? Or would the ambulance decide to race the 40 some miles to Middletown hospital?

I prayed, we prayed. There didn’t appear to be bleeding, but there wasn’t much response from the man. We gave Ray and the biker plenty of room. A couple of blankets were brought from the church nursery – Ray kept talking to the man – could he hear Ray? When would the ambulance arrive? Had they left the station yet? Who was this guy? He didn’t look familiar. He must have been riding by himself. Why was he in our country town riding by himself at night – a stranger riding through a little town in the hills? There was no baggage on his mangled bike to indicate that he was “touring”.

As I thought back to that night, I wondered how people could be so near death, come back from it…and continue to live as if death would never come, or to live as if death didn’t matter.

It seemed like forever, as it often does in such circumstances, before the ambulance arrived; but arrive it finally did…