We're about nine months and three weeks into Chelsie's recovery from her accident.
She's not looking too bad.
On Aug. 25, 2007, me and my friend Brittany were driving,
and, um, we...
were t-boned.
Me and my best friend were supposed to be
going to the fair, one of the funnest places that you can be in the world,
and it was tragically cut short by
a one-ton truck coming through this intersection.
We were just coming into Raymond when an ambulance was going the other way,
and I've never said this before, but I said, "Somebody's life is changing today."
I didn't know it was mine, or my daughter's, or our family's.
Of course, it isn't something that you want to see is your child all strapped into
all the gear that they got to have with them as they load them onto the helicopter,
but we had a new video camera, and I thought, you know, maybe this would
be something that would be good in the future for her to look back on.
It was pretty scary to see her having somebody breathe for her,
and, um...
The STARS people that were there were amazing.
They were doing their job all around, but there was also others
that were comforting and saying, "It's going to be okay,
we're going to take good care of your daughter."
Thank you very much.
I knew that she was in good hands,
and they invited us to walk out and watch them fly away.
Chelsie was severely injured, and she required transport to the Foothills.
And she need an intensive care unit.
We were the flying intensive care unit that she needed
between Lethbridge Hospital and the Foothills.
So the two major problems that Chelsie had were her chest injury,
with a very badly bruised lung, and a bunch of broken ribs.
Her two problems interacted with one another quite significantly.
We have the ability, fortunately, in the back of the helicopter,
to adjust the breathing that we provide for her,
monitor for the pressures, monitor for proper oxygenation, and breathing for her,
to provide her with the best possible circumstances for brain recovery.
So, having three providers looking after this patient for 40 minutes outside the hospital
versus one or two providers in the back of a ground ambulance for two hours
just driving down the road— it's important to minimize the out-of-hospital time,
and having people that have a lot of experience looking after people that
are this sick in the back of the aircraft, that's helpful too, for sure.
You're sedated so you don't get upset.
When we got to see her in the ICU
she had tubes and all sorts of things plugged up, you know, on her head and
everything, and it looked pretty grim.
Chelsie? Oh, hi... Open your eyes.
It was just a lot of emotion, a lot of raw emotion
like nothing we'd ever experienced before.
It is a miraculous thing to watch this girl laying in a bed, who can't
even stand up to walk, to learn to walk again and feeding herself,
and doing things that we take for granted.
There you go, good job, nice throw!
At 17 you normally don't have to learn all those things again.
1-2-3. All the way up...
Big step, Chelsie.
Good job!
It was not very fun.
All the way to the end of the hall and back.
They would tell me, "Okay, Chelsie. Do 10 laps," and I was
counting in my head, because I couldn't speak at the time, and they would be like,
"Okay, now do one more."
I would be thinking, "I already did 10. I counted."
But I'd still have to do one more because I couldn't talk.
Can we work on that a little bit?
Part of starting to be able to talk again is being able to start
to use those mouth muscles.
Yeah, you want to leave. It's too— it's hard, isn't it?
Awesome... really good... let me see... can you do one with your right arm?
Holy, she's fast.
My motto is, "Everything happens for a reason." This car accident happened for a reason.
I am where I am for a reason.
I feel like I'm more compassionate and loving and kind,
because I have my own deficits, or whether it be my breathing
or my memory or whatever,
so I can be more sympathetic to other people who have limitations.
And yes, STARS did help me with that.
They took good care of me,
and they got me to where I needed to be.
Really, if it wasn't for them, I might not be alive.
I mean, that's the miracle is that we got to get our daughter back,
and she recovered well.
It's a group effort. We like to give STARS credit for
getting her there safely and with the great medical team that was with her,
and there were ICU personnel and therapists and doctors and nurses all the way along
that we're all part of that.
Nine months later she's out in the front yard playing with the kids,
playing soccer and laughing and having fun,
and she continued to improve even after that.
Okay, so this is my kind of collection of my car accident stuff
that I hold dear to my heart.
So, 'Team Chelsie...' and it says,
'Miracles happen to those who believe,' and obviously we believe because I'm here.
Well, I can't imagine life without Chelsie.
To be given the blessing of not only having her
but now to have a wonderful son-in-law and two beautiful granddaughters
has been an amazing blessing to us.
I feel very, very lucky to be a part of her life,
and to be able to share all these memories together.
The great things that came out of those events were wonderful people like STARS,
and the first responders, and every paramedic and medic and doctor that
helped save the life of my beautiful, great, wonderful best friend.
It's a real rewarding part of job to see that some of the things that we do, you know,
I think, hopefully do make a difference.
I'm grateful that I can play a role in that.
How fortunate I feel we were all in being given the opportunity to care
for Chelsie and be involved in that recovery.
I have four kids, and I have to say,
every time I go on a flight like this
it reminds me of what could happen to any one of them,
and how important it is to realize that there's a young person there
that has a huge potential and a future, and anything we can do to
improve that down the road makes me feel very fortunate to be involved.
It was a privilege to to see Chelsie 10 years later, but what we do when we fly patients,
it is a privilege.
And when people are saying goodbye to their loved ones
and they see us going out the door, we know that they are trusting us to do the
best job that we can for those patients, and...
you know, it brings a smile to my face
and tears sometimes.
Thanks to STARS, I'm still here.
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