What is your worst nightmare or biggest fear?
When we talk about things that scare us most, we end up with a list ranging from the mundane to the morbid. There are things that we wish we would not encounter because it impales us. Yes, even spiders and snakes can make us freeze in fear.
But there are things we fear that we don’t want to think or speak of.
It’s the bigger, more serious fears that the thought of it alone would break us. It could be a career-ending injury, life-threatening disease, fatal accident, or death. Scary to even just read about it, right?
This paramedic never thought she would soon find her worst nightmare.
Jayme Erickson worked as an EMT in Alberta, Canada. Last November 18, she responded to a car accident and rushed to the scene.
Jayme could recall all her efforts to help the critical passenger.
She remembered sitting in the car and doing whatever she could while the firefighters tried to extricate the passenger. It was cold outside, yet she remained in the car for about twenty minutes, ensuring that “the patient’s C-spine was stable and that her airway was clear.
The patient was then airlifted by STARS Air Ambulance to Foothills Medical Centre in Calgary.
Jayme ended her shift by then and went home. She told her partner about her ordeal and how she could not imagine a family out there might lose their daughter. She was in deep pain and frustration, but nothing would have prepared her for what was to come.
There was a knock on her door a few minutes after.
It was the Royal Canadian Mounted Police handing Jayme devastating news. Her daughter Montana had been in a car accident near Airdrie, north of Calgary, and she was a passenger in the car where she rode heading home after a dog walk.
Montana was the teenage girl that Jayme tried to save.
“The critically injured patient I had just attended to, was my own flesh and blood. My only child. My mini-me. My daughter, Montana. Her injuries were so horrific I did not even recognize her. I was taken to FMC to see my baby girl and was informed her injuries were not compatible with life,” she wrote in a Facebook post.
Jayme and her first-responder colleagues all gathered in a heart-wrenching press conference.
Paramedic and family spokesperson Richard Reed said that as a parent and first-responded, it is their worst nightmare to attend to an emergency that involves their children. Another paramedic, Deana Davison, also shared that all EMTs are just one call away from not wanting to do their jobs anymore, referring to answering an emergency that involves loved ones.
Montana was an accomplished swimmer and dreamed of becoming a lawyer.
Her short life was well-lived, and she has brought much joy to those around her. Jayme described her as “a firecracker and a fighter” and said that she showed that strength until her very last breath.
Jayme decided to keep her daughter’s legacy going by donating her organs.
“We’re so happy to know that our baby girl is living on through others, and she has saved other people,” Jayme said.
She stated that they were able to donate two of her organs, both of which were lifesaving.
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