Emergency medical technician Jayme Erickson worked for more than twenty minutes to try to save the life of a person who had been seriously hurt in an accident. At the time, the Canadian paramedic didn’t know that the person she was helping was her 17-year-old daughter. The paramedic did not recognize her daughter because of how badly she was hurt, and her daughter died a few days later.
My worst nightmare as a paramedic has come true,
Erickson wrote, documenting the details of the 15 Nov. collision that killed her only child.
Erickson was the first person to get to the scene of a serious car accident in rural Airdrie, Alberta. She and a coworker found that two teenagers were hurt when their car hit a truck while they were driving home from a dog walk.
Erickson remembered that the passenger couldn’t move, had injuries that could have killed them, and had to be taken out of the car by emergency workers. She stayed in the car with the patient for more than 20 minutes, taking care of her, making sure her airway was clear, and doing “whatever I could,” as she said later. Erickson stayed with the patient while the crew worked to get them out and fly them to a nearby hospital. She took care of her and made sure her airway was clear.
After her shift was over, Erickson went home. The passenger had been taken to the Foothills Medical Center in Calgary by air ambulance.
Someone rang the bell on the front door after only a few seconds. The police told her that her daughter, Montana, had been in an accident. She ran to the emergency room as soon as she heard the news.
On entering the room, to her horror, she found the girl who she had sat with in the back of the crumbled vehicle, keeping alive … was Jayme’s own daughter. Jayme unknowingly was keeping her own daughter alive,
fellow paramedic Richard Reed told reporters at a news conference Tuesday.
On November 18, three days after the crash, doctors told Montana’s family that her injuries “were not compatible with life.”
Local news sources say that both the person driving the car and the person riding in the truck as a passenger were able to get out of the accident alive. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police say they are still looking into what happened in the crash.
The pain I am feeling is like no pain I have ever felt, it is indescribable,
Erickson wrote.
The critically injured patient I had just attended to, was my own flesh and blood. My only child. My mini-me.
Erickson wrote on social media that she was “thankful” for the 17 years she had spent with her daughter, but she couldn’t help but wonder:
What would you have become, my baby girl? Who would you have been?
In the wake of Montana’s death, other emergency workers have talked about the emotional toll of doing their jobs. Many paramedics are afraid that they will one day be called to an accident where the victim is someone they know, and Montana’s death has brought this fear to the forefront.
Several people who work in emergency services showed their support for the Erickson family by joining Erickson, her husband, and Reed, who has been the family’s spokesman, at the news conference on Tuesday. As they talked to the reporters, many of them showed clear signs of being upset.
Jayme’s traumatic story is affecting first responders across this country,
paramedic Deana Davison said.
It brings to light once again that this horrific nightmare could happen to any one of us.
Erickson said that Montana is “so beautiful” when she talked to the media on Tuesday, the day after her daughter died. She said that the teen had signed up to be an organ donor, so the fact that she had died gave other people a chance to live.
We’re so happy that our baby girl is living on through others and she has in the wake of this tragedy saved other people,
Erickson said.
