NORTHERN Territory Fire and Rescue Service watch commander Nick Bell has been attending road crash accidents for the past 23 years.

And he remembers the details of each on. Over the years, he has pieced together this story - an amalgamation of hundreds of accidents he has attended. "It is hard to describe. Yes, it is a work of fiction, but every word is absolutely factual", he said.

THE FAMILY

It was the week before Christmas. The mini-van and its three passengers travelled at the speed limit on Tiger Brennan Drive on its way home. The grandparents of the little girl in the back glanced at each other and smiled asyet another squeal of delight came from the backseat. The six year old was playing Tinkerbelle on her Nintendo and loved every minute of it. The elderly lady and her husband had taken their sons daughter to the waterslide for the afternoon to give the parents a break. They went on an outing like this at least once a month. Gives us time to connect with our grandchild, she would tell her son. Her son and daughter-in-law were so happy that the grandparents took the time and encouraged their precious daughter to go each time an outing was suggested. It was a close and loving family.

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It had been a long, hot afternoon, perfect for a day at the waterslide but the heat had taken its toll on the driver. The grandfather was tired and shifted in his seat as he gripped the steering wheel. His face and arms were sunburned and the muscles in his shoulders ached. The little girl had insisted that he join in the fun in the water and inevitably hed been the one to have to throw her around as she shrieked with laughter. He was paying for that now he thought as he tried to roll his shoulders. He had also forgotten his sunglasses that day and he was paying for that too. He squinted his tired eyes against the bright sun that was directly in front of him fighting to concentrate on the road ahead. Home soon, he thought.

Your Say

"Well done on a great piece Nick. If only more people took heed of his advice, then the fire service wouldn't be pulling them out of wrecked vehicles, so we can get to work saving their lives !! too many people underestimate the effects drugs and alcohol have on the brain...you aren't as safe to drive as you think. So next time you drop a few pills, smoke some dope or have that extra drink, spare a thought for us selfless people that have to try and save your life."

THE CRASH

Jack, his wife Estelle and their grandchild never knew what hit them. A four-wheel drive vehicle travelling in the opposite direction ploughed into the front right side of the mini van. As it went, it tore the van open like a sardine can, crushing the front of the van against the two elderly passengers.

The four-wheel drive vehicle had hit with such force that the van had folded concertina-style at the front, pushing the front seats against the driver and passenger, crushing them into their seats, too, trapping them exactly where they had been the moment of impact. The sound was enormous, deafening and terrifying. Two vehicles, nearly two tonnes each, travelling at 100km/h in opposite directions had met with devastating results. The sheer energy of the impact had produced a chilling sound of tearing metal, exploding glass and shattering plastic but they could be replaced. The torn and smashed limbs could not. Metal, glass and plastic can, to some extent, absorb impact but soft human flesh and fragile bone involved in violent smashes cannot. The sound of bodies being literally ripped apart was a sickening and unnatural one. Bones splintered and flesh was torn from its victims as the vehicles met, each trying to absorb the other's inertia but failing to do so. The four-wheel drive vehicle speared off from the mini van, out of control, coming to rest on its side 50m from where the horror started. Its driver was dead. The mini van with the damaged family spun around twice with enormous violence and stopped, facing the direction from which it had come. Silence.

THE HORROR

Estelle, barely conscious, tried to open her eyes. She didn't know it but one of her eyes would never open again. It had been penetrated by multiple shards of glass as her head hit the windscreen, shattering it and spraying pieces of it everywhere. She couldn't move her body at all and she could scarcely breathe. The dashboard of the van was sitting on her chest, pushing hard and the firewall was crushed against everything on her body below that. She started to cry, her one good eye allowing her to see her beautiful husband of 42 years bleeding out all over the wrecked mini-vans' floor. The blood was a thick, deep, rich red colour that told of a broken human body that could never be repaired. Jack, her wonderful man, was dying and he wasn't awake to say goodbye to her. Her one good eye filled with tears of desperate sadness. She was in terminal shock herself and her brain only registered what she saw in front of her but she could just make out the wail of the distant sirens. Help was coming but it would be too late, she knew, as her mind drifted off into the terrible darkness.

Despite the seatbelts they had been wearing, the beautiful little girl had been ejected from the mini-van during the two violent pirouettes it had done after impacting with the four-wheel drive. Her fragile little body had been ripped from her seat and hurled through a side window, head impacting with glass, little neck snapping as bone met safety glass that simply could not withstand the magnitude of the physical forces that come with high-speed crashes.

Crumpled and silent, the child now lay in her own spreading pool of blood, dying quietly on the road.

THE FIRE FIGHTER

The sight in front of him sickened the fire officer as the truck pulled up at the scene of the crash."VZ8AP, this is Darwin 63," the officer said over the radio, voice tight with emotion and high anxiety. "This is Control, go ahead 63." The girl in the control room knew that the situation report from the Fire Commander was not going to be good news. She had received numerous emergency calls from horrified motorists who had come across the devastation. "Control, we have arrived on scene. Two vehicles involved. Three persons trapped, major injuries sustained, children involved, ambulance crews required as soon as possible. 'We will be on scene for an extended period. I want police to block off the road at both ends and divert traffic for the duration of this call." "Roger Command, ambulance already notified and will be there shortly, police informed of your request."

The fire officer hated MVAs (Motor Vehicle Accidents). They were the worst kind of jobs the fire service had to respond to because of the human wreckage. The officer moved quickly around the scene, sizing up the situation. He hated seeing people in distress. The blood and gore was one thing but the victims' screams were what he really struggled with. But they weren't screaming at this one. The cars had hit at great speed, that was obvious, but the area looked as if a bomb had hit it. To the untrained eye it would have been impossible to tell just what the hell had happened but to the firefighters frantically setting up the rescue equipment, it was obvious. The skid marks, the point of impact, the positioning of the vehicles and the spread of debris told the whole terrifying story.

The driver of the four-wheel- drive had obviously lost control and crossed over to the wrong side of the road. In a split second he had realised his fatal blunder and stood on the brake pedal, sending the heavy vehicle further out of control as he overcorrected.

The mini-van and its innocent victims were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Given that there were no skid marks from the mini-van, the fire officer knew the driver probably had no time for evasive action. Twisted, distorted, barely recognisable pieces of metal lay everywhere every window of the two vehicles had exploded out, covering the bitumen road in a blanket of glass.

A headlight here, a bumper there; plastic, rubber, glass and twisted metal all around. While the crew set up the rescue equipment the officer walked briskly around the scene, sizing up the challenge that lay ahead.

In a few quick strides he reached the closer of the two vehicles, the 4WD.

The vehicle was on its side and the officer crouched down to look in the smashed windscreen to inspect the victim. It was not the firefighter's job to pronounce a victim dead, that was for the paramedics to decide, but the officer could see that this man had taken his last breath.

The bruising at the base was sickening and black, the head twisted almost full circle, dead eyes looking straight at the would-be rescuer, body still strapped into its seat, the stench of alcohol strong. Empty beer cans lay strewn about, as if to decorate this macabre scene. His hands were shaking and he felt sick as he sprinted the short distance to where his crews were tending to the child.

The mini van was half the length it should have been, pushed in at the front with such force that the two elderly people were stuck fast. Their extrication would take a lot of time and care. That was not his priority now, however - the child was.

Every motor vehicle accident presents a unique set of problems for the rescuers to overcome. Each has its own challenges, hazards and dangers. The fire crews knew that for the van's occupants, time had just about run out. The ambulance officers had arrived and with the fire fighters were frantically working on the broken and dying little girl as she lay silently on the bitumen road. They were trying to get saline drips into her to give her some chance against the deep shock that results from blood loss. They bandaged her in a desperate attempt to stop the thick, dark blood leaking from her frail little body. The fire fighters went to work with first aid kits and respiratory equipment, anxious to find a sign of life, to hear a small cry - anything that would tell them this beautiful little girl might be going to make it. A race against the clock had begun.

The ambulance and fire crews needed to stabilise the three victims and get them to the hospital, which would give them them the best chance of life. The "jaws of life", as they're commonly known, are in fact a combination of two distinct pieces of equipment. The "cutters" look very much like a pair of giant scissors. They are hydraulically operated, giving them enormous cutting power, and are capable of slicing through almost any part of a smashed car. The spreaders, an oversized pair of pliers, can open and close with similar strength to pry open squashed and twisted metal.

There was plenty of that around here, thought the officer, as the crews got to work. Two fire fighters were at the front of the mini van were concentrating on freeing the grandparents, and things were not going well. Not well if you were watching the clock, because although the seasoned firemen were working quickly, it was too slow for the critically injured couple. Both firemen had been to plenty of MVAs, but they felt especially sick this time. Having to work so close to the horrifically injured couple while covered in their blood and listening to their ragged breathing was extremely stressful. Those throwaway comments people sometimes made about "getting used to it" and becoming "de-sensitised" got it so wrong. If anything, every response to an MVA just compounded the stress. You never get used to it. You can never become desensitised to the sounds of someone dying, and these three family members formed a close-knit unit that had now been blown apart.

The firefighters working at freeing the couple from the mini van wrestled with the heavy cutters and spreaders trying bit by bit to chop pieces of the car away. With their faces so close to the dying couple, the firemen could not help but look at them. It was horrific. The old man was smashed badly. It looked like his right leg had almost been torn off and was hanging by only a few sinews. There was blood everywhere and the two firemen could not help but be covered in it. The more senior one looked at his partner and he thought they looked like two surgeons in an Emergency Room up to their armpits in gore. The elderly man was drifting in and out of consciousness and his damaged head was being supported by one of the ambulance officers. A large pool of blood formed on the floor of the van where his feet were and it started to set and congeal. It looked like soft jelly and smelled like death. The man had lost too much of it.

A quick glance at the woman told the firefighter she was trapped fast and only her right arm was free. Her arm, despite the splintered bones poking through, was trying to reach for her husband's hand and her good eye, through its tears, was searching for him. The other eye was a mess. Blood was oozing and clear fluid leaked from a massive penetrating wound. It ran down her cheek and on to the bright, floral dress she had worn for the fun day they had planned. Crush victims rarely live when freed from a wreck. As the dashboard of a car smashes against their chest, stomach and legs, blood and normal fluid flow in the body is severely restricted. In most cases it stops flowing and the person dies immediately. They may live for a few more minutes, just until the rescuers can get the crushing weight off them.

The paramedics were trying to get out of the way of the firemen as they cut, pushed and twisted the metal, fighting for the victims' lives.

The more senior of the two firemen had tears running down his face as he worked. He looked at his mate. So did he.

The fire officer watched the two men as they fought to free the elderly couple. He knew they were doing it tough and walked over to them, reaching out, putting a hand on each of their shoulders. He spoke quietly to them as he bent low, close to their ears, offering words of encouragement but knowing that they were empty words. Time was running out for all of them. He wheeled around and went to back to the six-year-old girl. The firefighters working on her were in deep distress, their actions frantic, hands pushing down on her small chest, trying to get the life back into her, taking turns for compressions and then breaths. Her injuries were terrible and the impact of the four-wheel-drive had ripped the life from her, leaving her almost unrecognisable as the bright, young girl she was a few minutes ago. Like all people who work on the frontline with road crash rescue, the firemen working on that girl that day were deeply committed to the fight for life on behalf of the daughter, granddaughter and niece they now sweated over.

The fight for her life was on and it was furious with drips, tubes, oxygen and bandages all being applied. She was not moving and deep down the officer knew she never would. He squatted down next to his crew members to help. He was astonished to see that the little girl was starting to stir. She was gaining consciousness and he felt a small leap of joy in his heart among the complete carnage of the horror he was witnessing. Amazingly the team working on her had managed to get her back and her blue eyes were fluttering open. Her little moans were the sign of life that the crew wanted to hear. With two firemen, the fire officer and an ambulance officer looking over her she opened her eyes, looked at them, whispered, 'Mummy, please help me. Please mummy, where are you?' and then she died.

Her massive internal injuries had conspired against the rescue team's best efforts and she could not be saved. The powerful sight of her blonde hair, her perfect skin, her pretty face covered with blood and eyes glazed over was an image instantly and irrevocably seared into the memories of the team as they looked at each other in complete shock. They started to work on her again but the fight was lost.

THE FUNERAL

One week after the crash and a day after Christmas, the funeral for the two grandparents and the little girl was held. The cathedral was packed. The immediate and extended family sat in the front rows, heads down, sobbing with the pain and loss they felt. The family was broken and could never be fixed. For them it was over and they were destroyed, destined to go through the rest of their lives on automatic, never really taking any sort of joy from life because their parents and daughter were gone.

The three coffins were lined up at the front. There was a picture in a frame atop each of the coffins. The photos were of the three victims that each coffin contained with the photo frames positioned so that they were looking back at the congregation of sobbing relatives. Throughout the service the priest had talked of healing and forgiveness but there was to be none of that on this day.

The fire officer quietly slipped into the back of the church and took a seat. He was looking for closure, something that would assuage the deep sense of sadness, sorrow and loss he too felt after the accident. Although he had only known the three people in the coffins for a very short time, the connection had been deep and had impacted him like no other. He felt broken inside himself and wanted desperately to be fixed somehow. As he lifted his head to look forward, his eyes caught the sight of a little boy with a single flower leave his seat in a pew at the front of the church. The boy went to the smallest of the three coffins, paused and then placed the flower on the top of the coffin in exactly the place the little girl's heart would have been. As the little boy turned around to go back to his seat, the fire officer could clearly see the tears streaming down the face of the boy. The fireman started crying too. The scene had ripped the officer's heart out and his head had fallen into his hands for the rest of the service. He didn't stop crying for three days after that.

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