An Alberta Health Services paramedic suffered the cruellest blow, when a fatally injured teenage girl in a motor vehicle collision turned out to be her daughter.
Jayme Erickson shared the story on her Facebook page that is every parents’ – and paramedics’ – worst nightmare.
On November 15 at 4:30 p.m., she wrote, she was dispatched with her partner to a motor vehicle collision west of Airdrie, where there were two patients with injuries, including the passenger in one vehicle who was trapped and critically injured.
Erickson wrote that she did whatever she could to assist the critically injured passenger while at the same time fire crews worked to extricate the passenger from the vehicle.
Eventually, the passenger was removed from the vehicle and a STARS air ambulance transported them to Foothills Medical Clinic.
“My shift was over and I went home,” Erickson wrote.
A short time later, there was a knock on her door.
“RCMP were at my door, to inform me that my daughter had been in an accident,” she wrote.
That’s when it hit her.
“The critically injured patient I had just attended to was my own flesh and blood,” she wrote. “My only child. My mini-me. My daughter, Montana. Her injures were so horrific I did not even recognize her.”
Erickson wrote that she was taken by the officers to Foothills, where she was told that Montana’s injuries “were not compatible with life.”
“We are overwhelmed with grief and absolutely gutted,” she said. “The pain I am feeling is like no pain I have ever felt, it is indescribable.
“My worst nightmare as a paramedic has come true.”
Erickson said that Saturday, she said goodbye to her daughter.
“I cannot help but be angry for the short amount of time I was given with her,” she wrote. “17 years was not long enough. Although I am thankful for the 17 years I had with her,
“I am shattered and left wondering. What would you have become my baby girl?” she said. “Who would you have been? I will never see you graduate and walk across the stage, I will never see you get married, I will never know who you would have been. I love you more than anything in this world (yes, including the goats my girl!).
“I will cherish the memories we made and the time we had together,” she said. “I am shattered. I am broken. I am missing a piece of me. I am left to pick up the pieces and expected to carry on.”
A spokesperson for the family agreed to share the story with CTV News.
In her final words, Erickson offered this reflection.
“Love with all your heart,” she said. “Hold those close to you. Make memories. ‘If you’re going to love somebody, hold on as long and as strong as you can… til you can’t.'”
An official go fund me page to help the family will be created and posted tomorrow.
