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AMT team saves motorcyclist's life
Saturday, April 24, 2004 Ron Jones, Jr. was on his motorcycle on his way to a friend’s house to bring in the mail. "I was doing laundry when the phone rings," Ron’s wife, Rosa, says. The woman on the other end of the phone line asked for a family member of Ron Jones. "She said, ‘I’m calling from the hospital.’ She said (Ron) had been in an accident. I said, ‘how bad is it?’ And she said, ‘He’s critical.'" At 10:01 a.m., a drunk driver had slammed into another car and that car, in turn, had rammed into Ron’s motorcycle. When Allina Medical Transportation paramedics and first responders from Fridley police and fire departments arrived, they found Ron lying about 15 yards from his motorcycle. He wasn’t breathing. His right leg, right arm, and left arm were broken in a variety of places. His pelvis was crushed and ribs were broken. His left eye socket was shattered. Paramedics and first responders assisted his breathing by removing the chin strap of his helmet, which had been choking him, and inserting an oral airway. They worked to control his bleeding, splint his limbs, and stabilize him for transport. Within 32 minutes, they had arrived with Ron at the hospital. The oral airway maintained Ron’s ability to breathe until he arrived at the hospital, where emergency room personnel placed a tube in his throat to help him breathe. A surgeon spoke to Ron’s wife and his many friends about the damage Ron had suffered: "His left arm, they told me, looked like Wheaties," says Rosa, "And his pelvis like Rice Krispies." Stabilizing Ron’s limbs at the scene helped make sure his discombobulated bones stayed in place until surgeons could stitch them back together. After seven months and more than a dozen surgeries for external and internal injuries, Ron can walk with crutches. In the future, he’ll likely be able to golf, hunt and fish again and, most important, hold his daughter and take care of her the way he used to. "I look forward to starting daddy nights again," he says. Ron was able to meet the Allina Medical Transportation crew and the first
responders who treated him when he participated in what’s known as a morbidity
and mortality, or "M&M," conference, where healthcare professionals gather to
study every detail of patients’ cases in order to learn from them. "There’s no
way we can adequately say thank you," he says. "They say, ‘we were just doing
our job.’ (But) they are heroes in that that’s what they’ve chosen for their life’s work."
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Allina Medical Transportation
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