This letter is being written under the advice of the folks from the counseling center that came to hold a group critical incident stress debriefing for the 10 of us that were involved. They recommend we air it all out, vent all the frustrations and feelings that we have, either by talking or writing a letter or some other means of catharsis, and this is the one I chose.  And if you can't stand the blood and guts and gore of what I do for a living, you may want to skip the next few paragraphs.

Around 8:45 AM a 15 year old child stole a car, and the police in the area pursued him. This evolved into a high speed chase, reaching speeds of 90+ mph on Airline Highway, where the speed limit is normally 45. Crossing Airline Highway, legally, with the green light, was a car with 2 adult women in the front and 6 children in the backseat.  The 15 year old kid ran the red light and crashed into the other car. When the first unit arrived, it was like a scene from the holocaust. The back seat of that car had children stacked like firewood; blood was everywhere, and the sounds of moans and screams and children crying and sirens wailing and people shouting and horns blowing and jet engines racing overhead (the whole thing was withing 2 miles of the airport) only compounded the terror and horror. The extrication took years, it seemed, and in the meantime one little boy in the backseat drew his last little breath. Another little boy had been crushed into the door of the car so far that extrication was impossible. And unneccesary; he was beyond help. A little girl had been ejected and thrown 30 feet down into one of the drainage canals along side the highway; she died en route to the hospital. Another little girl's neck was broken, and even though she lived, she will be paralyzed from the neck down for the rest of her life. She is 6. Another little girl has a head injury so serious that her remaining family members are praying that she never wakes up, that she dies in peace (what a ludicrous irony) rather than be a vegetable all her life. She is 7. Another little boy, one who made the nightly news only 2 weeks prior for saving his sister's life by helping her jump from a burning building, has a fractured pelvis, no, that's not quite accurate, has a shattered pelvis, so severe that he may never walk again. He is 14. The woman that was driving the car died. The other woman has massive internal injuries and is very critical. While she was in the car, she was holding a bible that we had to pry out of her hands; they were all going to Sunday School.

The 15 year old boy who decided he would win the respect and admiration of his cohorts early this morning by stealing a car to have a joyride walked away with barely a scratch. He was wearing his seatbelt, you see, and he happened to have stolen a car with airbags. He will be charged with Grand Theft Auto, Resisting Arrest, Fleeing the Scene, and 4 counts of Vehicular Homicide, and, since the deaths occured during the commision of another crime, they can up those charges to 1st degree Murder.

So. I am undeniably numb. I am inescapably horrified. And I am without a doubt having second thoughts about my ability to handle the extreme nature of my chosen profession.

I'm a paramedic. And you, Mr. Doe, are the 15 year old boy.

I watched one of those little girls die in the back of my ambulance today. I watched another little girl go into a coma that may be permanent.

      I'm not writing this letter expecting you to understand the ramifications of the chain of events you set into motion today. I'm writing this letter in an attempt to vent my feelings, to exorcise the demons that may be waiting for me to go to sleep, that may catch me off guard at an inopportune moment, that may cause me to freeze at a critical instant and prevent me from making sound judgements. The experts call it Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

So. There it is.

I hope you live a very long life, and I hope that the screams of those dying children echo in your head every night when you try to sleep. I hope that when you close your eyes you see the blood on their faces projected onto the backs of your eyelids. I hope you wake up screaming at the thought of 3 beautiful children with their heads bashed in. Because I will.

Sincerely,

Mariana