Ever seen a Semi Flip

Well have you? I have, Today we woke up in Memphis having gone to the Sweet 16 last night. We had plans to go to the NHL game in Nashville, a 3 hour trip. We get in the car and and as soon as we got on the interstate, we saw a Semi going the other direction swerve into the center divider, bounce off, flip on its side and skid about 100 yards to a stop. I stopped and as soon as I could get the car in park I jumped out and over the center divide to see what I could do to help. There was a black SUV that had been run over by the back tires of the Semi's trailer. I saw that the driver of the SUV already had several people at his vehicle helping, and i could see him moving around inside. so I turned and sprinted the 100 yards to where the Semi was. As I came up to the Semi I smelled the distinct smell of diesel fuel. Looking to see where it was coming from I saw that the fuel tank was ripped ad the fuel was pouring onto the engine block. Knowing that the truck could burst into flames at any second, I climbed up onto the passenger side of the truck to see if I could open the passenger side door(the truck was lying on the driver side door. The door was locked, but I could see the driver of the truck, and could tell that he was unconscious. After trying without any success to kick in the window of the door, I noticed that the sleeper part of the cab had broken and separated from the front of the cab. By this time another man had arrived and started to help, with his help, he and I pulled the sleeper away from the front of the cab and I climbed into the truck. The driver's left arm was pinned under the dashboard. I could pry the dash away enough to get his arm out, but it took all I had, and there was no way that I could move the driver and the dash at the same time. So I focused on waking the driver, I applied a sternum rub, and the driver woke up, looked at me like, what are you doing in my bedroom, then passed out again. After a little coaching, he woke up enough to pull his arm out while I pulled the dash back. he then got up and got out of the truck on his own. As soon as he was out I start to assess his injuries, Looking for blood and broken bones, he had none. I told a woman standing by to stay with him and make sure that he does not go to sleep what ever he does. I ran to the SUV to see if the driver needed any help. Some men had pulled him out and had him laying on the ground. I could tell right away that he was in a lot worse shape then the driver of the Semi. He had blood all over him from cuts from glass, but as I felt his abdomen It was hard to the touch, That is a sign of internal bleeding. At this point the police start to show up with the paramedics right behind, I tell the first on scene officer all that I could as quickly as I could.(I used the army method of assessing a causality) the paramedic looked at me with a kind of surprised look on his face and said thanks, and went to right to work working on the driver of the SUV. The medics loaded the driver of the SUV into the ambulance and as they did I saw them get a chest tube ready. More Paramedics show up and start treating to driver of the Semi. At this point I knew that I was more in the way then I was helping, so I backed off and waited to give my statement. When the second ambulance took off with the driver of the Semi another medic came over to ask me how I knew to give the information that they needed, and how I had assessed both drivers before I got there. I told him that I was in the army and that I am certified in the Army's EMS program. He then told me that because I had caught the internal bleeding I had given the driver of the SUV a "fighting chance" and that because I woke the driver, they could tell right away that he had a major concussion, and that they needed to get him to the hospital right away. Both the driver of the SUV and the driver of the Semi went to the hospital in Critical Condition, and the medics were confidant that both would make it. I then gave the Sheriff my contact information, and we continued onto Nashville.

Scouting

Most people don't know this, but just about every city in the U.S. sponsors a company size unit in one of the branches of the armed forces. It just so happens that the one that sponsors my company (Dco 1-327) is Franklin TN. Franklin is about 1 hour and 15 minuets south of Fort Campbell. In fact it is just south of Nashville. Well during the deployment, different groups would get together and make us care packages, write us letters, and make sure that we had someone thinking about us. One of these groups was the Boy Scouts of Troop 137. So when we returned, the scoutmaster wanted to have a few of the guys come down and talk to the scouts. Being an Eagle Scout myself, I thought that I should go. So I did. I took Michelle along with me(my First Sergeant was surprised that she wanted to go). I thought that I was going to show up and there was going to be maybe 10 scouts and that would be it, boy was I wrong, when we get there we pull up to this barn with 150 scouts running around. This scout troop had a ton of kid it was crazy. to start the night we had a flag raising ceremony and the Scoutmaster had all of us tell a little about ourselves. After that we played a game of BALL. The whole point is to get the ball and hold on to it as long as you can, when 150 guys all are trying to get the ball, it is a lot harder then it sounds. I played ball for 20 then we all went inside the Barn. Inside the barn we let the scouts ask us questions about the army. Most of the questions were about the weapons that we used, and boy did their faces light up when one boy asked me what the biggest gun i ever got to use was, and I told them it was the MK19 Full Automatic Grenade Launcher. After a ton of questions, we split up into patrols and each patrol got one Solider. This gave all the scouts a chance to ask a question. we took pictures, and talked to the scouts. We then all met back together in a large group, and My company Commanding Officer CPT Rottenberg Said a few words, and then gave a few scouts, Company coins, and handed out a few company T-Shirts. Before we closed the Scoutmaster asked me to come forward, I was the only Eagle Scout, and asked me to tell the scouts how being an Eagle Scout has helped me in the army. After I answered, The scouts all challenged me to see how many pull ups I could do. I looked back at my CO and my First Sergeant, they looked back at me like, You do PT every morning you better be able to do it. so In front of 150 scouts, 10 of my fellow soldiers, and my two bosses, I did pull ups. I did 19, and the army standard is 6 so I did good enough that I was happy. After that we closed, and we drove back to Ft Campbell.

Working in Utah

Sooooo. I went to Utah in February to work through to March. It was super fun!! NOT!!!! Well the company while I was there was fun but the work wasn't always. While I was their I went through 1467 records for an annual audit, 184 records were found to no longer be in the Air National Guard. We had aproximatly 90% of the records accounted for.... which is pretty darn good for not having a good tracking system in place. But it didn't start out that way... I HAD TO WORK.... you better work... work it girl.. Sorry got off on that RuPaul tangent. HAHA... Not only did I go through all those records but I filed probably about 7000 peices and another 2000 I found to not belong to the Unit. So as you can see. I worked and the worst part about it was... I didn't even get to finish what I was doing. SUCK!! I enjoyed the time I got to spend with friends though. Brett and Becca are two of the greatest friends I could have made in Utah. I stayed at their house the whole month I was there and they even fed me. And let me tell you that Brett he sure can cook!! I was able to go down to Provo and visit some friends from school. Amanda and I had lunch and I went to see Mike at the shop. Amanda also came out to SLC to hang out for a day with B and B, we went to lunch and Red Lobster and saw New in Town (HILARIOUS movie). I also was able to see Gustavo and Camila and we had dinner at Cafe Rio. Im sad that i didn't get to see more people but im sure they still love me (at least i can hope) .... The month was good... the money was decent ... the comanionship was excellent. What more could I have asked for with a trip to Utah!