Let's go back in time, oh let's try 1980

We rolled up on an accident scene on route 184 in Groton, I parked the engine and went up to the scene to assist with the rescue. As I approached the scene I could see it was a T-bone. A girl driving a blue Corolla took a hit directly behind the drivers seat effectively bending the drivers side of the car into a 45 degree angle. The drivers seat back had collapsed and the entire seat bent to the vehicles new contour. In the rear seat on the opposite side of the car was a baby seat with an infant in it, pre-toddler, (Child was un-hurt). The driver, the child's mother was stretched, with her feet pinned in the footwell, her body was also bent around the the new angle with her head pinned against the rear quarter window glass. The Paramedic on the scene turned to me and said, "Neck's broken, probably be a Quadriplegic." 

Skip forward seven years to 1987, I am sitting in the Day-room at the Firehouse, with a lawyer sitting across the table from me and two other Firemen who were there, asking questions about the accident. I explained the same thing I wrote above. The Lawyer, when finished with the questions turned to me and asked, "This was seven years ago, how do you remember all the details of a specific accident that long ago?"

I told her, "That's easy, the girl looked to be in mid twenties and I remember thinking, here is an attractive girl with her life ahead of her and a family of her own, that because of something that happened in a split second will have to be cared for for the rest of her life and never be able to hold her child". Truthfully, that accident always stuck in my mind. 

The lawyer smiled and said, "They did a good job in surgery, she is paralyzed, but only from the waist down."

Still not a good way to spend your life, but a mother should be able to hold her child.