Nurse gives blood, sweat and tears trying to save crash victim

Nurse Angelica Cunningham was not keen on heading to work on the morning of September 3, but she did not hesitate to get involved when she spotted the aftermath of a massive crash on Fort Augusta Drive in Portmore, St Catherine.

She literally shed blood in rendering aid – cut by smashed vehicle glass – but it was her final conversation with one of the victims, a 17-year-old, that stays with her.

“Nurse please nuh bother mek mi dead, please mi have a babymother,” she said he uttered as she and fellow nurse Antonia Stewart worked desperately to keep him alive. Cunningham said she did not initially know where the accident was.

“Where I was entering the toll from, I would go on the overhead bridge, but the accident was down on the flat. So it was when I stopped my car on the overhead bridge, I saw the persons videoing. My friend called me down to come and look. I saw the degree of the accident and I said, no man, them not going to make it to the hospital if somebody don’t intervene,” she recalled. Five people were trapped in a mangled Toyota Mark X. Cunningham, who works at the Bustamante Hospital for Children, had no medical supplies with her, but firefighters provided gloves. She then joined Stewart, whom she met at the scene, to triage the victims.

“We went and did what we know how to do. We just went and evaluated, from we started to triage down the line, basically looking on a patient on a scene, assess who may be the worst, who needs to be seen right away,” she said.

As they treated the injured, onlookers began helping, while firefighters worked to cut through the wreckage.

“Random people on the scene started to take off their clothes and belts to give us so we could tie the limbs to basically stop the bleeding,” she said.

The teen was the last person trapped inside the vehicle, both his ankles badly damaged.

“We had to stop the bleeding there, but then by the time they firefighters started to cut out the vehicle to get him out, we realised that he went into shock,” she said.

Still conscious, the teen told Cunningham he did not think he would survive.

“He was speaking to us throughout the time, but him turn to us and say ‘Nurse, you know seh mi nah mek it though’. Mi ask him if him believe in God and told him to pray,” she said. After firefighters cut him free of the vehicle, Cunningham said the teen stopped responding.

“And that’s when we started the CPR. I was on the floor doing the CPR by the car door before we got the lower limbs out, so the whole of my knees cut up with glass. I was here bleeding but I wasn’t paying attention to that. We did just focus on getting him out, move him from the vehicle to the ground completely, then to the back of the vehicle,” she said.

Despite tears streaming down their faces, which was caught on camera, the nurses refused to give up.

“Tears just a run because we a say we deh here fi about an hour and we get everybody else out and them somewhat stable and he the last one, he could never give up right now,” she said. But the teen later died at the Kingston Public Hospital (KPH).

“When we went to KPH, and time of death was called, and I just stood there and watch them wrap him up mi say ‘Come on man, look how hard we try’. The sense of defeat caught me after the incident, but upon going, we never gave up.”

She expressed hope that the teen’s mom would take some peace from the fact that many persons, including healthcare professionals, firefighters, the police, random strangers on the road that gave up their shirts, their belts, getting water to wash off the glass off of them. For her to know that we did our best and that Jamaica did not fail her child,” she said. Cunningham said she would gladly meet with the mother and “give her a hug”. She also expressed a willingness to attend the teen’s funeral.

She appealed with persons to “take their very best time and drive”.

“Follow the rules of the road and there would be less accidents and incidents. This is a wake-up call to all of us.”