![\"\"](\"http:\/\/bigmedicine.ca\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/65-1024x576.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n\u201c65\u201d<\/p>\n
I live in a small town.<\/p>\n
12,000 strong if you include the county.<\/p>\n
When I am driving around it is common to see a 65 sticker on the back of a car.<\/p>\n
That is the jersey number of a young football player who passed away in a car accident.\u00a0 He lost control of his car which ended up on its roof in a small pond.<\/p>\n
I was with my children Jonah (10), Jordyn (6), and Johanna (2) at the time when I responded to the scene.\u00a0 Not something I normally would do but the urgency and proximity had me there.<\/p>\n
I arrived to find our first due engine there with driver and operator standing on shore watching a small crowd struggle in the pond. I think they had just arrived as well.<\/p>\n
I ditched my radio and phone grabbed the Halligan tool and dove in. It is not a good idea to dive in with a Halligan unless your goal is to get to the bottom in a hurry.<\/p>\n
I got to the car. Two occupants were already out. We got a third out quickly but we were struggling with the driver.<\/p>\n
I had the seatbelt cut but it would not slide free. After what seemed like forever we managed to roll the car and get him out.<\/p>\n
I had no idea he was just a teenager at the time.<\/p>\n
I worked him on the banks with a couple of paramedics and some of my firefighters.<\/p>\n
Many things still stick with me to this day, the muddy smell and taste of the pond, his chest while I was compressing it and looking up at my van and seeing my daughter watch in terror as I furiously tried to save him.<\/p>\n
We managed to get a pulse but he passed a few days later.<\/p>\n
For many in our small town 65 is a celebration of his life.<\/p>\n
For me it is a constant reminder of the boy I couldn\u2019t save. It still haunts my daughter somewhat as well. She will never look at that pond on the way to the beach the same way.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s easy to accumulate baggage, but you need to learn to become friends with it. For quite awhile I let 65 make me angry. It was hard to go for a drive without getting angry.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve come to terms with 65 now.<\/p>\n
It will always be the boy that passed away, but he\u2019s no longer the boy I couldn\u2019t save. I didn\u2019t create the accident, I had nothing to down with the cause. We did what we could.<\/p>\n
That is an important distinction that will help you live with your baggage and become friends with it.<\/p>\n
Be well. Practice big medicine.<\/p>\n
– John Levac, November 10, 2017.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This episode of The Positive Paramedic Project comes to us from John Levac of Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. \u201c65\u201d I live in a small town. 12,000 strong if you include the county. When I am driving around it is common to see a 65 sticker on the back of a car. That is the jersey number […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[21727],"tags":[10062,10018,21468,21619,15604],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bigmedicine.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40218"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bigmedicine.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bigmedicine.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bigmedicine.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bigmedicine.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40218"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/bigmedicine.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40218\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40221,"href":"http:\/\/bigmedicine.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40218\/revisions\/40221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bigmedicine.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bigmedicine.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bigmedicine.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}