Can't stop the nightmares- please help

[caren19]

I've been a Pediatric ICU nurse for 3yrs now, and I've seen it all. GSW on 4 yr olds, deglovings, MVA, ped vs. car, abuse- I was able to deal with all of that. But when I was in work on Friday I saw something that no human should ever see. I can't get the picture out of my head, everytime I think about it I start crying. I have no plan to quit my job or anything like that over this, and it hasn't affected my love of my job, but I am just so fixated on what happened. I was hoping if there were any paramedics, ED peep's, or just RN's who had experianced something way beyond the realm of reality- something truly horrific they could pass on how they dealt with it. Will the images fade? Will the tears dry up? I can't stand it right now. Please help.

[tencat]

It's so good to talk to someone, especially to someone who has been through something similar. About 6 years ago I was a volunteer EMT in a very rural county. I also taught at the jr./sr. high school. There were only 80 students grades 7-12, so we knew each kid very well. One night I was filling in on-call for another EMT, and we got called out on a wreck on the freeway. That night there had been a dance in a neighboring town, and I knew that many of our kids had driven over. Another EMT who got called out was also a teacher, and his own daughters had driven over to the dance, so he was a mess. While we were driving out to the accident, the dispatcher called our cell phone and told another EMT in our ambulance about what had happened. We asked him what was up, but he wouldn't tell us. He only said it was 'bad,' which made the guy with kids about frantic because he thought it was his kids in the wreck.

We drive up, and it turns out not to be his kids, but it was the car of another EMT. He and his two daughters, another EMT couple's daughter, and another girl were in the car. The car flipped and the girls were not wearing seatbelts. Miraculously, only one kid was killed. It was a really, really small town, and as kids drove home, the sister of the girl who was killed saw that it was her sister who had died. Her boyfriend drove her home and told her parents about the accident, so while we were loading the injured survivors, the dead girl's parents showed up on the scene. More horror ensued when her parents just collapsed by her side, sobbing and holding her dead body. To top it off, the kid who died was one of my very favorite kids.

Ok, to make a long story longer, it has taken most of the last 6 years to completely recover, but the incident really solidified for me that I wanted to become a nurse. I'm not particularly spiritual, but I could accept after a while that some power greater than me had control of whether the girl lived or died, and I had no power to help. For whatever reason, it was this girl's time to go. I don't have nightmares anymore, but certain incidents will take me back to that night. If I see a wreck on the freeway, it takes me back momentarily, especially if the wreck is at night. Talking it out over and over and over really helped me. We had a crisis team that came in to debrief us, and that sure helped because I knew nothing about PTSD, and my symptoms were scaring me. I know that the incident will always be with me, and it will rear its ugly head sometimes and intrude into my life. There's a reason we see the things we see. We may not know what that reason is, but it's still there, nonetheless. I cling to that belief because without it I wouldn't be able to become a nurse. Hugs and best wishes to all.