Jacob Farmer / jfarmer@yelmonline.com
Thurston County Sheriff Derek Sanders found himself in the right place at the right time during his off-duty hours on Tuesday, July 22.
That afternoon, he and other county residents came upon what appeared to be the fatal result of a head-on collision between a passenger vehicle and a dump truck at 148th Avenue Southeast and Runyon Road Southeast outside of Rainier.
According to Sanders, the driver of the passenger vehicle had been experiencing agonal breathing, which is characterized by gasping and labored breaths, oftentimes irregular and infrequent. The cause is a lack of oxygen.
In such cases, medical intervention is critical and the need for assistance immediate. Yet Sanders saw something he’d never seen before.
“This is the first time I’ve ever seen an injured person come back from (agonal) breathing on their own without medical intervention,” Sanders wrote on his Facebook page after the incident.
Sanders later added that the injured driver woke up “about three minutes into being on scene.”
At one point, according to Sanders, the scene began to smoke and spark from the fluids and battery wires that were in contact with each other.
The dump truck driver, who apparently was not seriously injured, disconnected the batteries before any further damage could occur.
Unfortunately, conditions at the scene prevented Sanders from doing much more to help.
“Due to extreme intrusion on the car, there wasn’t anything for those of us on scene to do but wait for fire personnel with the jaws of life,” Sanders wrote.
The Southeast Thurston Fire Authority (SETFA) responded to the incident at 2:02 p.m.
Sanders wrote, “SETFA arrived on scene and did an incredible job carefully cutting the car apart in minutes, starting with the roof and moving to the doors and B pillar.”
On their own Facebook page, SETFA thanked the sheriff and community members “who came upon the scene and provided clear, timely information about the extent of the crash. Their quick actions allowed for an early airlift request and helped ensure a coordinated response.”
SETFA also credited Medic 2 from Lacey Fire District Three, “whose paramedics were able to quickly intervene, begin patient care, and prepare the individual for air transport.”
The patient was transported via airlift out of Wilkowski Park and, according to SETFA, sent to a regional trauma center with serious injuries.
Later that evening, after the Thurston County Sheriff’s Office had obtained scans of the scene, the sheriff provided an update regarding the cause of the accident.
“It was determined that the passenger vehicle was traveling the wrong way on the complete opposite side of the roadway,” Sanders wrote on Facebook. “This caused the dump truck to swerve left to avoid the car, at which point the passenger car also appears to have tried to swerve back into their correct lane.”
This, Sanders said, resulted in the collision. The driver of the truck was determined to not be at fault.
“It is not clear why the driver of the passenger car was driving the wrong way down the road,” Sanders wrote.
The next day, responding to a comment, Sanders wrote, “The actions of the dump truck driver, without a doubt, saved the driver of the passenger car.”
As of presstime, no update has been provided about the condition of the patient.
