Why I want to become a nurse and why I became a nurse are ongoing series.
I was with my mother driving back from a visit to Port Perry, Ontario. It was late summer. I rolled the window down, and watched rows of corn whiz by. I could see black smoke as we approached an intersection. We drove up and stopped. A few other cars had stopped and people were climbing the roadside barrier. There was a steep hill looking into the cornfield. At the bottom two crumpled cars, their black smoke rising into blue sky, sizzled. In the closest car, I could see a man not moving. My mother and I climbed the barrier.
In the first car, the man had a square shaped, quarter sized hole in his forehead. A woman was trying to give CPR, but it was difficult. Someone told her not to move him. He still had his seatbelt on and she provided CPR as best she could.
A few people were discussing an elderly couple in the other vehicle. One was unconscious, and the other they thought was dead, perhaps from heart attack.
I could only observe. I had no knowledge or skill. I was a witness.
Later, the EMS arrived and quickly and efficiently plucked the injured from the scene and sped away.
We returned to the car and drove home.
I can’t say that it was at this point I wanted to become a nurse, but it did motivate me.
