Calgary, Alberta (AP) — A Canadian paramedic who unknowingly treated her daughter after a fatal car crash has shed tears as she remembers a beautiful girl who fought to the end.
Jaime Erickson was called to the North Calgary crash on November 15 and sat with a seriously injured girl who was removed from the car and taken to the hospital, where she died. It was difficult to recognize her due to injuries.
It wasn’t until Erickson got home at the end of the day that she was met by RCMP officers, who told her the patient was her 17-year-old daughter, Montana.
Erickson shared with reporters late Tuesday, describing her daughter as successful in everything she’s interested in and an avid swimmer with aspirations of becoming a lawyer.
“She was a fighter and she fought until the day she died and she was beautiful. She was so beautiful,” Erickson said at Airdrie Fire Hall with family, paramedics, police officers and firefighters standing behind her in a show of support if she puts any effort into anything she will always succeed.
Richard Reed, a friend and flight medic, collapsed several times when Erickson recounted attending the scene of an accident where the car lost control and collided with an oncoming truck.
Reid said the driver managed to get out of the car but the female passenger was trapped with serious injuries. Erickson was the first person on the scene. He said Erickson knew the girl was in trouble and she sat there until she was pulled out and taken to hospital by air ambulance, still not knowing who she was.
On her way back, she expressed her grief and frustration to her partner, knowing that later on the family would likely lose a daughter, sister and grandson. Shortly after arriving home, there was a knock on the door. Reed said.
“Going into the room, to her horror, she found the girl she had sat with in the back of the collapsed car still alive, so the family could say goodbye, and because of the extent of her injuries beyond recognition, Jamie was her own daughter.” “Jaime was keeping her daughter alive without knowing it.”