The rain was pounding within the Mojave Desert on the Saturday earlier than Easter when the primary name got here in about a crash alongside Interstate 15. Particulars had been sketchy: head-on collision, Mercedes versus one other automobile, a 7-year-old not respiration, a nurse on scene performing CPR.
San Bernardino County Hearth Safety District Capt. Dan Tellez and his crew had been greater than a half hour away. The subsequent closest responding ambulance was greater than 70 miles away, and the closest trauma heart was greater than an hour away by highway — if there was no visitors.
Hearth Station 53 within the tiny city of Baker, house to the “world’s tallest thermometer,” has the one devoted emergency medical providers to cowl a 93-mile span of the four-lane freeway between Yermo and the Nevada border.
The freeway attracts greater than 15 million autos a 12 months by way of an immense, largely empty land of maximum warmth and occasional bitter chilly between Las Vegas and Los Angeles. Day by day, properly over a hundred-times Baker’s personal inhabitants of 422 individuals blazes by — usually at very excessive speeds, typically intoxicated — and the rescuers on this little blip out their home windows would be the ones who attempt to save them in a wreck.
San Bernardino County Hearth Engineer Jeff Garcia drives by way of the rain whereas heading to a name of an overturned automobile with doable accidents alongside the I-15 north of Baker.
“The freeway is our inhabitants,” Tellez stated. “When any individual crashes out right here, when any individual wants assist, we’re it.”
At anybody time, there are solely 5 individuals assigned to the station set on the sting of a sandy basin speckled with yucca and scrub. The crew work four-day shifts and canopy roughly 5,000 sq. miles, an space bigger than Los Angeles County. And this association is an enchancment from years previous, when the station didn’t exist and convicts from a close-by jail, beneath the supervision of a fireplace captain, responded to freeway crashes.
Tellez, a veteran firefighter who was answerable for Hearth Station No. 53 that wet day, pulled as much as the scene 40 minutes after the decision.
They had been simply seven miles from the station, at mile marker 145, close to Halloran Springs. However the actuality of Hearth Station 53 is that rescuers are sometimes elsewhere, typically distant. Tellez had been close to the Nevada border, about 25 miles from the scene of the accident, when the decision got here by way of.
He arrived behind the unit’s two-man ambulance together with his engineer and firefighter. They had been the primary paramedics to reach. Had the incident occurred in Los Angeles or Las Vegas, paramedics, police and different emergency personnel would have swarmed the realm in minutes. Tv crews doubtless wouldn’t have been far behind.
First responders from Station 53 transport a automobile accident sufferer to a helicopter in Primm, Nev. The sufferer was transported to a hospital in Las Vegas.
The wind was howling and folks had been strewn alongside the freeway amid the wreckage of a Mercedes GLE 350 and a Kia Sorrento. He had anticipated three or 4 injured individuals. There have been 10.
“It was one of many worst-case situations,” Tellez stated.
Different drivers had pulled over to assist. An emergency room physician, a pediatric anesthesiologist, some nurses and others had been tending to the wounded.
Witnesses stated the Kia had been dashing towards Los Angeles.
William Coddington was on the wheel together with his companion, Alicia Ramos, at his facet and their two kids and his two stepchildren in again. The couple’s relationship had been on the rocks and this journey was an try to restore their relationship, members of the family stated.
“Her mom begged her to not go,” stated Marie Hernandez, Ramos’ cousin.
Driving the alternative means, had been Cristobal Cortes Castillo, 37, his girlfriend, Iliana German, 35 and her two kids — profiting from the children’ spring break to go to household on a highway they often traveled.
As they approached Mile Marker 145, German rotated to ask the children if they’d their seatbelts on. They did.
Firefighter and paramedic Brian Bement cools off the overheated brakes on a truck to forestall it from catching fireplace simply south of Primm, Nev.
Coming towards them, Coddington misplaced management and the Kia hydroplaned, then barreled over the median, in keeping with the California Freeway Patrol.
Within the Mercedes, German got here to along with her physique crushed beneath the dashboard. Trapped, she felt like she couldn’t breathe. Then a girl opened the door and took off her belt. She requested for her kids, and was assured they had been high-quality.
She heard her daughter Danna, 12, scream, “Mi pierna, mi pierna.” My leg. However she by no means heard her 11-year-old son, Derek.
“I felt like a lot time was passing,” she stated. “I didn’t know if anybody was going to assist us.”
She didn’t know individuals had been attempting to resuscitate Derek — her candy, beneficiant boy who performed soccer and was studying to field. He died earlier than the sirens arrived.
Within the Kia, Ramos — beloved on the Madera nursing house the place she labored — was fatally injured and would die in a hospital that day. Her teenage son Issac, 13, was already useless. Coddington was mendacity on the bottom bleeding, alive however staring blankly. His 3-year-old boy, Liam, misplaced an arm.
Between 2019 and 2023, at the least 112 individuals died in crashes alongside the span, usually the results of dashing or intoxicated drivers, CHP knowledge present. Hearth Station 53 responded to almost 1,000 calls on the roadway, at the least half of which had been crashes.
These incidents concerned only a fraction of the greater than 41,000 automobiles and vehicles that barrel alongside the stretch of freeway every single day, in keeping with state knowledge analyzed by Ben Hodgson and Natan Euol on the Highway Ecology Heart at UC Davis.
Tellez, who has a handlebar mustache and gentle eyes, has been with San Bernardino County fireplace for greater than three many years and, like most firefighters, has seen his share of twisted metallic, charred earth and human agony on the asphalt. Working in Baker is completely different, he stated. There is no such thing as a back-up on the station. There’s no hospital on the town. There’s no night time crew. There’s miles and miles of highway and desert. The blistering warmth — with a median excessive temperature that’s greater than 100 levels 4 months of the 12 months — solely heightens the sense of desolation.
Pedestrians hit at night time will be struck so many instances, their our bodies turn into unrecognizable. Competing calls power firefighters to make unimaginable commerce offs, selecting their emergency.
“It’s a fantastic desert,” he stated. “However it would kill you.”
A automobile accident sufferer is transported by an ambulance from San Bernardino County Hearth Dept. Station 53 in Baker, Calif., to Primm, Nev.
Past the I-15, the station covers, to the north, the majestic Dumont Dunes, widespread with off-roaders, and Freeway 127, a foremost gateway to Loss of life Valley. To the south, its territory extends to Interstate 40, a significant transcontinental trucking route; its 140-mile stretch from Barstow to Needles has no first responders stationed between the 2 cities. Hearth Station 53 is closest to the center of that expanse, about 57 miles away on Kelbaker Highway. Relying the place they’re when the decision is available in, it may take as much as 1½ hours to reach at an accident on the I-40.
Automobiles often overheat, huge rigs catch fireplace on the facet of the highway. Motorists get caught deep within the desert, dehydrated and with out water. And in winter they spin out or crash in icy circumstances on the I-15 by way of Mountain Go— elevation 4,700 toes.
Few perceive how remoted the route will be, stated Tellez.
“What took you so lengthy?” Tellez steadily hears when he arrives on the scene. “And I’m like, ‘Are you aware the place you’re?’”
“Many individuals suppose there’s a hospital right here in Baker, a police division right here,” he stated. “No, this isn’t that kind of city.”
There’s not even a significant grocery retailer, solely a handful of truck stops, quick meals eating places, gasoline stations, trailers, some properties and a single visitors sign put in 9 years in the past in entrance of Baker Journey Plaza.
A fireplace engine and an ambulance stand on the prepared as visitors makes its well past San Bernardino County Hearth Dept. Station 53 in Baker.
After which there are different emergencies, together with huge wildfires threatening the realm’s delicate habitat and prepare derailments.
Brightline West just lately broke floor in Las Vegas to construct a high-speed rail to attach the Strip to Southern California. It hopes to open by 2028, which is able to make the realm an energetic development zone for years. The specter of a prepare going as much as 200 miles an hour within the solitude of the desert raises many unanswered questions, stated San Bernardino County Hearth Chief Dan Munsey.
How would the district take care of a significant emergency ought to the prepare cease or crash when it’s 120 levels outdoors? Much more primary, how will communications with first responders work?
Rescuers might additionally lose much more time than they do now, as a result of they must await designated railroad crossings to get throughout the median to reverse lanes.
Munsey stated the district has reached out to Brightline to speak by way of a few of these points, and the conversations are pending.
However for now, there aren’t any plans for including providers or personnel. The San Bernardino County Hearth Safety District is essentially funded by property taxes, and within the Mojave a lot of the land is owned by the federal authorities and untaxed.
The result’s usually triage on the freeway.
The toughest requires the crew are these involving kids.
At Mile Marker 145, the responders declared the 2 kids deceased and so they scrambled to rescue the remainder.
The blanket of clouds overhead made it almost unimaginable for medical helicopters to land close by.
Tellez referred to as for extra backup. Paramedics got here from Las Vegas, one other from Helendale and one was dispatched from a close-by Marine base. However the backup from the crash and the vacation weekend visitors slowed them down.
At first, dispatchers refused to ship air medics due to the climate, however after some negotiations 5 helicopters landed 30 miles south, at Afton Canyon Highway. It was about two hours previous the preliminary name. The closest trauma heart was in Las Vegas, however climate so unhealthy, the victims had been flown to Antelope Valley Medical Heart, in the wrong way.
“The farther you get away from the trauma heart, the clock begins ticking down there,” Tellez stated. “And whenever you run out of that point, you’re on borrowed time.”
The golden hour — as it’s referred to as — refers back to the first 60 minutes after a crash during which critically injured sufferers have the best likelihood of survival.
“Out right here, it’s nearly unimaginable to remain inside that hour,” Tellez stated.
It’s onerous to inform if any extra lives might need been saved by arriving to a trauma heart sooner that day, Tellez stated. However you possibly can’t escape the what ifs.
“If we had the airships there sooner, they may have … simply offloaded sufferers proper into the airships to go to the trauma heart.”
California Freeway Patrol shut down the freeway for hours and greater than a month later continues to analyze.
“All people did every thing they may,” stated one lady who posted an emotional TikTok video concerning the hours she spent on the facet of the highway. “All people who was there restored my religion in humanity.”
An image of Illiana German and her 11-year-old son, Derek, who was killed in a head-on crash on March 30.
(Illiana German)
German and her daughter had been airlifted to Antelope Valley Medical Heart. She was within the intensive care unit for 5 days and nonetheless can’t stroll due to the bones damaged in her foot. Her daughter can also be recovering.
“It’s obscure why, why did this occur,” stated her companion, Castillo, who replays the crash in his thoughts.
“It’s simply emotionally devastating for households to appreciate that once they hopped into their automobile, everybody was properly and blissful and searching ahead to wherever they had been headed,” stated Dr. Deborah Kuhls, head of trauma on the College Medical Heart Southern Las Vegas. The heart is the closest trauma heart for crash victims alongside the Interstate. Final 12 months, docs there handled at the least 40 sufferers concerned in collisions alongside the freeway.
“They do not know that in a second their lives can both be ended or modified endlessly.”
After the Easter weekend crash, there was an inside help workforce there to examine on responders. Nonetheless, the following day it weighed heavy on many.
“It was an ominous grey form of temper that hovered over us,” stated San Bernardino County Hearth Engineer Jeff Garcia. The rains saved the crews racing up and down the freeway throughout that shift. The engine logged greater than 800 miles. “We didn’t sleep that night time.”
There are at all times these calls you keep in mind, Tellez stated. However then it’s essential to shortly gather your self and go to a different.
“I’ve seen sufficient trauma to final a lifetime,” he stated.
