Crash Victim Takes Severed Arm with Her

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Feb. 28 (UPI) -- A 20-year-old Canadian woman who survived a car crash carried her severed arm with her until she could receive reattachment treatment.

After Joni Ross' car slipped off a road outside the Canadian village of Pemberton last week, the injured college student clutched her severed left arm and walked for help, the Vancouver Sun reported.

After finding no one home at an area house, the University of British Columbia student waited on the road Thursday until a passerby, an off-duty paramedic, got her medical attention.

The injured woman endured a nearly three-hour helicopter ride to Vancouver General Hospital, where specialists worked for nine hours to reattach the arm.

"She said to them, 'I don't care what you think, I want that arm back on,'" the woman's grandfather, Herb Nolan. "They went ahead and did the operation. It took them all night."

The paper said blood flow to the reattached arm had been re-established, but Ross had no feeling in the limb yet.

Joni Ross

The story of the person who found her:

Andrew Gilmour was driving home for lunch when he saw a car flipped over in a ditch west of Pemberton, and his friend Joni Ross standing on the side of the road crying and calling for help.

She was clutching her left arm, which was almost severed below the elbow.

On the day of the accident a week ago today, Gilmour, 18, was working as a carpentry apprentice but he is also a volunteer firefighter with the Pemberton firehall so he's had first aid and emergency response training, which he immediately put into use.

"She had a long-sleeved light sweater on and a puffy vest over top of that but the sweater was torn and I could see she had extensive injuries, so I laid her down so she wouldn't go into shock . . . then took off my shirt to start the blood-clotting process," Gilmour said in an interview.

Gilmour said it appeared Ross's Volkswagen Jetta hit an icy patch on the road that caused her to lose control. The car went over an embankment and hit a stump that went through the driver's door, almost severing her arm when she raised it to protect her face.

She is recovering in Vancouver General Hospital after surgery to reattach her arm.

"We've grown up together and our families are friends in a small town, so it was very traumatic for me initially but I had to work past that so I could keep her calm while we waited for the ambulance. I didn't want her having an anxiety attack.

"She was saying 'my arm is off, my arm is off' and I knew that but I didn't want to make her uncomfortable by staring at it. I could see that she also had a compound fracture above the elbow as well. I went to my car to call ambulance dispatch and to get another shirt to lay over her. The number is programmed into my phone."

During the nine- or 10-minute wait for an ambulance, Ross's stepfather drove by and was shocked to find it was his stepdaughter who was injured.

"The ambulance got there in good time but I suppose the wait felt long for everyone else.

"Then another friend also drove by. Joni was in a lot of pain but when the ambulance came, they gave her something for that and something else to knock her out and they got her to the Pemberton clinic, where she was treated for about an hour before the medevac helicopter took her to VGH."

Gilmour said while he was emotionally pained by the sight of a friend with such trauma, he feels proud he did the right things to ensure she got the medical attention she needed in order to get her arm reattached.

A medical team of nine doctors and nurses worked for nine hours through the night at VGH to reattach the arm.

"I haven't sought counselling but I've talked to a few people and I know what I did and it makes me feel good about myself. It also makes me realize that I do want to go into firefighting as a profession instead of just being a volunteer," Gilmour said.

Pemberton Fire Chief Russell Mack said the whole department is extremely proud of Gilmour.

"When you think of how young he is, it makes us real proud of him. We know he was very affected by this because he is a family friend of hers. Actually, a lot of people up here are related and he's a relation of mine so I know he's a good kid and his dad has served as a volunteer on the fire department as well.

source;http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=f338f9cc-99fc-416b-ac15-d3862f1a9793&k=7139

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