Accident Up Ahead! Listen to this text being read aloud by a human being by clicking on this link. Answer questions #1 and #2 and then answer #3 or #4. 1. When an accident or disaster occurs, many people will panic or just stand there looking. Why do they react that way?   (Answer using a short paragraph.) 2. What fears and doubts does Jody have to overcome as she works? What helps her to keep going? (Answer using two short paragraphs.) 3. Write a paragraph about an accident that you experienced as a victim, an observer, or the person who helped the victim. or 4. As one of the Fortins or Jodouins, write a letter to Jody Stevens thanking her for what she did. Accident Up Ahead! JANICE TYRWHITT THE NORTHBOUND BUS had scarcely left North Bay, Ontario, when-at 1:30 a.m. on Saturday, October 11, 1975-it came to an abrupt halt. Peering out the bus window at Highway 11, Jody Stevens saw a line of taillights stretching into the night. "There must be an accident up ahead," she said to her seatmate. "I had better get out and help." Jody, a young nurse from Toronto, was on her way home to spend Thanksgiving (and celebrate her twenty-fourth birthday) with her family in Timmins. An October drizzle soaked her shoulders as she trudged past a quarter mile of stopped traffic to an eerie scene. In the flickering light of Coleman lamps and road flares, she saw the two-lane highway spattered with blood. An old school bus converted into a camper lay on its side in the ditch. A hunter's pickup truck was stalled in the left lane, the bodies of two moose lolling grotesquely from the back. Off the right shoulder was a silver Mercedes-Benz with a smashed hood. In the lane between them a silent ring of people had gathered round a fourth vehicle-a blue 1973 Ford, a crumpled wreck, with four people in it. "I think they're all dead," a burly man told Jody. She caught her breath and thought, Well, Stevens, what do you do now? Jody had packed a lot of experience into the two years since her graduation as a registered nurse, most recently at the Toronto East General Hospital. She threw off her corduroy coat and crawled into the back seat of the crushed car. While Jody was riding north, twenty-six-year-old Charles Jodouin, his wife Jeanne, and her parents Omer and Lucie Fortin, were driving south from Timmins to visit Jeanne's sister in Kingston. Despite the late hour, traffic in both directions was fairly heavy. They were less than three miles out of North Bay when, suddenly, the left rear wheel spun off an oncoming converted school bus: it flew straight into the grill of a pickup truck moving south just ahead of the Jodouins. Then, out of control, the camperbus skidded across the centre line and sideswiped the Jodouins' blue Ford. A split second later a brand-new Mercedes, travelling behind the camper, also slammed into the Jodouins. Scrambling into the wrecked blue Ford, Jody found herself in a welter of blood and splintered glass. Trapped in the driver's se.

1. Accident Up Ahead!
Listen to this text being read aloud by a human being by
clicking on this link.
Answer questions #1 and #2 and then answer #3 or #4.
1. When an accident or disaster occurs, many people will panic
or just stand there looking. Why do they react that way?
(Answer using a short paragraph.)
2. What fears and doubts does Jody have to overcome as she
works? What helps her to keep going? (Answer using two short
paragraphs.)
3. Write a paragraph about an accident that you experienced as
a victim, an observer, or the person who helped the victim.
or
4. As one of the Fortins or Jodouins, write a letter to Jody
Stevens thanking her for what she did.
Accident Up Ahead!
JANICE TYRWHITT
THE NORTHBOUND BUS had scarcely left North Bay,
Ontario, when-at 1:30 a.m. on Saturday, October 11, 1975-it
came to an abrupt halt. Peering out the bus window at Highway
11, Jody Stevens saw a line of taillights stretching into the
night. "There must be an accident up ahead," she said to her
seatmate. "I had better get out and help." Jody, a young nurse
from Toronto, was on her way home to spend Thanksgiving (and
celebrate her twenty-fourth birthday) with her family in

2. Timmins. An October drizzle soaked her shoulders as she
trudged past a quarter mile of stopped traffic to an eerie scene.
In the flickering light of Coleman lamps and road flares, she
saw the two-lane highway spattered with blood. An old school
bus converted into a camper lay on its side in the ditch. A
hunter's pickup truck was stalled in the left lane, the bodies of
two moose lolling grotesquely from the back. Off the right
shoulder was a silver Mercedes-Benz with a smashed hood. In
the lane between them a silent ring of people had gathered
round a fourth vehicle-a blue 1973 Ford, a crumpled wreck,
with four people in it.
"I think they're all dead," a burly man told Jody.
She caught her breath and thought, Well, Stevens, what do you
do now? Jody had packed a lot of experience into the two years
since her graduation as a registered nurse, most recently at the
Toronto East General Hospital. She threw off her corduroy coat
and crawled into the back seat of the crushed car.
While Jody was riding north, twenty-six-year-old Charles
Jodouin, his wife Jeanne, and her parents Omer and Lucie
Fortin, were driving south from Timmins to visit Jeanne's sister
in Kingston. Despite the late hour, traffic in both directions was
fairly heavy. They were less than three miles out of North Bay
when, suddenly, the left rear wheel spun off an oncoming
converted school bus: it flew straight into the grill of a pickup
truck moving south just ahead of the Jodouins. Then, out of
control, the camperbus skidded across the centre line and
sideswiped the Jodouins' blue Ford. A split second later a
brand-new Mercedes, travelling behind the camper, also
slammed into the Jodouins.
Scrambling into the wrecked blue Ford, Jody found herself in a
welter of blood and splintered glass. Trapped in the driver's seat
was Charles Jodouin, with the steering wheel lodged in his

3. abdomen, and a gash between the ribs under his left armpit.
Beside him, his wife lay unconscious. The lower parts of both
their bodies were trapped under the dashboard. Jody could hear
one faint voice. In the back seat, Lucie Fortin, deep in shock,
her legs buckled under her, was conscious and talking
incoherently. Beside her slumped her husband, blood streaming
from a massive head wound.
Horrified, Jody summoned up the discipline and skills learned
in the hothouse of the emergency department. Rapidly she
determined that all four were alive by feeling their thigh
arteries-more accurate than a wrist pulse. Then she decided her
priorities. Jeanne Jodouin's face was badly cut, but her ears and
eyes showed no signs of intracranial bleeding. Her mother
appeared to have leg fractures and was verging on panic. Omer
Fortin had a possible fractured skull and, Jody suspected,
noticing his irregular pulse and poor facial colouring, a weak
heart. Most serious of all, Jody feared that Charles Jodouin's
left lung might have been pierced by broken ribs. If it collapsed
and absorbed fluid, he might stop breathing.
Jody quickly organized bystanders to help. Several holidaying
cottagers produced life jackets; these she used to prop up her
patients' heads to keep them from choking on blood and saliva.
"Has anyone got blankets?" she yelled. "Coats? Rags? I've got
to pack this man's chest." A woman handed her an unopened
package of disposable diapers-perfect sterile dressings! Jody
burst into tears of relief.
Spreading her fingers, she packed diapers between Jodouin's
bulging ribs and used a life jacket as a pressure dressing. He
began to mutter-in French. Fighting time, Jody fell back on high
school French and sign language. "No arreter, no arreter," she
stammered. "Don't stop breathing!" Gesturing, she showed him
how to use the muscles between his ribs and pull in air. With
relief she saw that he understood. As Jodouin relaxed, she

4. turned to Omer Fortin.
In the semidarkness, Jody examined his torn scalp and could see
a severed vein pumping out blood. She called for something to
close the wound, and gratefully grabbed an unopened package
of small clamps used for stringing a catch of fish to a line. With
them she sealed off the vein, then bandaged the exposed
cerebral cortex with diapers.
As she worked on Fortin, Jody worried about his wife, who was
now screaming loudly. Jody asked two men to put their hands
through the right rear window. "Make her feel warm and secure-
hold her like she was your own mother," she told them. As they
hugged her, Lucie Fortin's screams subsided. If I can drain away
the fear, Jody thought, theirs and mine, maybe we can pull
through this.
When the Ontario Provincial Police arrived at 1:52, Jody
slipped out of the car, her knees shaking. "I didn't realize then
that she was a nurse," says Constable Robert Jolley. "But she
sure had the situation in control. I didn't tell her what to do. I
asked her what I could do to help."
The police gave Jody what she needed at this stage-confidence
and elbow room. They held back the gathering crowd and urged
the young nurse to carry on. As Jolley picked up her sodden
coat and laid it on the back seat of his cruiser, the homely
gesture reassured her. They trust me, she thought. It's gone this
far; I'll see it through.
The first ambulance came wailing in from North Bay, and Jody
summoned up the courage to instruct its crew. "Don't give the
driver pure oxygen," she insisted. "If his lung is damaged, it
could kill him. I need oxygen for my man in the back." Seizing
the mask, she gave Fortin six litres-a heavier dose than the
ambulance attendants were allowed to deliver-and she saw his

5. colour improve. Then she picked up the ambulance intercom.
"Lady, I don't know who you are," the voice at the hospital
replied, "but keep talking." Automatically she began her
instructions with "stat," the medical signal for urgent action.
"Get the operating room ready and call a surgeon and
anesthesiologist. The driver may need surgery to repair his
thorax. He'll need a chest X-ray, an Emerson pump to drain his
chest and equipment to check his blood type. His wife is
unconscious. She'll need a skull X-ray and an LV to stabilize
her. The older lady is in shock. She'll need an LV, blood-typing,
a monitor to watch her heart and traction in preparation for
orthopedic surgery. Her husband has a possible skull fracture
with massive hemorrhaging." But there would be no time to
cross and type Omer Fortin's blood. So Jody instructed the
hospital to prepare pack cells (frozen red blood cells that can
maintain a patient for a short time, regardless of his blood
type).
By now, hundreds of stalled travellers were huddled on rock
outcrops beside the road. Jody glanced round quickly. No one
else seemed seriously injured, but one of the passengers from
the camper-bus had a flushed face. So she felt his wrist; he had
a rapid, irregular heartbeat. The man, Robert Mack, had
smashed his nose against a handrail as the vehicle jolted
sideways. Jody asked one of the ambulance crews to take him
in.
The last ambulance waited for the Jodouins, still trapped in the
front seat between the buckled hood and the front doors. While
firemen tried to pry a door open with hydraulic jacks, police
were unsnarling the jammed traffic. Gradually, cars began
weaving a one-lane path past the accident. Jody's bus rumbled
through, but the police asked her to stay. Rain-soaked,
shivering, aching to go home, she looked down at her shirt and
jeans, spattered with the blood of her patients. "I'll stay," she

6. said.
In the end, the Jodouins' car had to be wrenched apart by a tow
truck. Charles and Jeanne Jodouin were lifted into an
ambulance, and Jody rode in the police cruiser that escorted
them to North Bay Civic Hospital After washing up in the
police station, she accepted a constable's offer to speed her
north on Highway 11 to catch up with her bus.
Her parents met her at the Timmins terminal. Home at last, she
stammered out her story, then shucked her blood-splattered shirt
and jeans, had a hot bath and went to bed. She slept through
Saturday. A week later she was still brushing glass from her
hair.
The Fortins and the Jodouins went from emergency into the
intensive-care unit at North Bay Civic. The doctor on duty said
later: "They had significant injuries, but the initial management
had been good. Orner Fortin had virtually been scalped, but the
hemorrhage was controlled." Jody's earlier suspicion that he
might have a heart problem was close; he suffered from high
blood pressure.
Lucie Fortin had a broken hip, two broken wrists, and a
displaced bone in her right shoulder. She has since had three
operations. Charles Jodouin had a broken collarbone, a broken
right wrist and a torn left forefinger that required twenty-four
stitches, but, despite the impact of the steering wheel, no
internal injuries. Jeanne Jodouin had multiple lacerations on her
face and legs. Robert Mack was treated for shock and
discharged.
During the three hours she spent at the accident scene, Jody had
fought back her own fears. I'm young-can I handle this? she
thought. If I make medical decisions I have no legal right to
make, will my nursing career be over? When a policeman

7. knocked on her door last June, she thought she was being
summoned to testify about the accident. Instead, Jody was
invited to a dinner to receive the Ontario Provincial Police's
Commissioner's Citation, in recognition of the remarkable job
she had done that rainy night on Highway 11.
Strangely, a year after the accident, none of the injured knew
her name. But the Fortins and the Jodouins knew what they
owed her. "Without her help," says Orner Fortin, "it's not likely
that all of us would have survived."
© 1977 by The Reader's Digest Association (Canada) Ltd.
Reprinted by permission.