The strength and courage of one 11-year-old girl has touched the lives of emergency service personnel in three different Golden departments.
Macy Wilkinson, now living in Saskatchewan, was involved in a horrific motor vehicle accident while travelling in a moving van on Highway 1 on Nov. 29, 2012.
The Golden Fire Department, BC Ambulance, and Golden RCMP were on site at the accident scene, roughly 40 kilometres west of Golden. RCMP arrived on scene to find a semi tractor trail engulfed by flames, teetering on the edge of an embankment, while Macy and her grandmother were trapped in a U-Haul down below.
Emergency crews worked hard to get the fire under control, and then focus on the rescue efforts. It took the fire department an hour to extricate Macy and her grandmother from the vehicle. Macy sustained extensive injuries to her legs, but was transported to hospital where her injuries were treated.
Although she has undergone multiple surgeries, and has been confined to a wheel chair, her casts have now come off, and she will begin to learn how to walk again.
Emergency service personnel usually send a patient off into higher medical care, and never see them again, but a thoughtful thank you letter has given these departments a rare and humbling look into a patient’s recovery.
“When we get a thank you letter from a patient, it’s pretty neat. We usually don’t ever find out what happened to them,” said Golden Fire Chief Ken McClure. “They’ve had a pretty traumatic experience to begin with, so we don’t usually talk about these types of things.”
Nearly two months after the accident, a thank-you card with a personal message from Macy, and a hand-written note from her mother, arrived in the fire department’s mail box.
The card read, “Thank you for saving my life, I am forever thankful that there are people like you! Love, Macy Wilkinson.”
“When we get an update from a person saying thank you for saving my life, that goes a long way in the emergency services field. It makes us feel like we’re doing the right thing. It’s a cool feeling, and I can say for the RCMP, ambulance, and the fire department, it’s nice to get that every once in a while. It’s very rare,” said McClure.
“Eddie Leigan (a lieutenant with the fire department, and the first member to see the card), since it was so cool we got a thank you letter, decided he wanted to do something a little special for her. He brought us all together, ambulance, fire and police, and we put all the vehicles inside the bay. Everybody who was available got into a group photo. So we’re sending her some paraphernalia to remember us by. Hopefully it will lighten her spirits.”
The framed photo is being mailed to Macy and her family, along with some T-shirts, hats and badges from the three departments.
