We were notified by ER staff of a need for bed for a ten year old boy with multiple brain injuries and internal injuries. The boy was unconscience on admission and unresponsive to an stimuli. No response to a hard pinch on the chest or to a pin prick. He is on life support, the part of the brain ( at the base of the skull in back) that controls your breathing was damaged. The doctor told us that his brain was like scrambled eggs.

After 3 days no improvement in the child's condition, the doctor ordered an EEG.. a test to measure the brain waves and the electral activity of the brain. The test showed a straight line. The boy was brain dead. The doctor told the family that death was near and life support system would not improve his condition. The family came in to visit him one last time. I felt so sorry for them. I was with the doctor and family when life support was removed. In about 2 minutes death came.

This is why no one, no matter what how old, should ride in the back of a pickup truck. Yet I see this a lot in the spring and summer around here. Kids in the back, sitting on the edge of the truck sides. Don't they realize how in a second their whole lives will be changed forever. I wish that they would make it against the law to allow children to ride in the back. You even see dogs riding back there. I saw one here a while back. He was being thrown from one side of the truck bed to the other while his owner sped down the highway( esp when he would hit the brakes to slow down ).

Once I saw a truck turn the corner of a neighborhood street. He turned it too fast and too short, throwing his 3 year old daughter out. Her body bounced like a rubber ball. I started to stop but the father jumped out of the truck and put the child in the front and sped to the hospital.