Bonnie Pichota

Crash Date: July 14, 2008

This is my Story! On July 14th,2008 I was travelling east on the Yellowhead Highway near Wabamun, Alberta. I was an EMT on my last day of Holidays!. All of a sudden, a Truck with 5 impaired people in it pulled an illegal left in front of me. I t-boned them at 110kph. My car spun around and I ended up in the ditch. I jumped out of my car and fell to the ground. My chest hit the steering wheel at 110kph and on scene I had a heart attack, a heart block and a dissection of a main artery of the heart. I had a cracked sternum and cracked ribs. Two hours to the Hospital about 10 minutes later I went into cardiac arrest. My two children were in the trauma room with me and the doctors told them I may not make the next 24 hours. I was intubated and hooked up to IV,s everywhere. Being an EMT, I had my EMS family along with my children continuously coming to give me what may have been their last hug and kiss to me!. Twelve years later I am writing this. I have had so many hills to climb as I am a heart patient and unable to do very much. On April 19th, I went into a lethal rythyn and my defibrilator shocked me. But I am alive. And my heart goes out to those lives that were lost.