Even after ten years in the air, and many more in hospital settings, I’m still surprised by the predicaments people can get themselves into when distracted by sex, alcohol or drugs.
My personal favorite came one winter evening when the thermometer had dropped to twenty-nine degrees. I snuggled deeper into my deliciously warm bed at CALSTAR quarters. Peering out the window, I saw a light film of frost covering the ground and trees, which shimmered in the moonlit night. In the bed next to me, Carrie slept soundly. Tim was in the next room, and the wall between us vibrated from his deep snoring.
The beeper gods would not allow such tranquility to last. Just as I was falling into a contented sleep, my pager went off. Swearing colorfully, I began dressing as I dialed dispatch. Kirstie picked it up on the first ring.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Sorry to get you out there tonight,” she said. “You’re headed out to San Joaquin County on Interstate 5. Two big rigs hit head-on, and they’re calling it a multi-casualty incident. It’s going to be on I-5 between Patterson and Crow’s Landing. I’ll get specific map coordinates and ground frequencies when you get en route, OK?”
“No problem. Give them a rough ETA of twenty minutes after we lift off, and check availability of Modesto Memorial North, if you would be so kind.” I pulled on my flight suit over my bulky long underwear and grappled with the zipper. Tim was already in the helicopter cranking up, and Carrie and I headed out the door to join him.
The flight was quiet, punctuated only by the necessary radio communications. We flew through the saddle of Mount Diablo, through the Altamont Pass and then headed south over Interstate 5. The accident was supposed to be at least ten miles to the south. Finding it was a piece of cake—in the flat valley the beacons of the fire trucks were visible as soon as we got over the highway.
Carrie radioed the IC, or incident commander. “I-5 IC, this is CALSTAR One. We have the scene in sight. Please give us landing zone instructions when we are overhead. Our ETA is three to four minutes.”
“CALSTAR One, I-5 IC. All helicopter traffic will be on fire white, call sign Engine 1492. Copy your ETA. You will be transporting the driver of one of the semi trucks. He is still being extricated.”
“CALSTAR One, switching to fire white now.” She reached over and adjusted the radio to the new frequency, shaking her head. Switching the helicopter traffic to another frequency usually indicated a chaotic scene—there were so many units responding that one frequency couldn’t handle all the radio traffic.
We circled the scene twice to get a general idea of the incident. The accident was impressive, and a good lesson in basic physics. Two thirty-ton juggernauts of steel hitting head on at seventy miles per hour can produce some rather impressive damage. The two trucks lay on their sides, as if they were colossal dinosaurs contracted in a death grip. Twisted hunks of metal debris were spread over a half-mile. Both cabs were unrecognizable from the impact and it seemed extraordinary that anyone could survive such carnage. We could see streams of sparks flying into the air as the firefighters sawed through the metal to release our patient from inside his cab. From the air, the scene had the surreal quality of an elaborate movie set.
We landed on a grassy median north of the accident and found the incident commander shouting instructions into his portable radio. Between the roar of the helicopter jet engines and the screeching din of the Jaws of Life, it was difficult to hear anything. “Which one do you want us to take?” I yelled, wondering what kind of mangled remains we might be presented with.
“The one over there,” he shouted, pointing to the cab that was lying in the middle of the road. Carrie and I carefully picked our way through the field of metal chunks of truck toward the paramedics who were pulling our patient out of the twisted wreck onto a backboard.
“Hi, I’m Janice from CALSTAR,” I yelled into the paramedic’s ear. “What’s the story?” He screamed the report back into my ear while the medics continued strapping the patient onto the backboard and placing an oxygen mask on him, and I started pulling our IV and intubation equipment from the trauma bag.
“This guy was the driver of this truck,” he said, gesturing to one of the mangled cabs. “He’s got a head injury, bruising over his chest, and abdominal abrasions. He doesn’t recall the incident and has repetitive speech. I can’t hear breath sounds ’cause of all the noise. He also has some extremity trauma—his left wrist and left leg were angulated. We have those splinted. Sorry, we didn’t have access to start an IV.”
I leaned over the patient and started a primary survey, noting he wore only a torn shirt. I assumed the medics had cut off his pants to evaluate his lower extremities, a common practice. “What’s your name?” I asked.
“Bob,” he replied. This was good—it meant his airway was intact enough to speak, and his brain must be getting enough of a blood pressure. His radial pulse was rapid and thready, but if I could feel it that meant his systolic BP was at least eighty.
“Where do you hurt?” I asked next, palpating his chest, abdomen and pelvis.
“Bob, Bob, Bob,” was his reply.
Well, OK, at least he was talking. I did a quick secondary survey, which revealed, in addition to the broken limbs, chest injuries that would threaten his breathing, a rigid abdomen, which suggested internal bleeding, and a sickening crunch as I gently rocked his pelvis. This man needed to be in the capable hands of a hospital trauma team quickly. It was too noisy to try to listen to his breath sounds, so I wrapped a tourniquet around his good arm in anticipation of starting an IV in the helicopter, and prepared to get the patient loaded.
“Bob,” I yelled, “you’ve been in an accident, and we’re going to take you to the hospital so they can get you all fixed up, OK?”
“Bob, Bob, Bob, Bob.”
I shook my head and handed him over to Carrie. As I headed off to the helicopter, the incident commander grabbed my shoulder. “Where are you taking him? His wife was in the cab, too, but doesn’t seem to be hurt too badly. We’re taking her to Tracy Community Hospital to get checked out. She wants to get to wherever you’re going as soon as possible.”
“We’re going to Modesto Memorial North,” I yelled, and then headed to the helicopter to prepare for our patient’s arrival.
As Carrie loaded Bob into the aircraft, I quickly got him set up on all the monitors. His blood pressure was low, and his heart rate was 150. Thankfully, his blood-oxygen saturations were in the high nineties, indicating his oxygenation hadn’t yet been compromised by his chest injuries. Through it all, our patient continued his mantra: “Bob, Bob, Bob, Bob.”
I didn’t want to wipe out his airway reflexes by intubating him now. That would have to be done eventually, but to do it in the field with a patient who is still marginally awake requires a rapid sequence induction, or RSI. We give the patient a sedative and then a medication that paralyzes him, allowing us to overcome coughing and gagging when we stuff the breathing tube into his trachea. This would take away his ability to breathe on his own. Moreover, the hospital trauma team would need to do a neurological evaluation, which isn’t possible if the patient is intubated, sedated and paralyzed. Finally, our friend Bob had a bull neck, a receding jaw, and probably a stomach full of Big Macs, making intubation difficult and aspiration—breathing in his own vomit—a likelihood. In any case, his oxygen saturations were in good shape, so I didn’t want to start looking for trouble.
Our flight to the trauma center was quite busy, as we started Bob’s IVs and began pushing fluids into him. As soon as Carrie got the IV established, I switched the radio to the receiving hospital and gave a brief report.
“Modesto Memorial, CALSTAR One. We are currently en route to your facility with an ETA of twelve minutes. On board we have an approximately forty-five-year-old patient who was the belted driver of a semi that was hit head-on by another semi truck, both traveling at sixty to seventy miles per hour. Our patient required an approximately twenty-minute extrication. We are seeing a head injury with repetitive speech, a small flail segment on the left chest, and a rigid abdomen. His pelvis is unstable, and there is no priapism.” Priapism—that is, an abnormally persistent erection—can indicate a spinal injury, so Bob’s flaccid state was a good thing. I explained Bob’s other injuries and his vital signs, and got the OK from Modesto Memorial.
When we landed at the helipad, several members of the trauma team were there to meet us and we offloaded the patient with the helicopter still running. He continued chanting “Bob, Bob, Bob, Bob” as we rushed him to where the rest of the team waited. I gave a report as they launched into their choreographed routine.
As we pulled out our litter and supplies, I found the trauma coordinator standing by the door, watching the resuscitation. It was my old friend Diana, whom I had worked with at Seton Hospital’s ER.
“Hi, Diana. How’s things in the Modesto trauma business?”
Bob was now screaming in the background, adding to the cacophony of the trauma room. “BOB, BOB, BOB, BOB,” he yelled as the nurse drew blood and the physician rocked his pelvis.
“Busy as usual,” she said. “How is this guy?”
“Pretty sick, I’d say. Quite verbal though. Hey, listen, the incident commander on scene told me they found his wife with him in the cab and, miraculously, she isn’t hurt badly. They’re taking her to Tracy Community to get her checked out, but she’ll probably be here later tonight. You’ll take care of it, won’t you?”
“Of course. Call me in the morning and I’ll let you know how it all goes.”
The next morning, Diana called me before I had a chance to track her down. “Janice, you aren’t going to believe this one.”
“Is Bob doing OK?” I asked.
“Well, he was a mess, and he was in the OR until 5:00 a.m. He’s going to do fine. But there’s more.”
“Oh?”
“Remember you told me his wife was with him?”
“Yes. Did she get there OK?”
“Oh, she sure did. She showed up around 3:00 a.m., a little bruised, but doing fine. She was very concerned about Bob and insisted on staying awake all night waiting for him. She admitted they were, uh, fooling around when Bob lost control of the truck. She had her head in his lap, uh, servicing him, if you know what I mean.”
I laughed. “Oh, that’s why he didn’t have any pants on. I thought the medics cut them off.”
“Well, that’s not the best part. Another woman shows up earlier this morning, and she claims to be Bob’s wife. Next thing I know, I get called to the ICU waiting room to find the wrestling match of the century. These two gals were in the midst of a serious cat fight, and they both ended up in the ER with black eyes. We had to call the sheriff’s office to keep them apart.” Diana giggled. “Who do you think is gonna be in big trouble when he wakes up?”
“Guess that would be Bob, Bob, Bob, Bob.”
Friday nights often brought us a little entertainment, too. The boys would be out drinking, and we’d often find ourselves dragged out of bed to pick up some drunk who had gotten himself into a barroom brawl.
At least this time it was a beautiful night. The view of the harvest moon rising behind Mount Diablo was spectacular as we headed out for a stab wound to the abdomen. “Base, CALSTAR One. Lifting at 01:33, en route to Oakley with an ETA of 01:45. Ready to copy map coordinates and frequencies.”
“Map coordinates are Thomas Brothers page 26 B4. You’ll be talking with Captain 52 on Tac 5. John Muir is open and willing to accept. Be advised you’ll be landing in a parking lot near a bar, and the scene is not yet secure.”
Our pilot that night was Carl, who happens to be built like a Greek god. The flashing beacons of the emergency vehicles made his navigation to the scene easy; we could see them as soon as we passed over Kirker Pass, some fifteen miles from Oakley. We made radio contact with the fire department, who briefed us on the landing zone and brought us down uneventfully in the parking lot next to the Come Back Inn, a bar notorious for the hard-drinking crowd it lured. On weekends it featured some local band that played behind chicken wire to protect them from the beer bottles the crowd frequently hurled toward the stage. Crowds of bar patrons milled behind the police lines, obviously entertained by the activity we created. As I walked through the parking lot to the ambulance, several of the men started yelling, “Hey, nursie, nursie! I need help!” as they fell to the ground laughing and clutching their chests. I grinned at their antics as I opened the back door of the ambulance.
I was greeted by Joe, a paramedic I had met years before when I was his preceptor during his emergency room training. “Hey Janice, how you doing?” he asked, planting a chaste kiss on my cheek.
“I was sleeping soundly, thank you, before you guys got us involved. What do you have for us tonight?” I surveyed the rather pasty-looking patient lying on the gurney.
“Well, seems José here was enjoying a night on the town and he had an unfortunate misunderstanding with another patron. He was stabbed, once in the right upper quadrant. It’s bleeding quite a bit.”
I reached over and lifted up the blood-soaked dressing that covered the wound. “Any bowel protruding?” I asked. Blood spurted from an artery and barely missed my face. I slapped it down hastily. “Jeez, you weren’t kidding. That’s pretty impressive.” Judging from his skin signs and barely palpable pulse, José was about to get a whole lot sicker if we couldn’t get him to the OR to get the bleeding controlled.
“José,” I yelled into our patient’s ear. “We’re going to fly you to the trauma center, OK? Where do you hurt the most?”
José peered at me through a drunken haze, trying to focus on my face. “Hey, I got stabbed. My stomach hurts.”
Having thus cleverly established that José had an intact airway and adequate blood pressure, I stepped back to get the big picture. Our friend was lying on the stretcher, wearing only a pair of boxer shorts cheerfully printed with large red hearts, albeit now soaked with blood. His hair was carefully slicked back and combed into a swirl. An overwhelming odor of cheap cologne and tequila hung in the air. Clearly this man was out on the prowl tonight. But the most impressive addition to his ensemble was a pair of the shiniest black patent leather shoes I had ever seen. Here was a man who took his recreation seriously.
“Hey, José,” I said. “Those are some great shoes you got.”
His eyes lit up and he wiggled his toes as he regarded his prized possessions. “Yeah. I just got them today.”
One of the firefighters popped his head into the ambulance to see what was happening. “Hey you guys, check out his shoes,” he said. Everyone murmured that they were indeed some of the best shoes they had ever seen. José beamed with pride.
I headed back to the helicopter and tossed the trauma bag onto the seat. Carl was hunched down in his seat, punching numbers into the computer, estimating weight and balance before liftoff. “So how much does this guy weigh?” he asked, keying up the mike.
“I’d say about 75 kilograms—and he’s got these really great shoes.” Carl turned to look at me with a puzzled expression, but had no chance to inquire further, as the firefighters had arrived to load the patient—complete with those shiny shoes sticking out from under the silver Thermadrape. (The Thermadrape is there to keep the patient warm, but it also keeps him from bleeding all over the floor of the helicopter, which can short out the wiring and is a mess to clean up.) Carl keyed up the intercom and agreed that José was sporting some pretty fine footwear.
Our flight time to John Muir was about eight minutes, during which we were busy placing more large-bore IVs and delivering fluids. José’s BP continued to drop from his rather spectacular blood loss. Despite his deteriorating condition, however, occasionally he would crane his head around to check on his beloved shoes.
As we arrived at the helipad, I hurried into the trauma room ahead of our patient to give report; José needed to get to the OR quickly or he would bleed to death. Just as I finished report, a barely conscious José was wheeled into the room, and the trauma surgeon took hold of the patient’s ankles in order to move him to the hospital gurney. This doctor would later repair a large liver laceration and save our hero’s life. But before getting down to work, he paused to make an observation. “Yo, José,” he said. “Where’d you get these great shoes?”
The Delta is a complex maze of brackish waterways where San Francisco Bay meets the fresh waters flowing down from the Sierra. There are thousands of narrow channels in the area, lined with large boulders and a levee on each side. In the summertime, many people gravitate here for all kinds of water sports: power boating, water skiing, Jet Skiing, swimming, fishing and the like. On the weekends, the waterways are often so crowded that two or three ski boats can share the same slough, and they will zip up and down towing skiers at forty or fifty miles an hour in opposite directions. Add alcohol to this formula—and it is consumed in the Delta with wild abandon—and the result is some very stupid behavior. To make things even more challenging for EMS, there is often no vehicle access to the incident, as there are hundreds of small islands with no bridges or roads.
One day in the dead of summer, Nancy, Pete and I were activated to the Delta for a Jet Ski accident. This particular call took us to Lost Isle, a small resort that was known for its no-holds-barred parties. We had heard stories of drunken, naked orgies there during the summer months, and no one doubted their authenticity. Lost Isle was accessible only by boat or helicopter, and it consisted of a dock, a small liquor store, several disintegrating bungalows, and a primitive campground. We landed on the levee near the dock and shut down.
Nancy was directed to the dock by the firefighter who landed us. “The patient will be here in a minute,” he said. “Someone is bringing her in a private boat.” I returned to the helicopter and wrestled the litter out onto the ground, preparing the Thermadrape and arranging the strap so we could quickly package her. The firefighter motioned me over as I was finishing. “Your partner just radioed me and told me to get you to the dock immediately.” I nodded and together we jogged down toward the water.
Lying on the dock was the body of what used to be a young woman. Paramedics were doing CPR, and Nancy was trying in vain to manually ventilate her with a bag and a mask. I say trying, because the patient’s face was completely smashed and it wasn’t even clear where her mouth was anymore. Her right breast had been neatly severed, and underneath was a deep, gaping hole in the chest. Blood streamed from her head.
“What in God’s name happened?” I asked as I reached into the bag for our intubation equipment.
The paramedic looked up as he did compressions. “She was playing chicken with another Jet Ski, and when she veered off at the last minute, she was hit by a large power boat that was passing by. She went right underneath it and apparently got hit by the propeller in the face and chest.” The portable monitor showed no heart activity.
“Nancy, tell me what you want me to do,” I said, surveying the rest of the patient. Nancy appeared calm, but I saw the panic in her eyes. This was going to be her first field intubation. And given the condition of the patient, it wasn’t going to be easy.
“You try to get an IV, and I’m going to try an oral intubation,” she said, taking a deep breath. “But I don’t think this is going to work. Her airway’s too distorted.” I nodded and picked up an arm, searching for a vein. Nancy, with the help of one of the paramedics, slipped the laryngoscope into what was left of our patient’s mouth. I found a vein, slipped a needle in and started to tape down the tubing.
“Nancy, I’m going to give an amp of epinephrine and atropine, OK? Got anything up there?”
“Her tongue is split, as well as her palate,” she said. “I can’t see a goddamn thing in here.” She pulled the laryngoscope out of the mouth, squatted back on her heels and resuming bagging.
I looked up. “Do you think you need to do a surgical cric?” A cricothyrotomy is procedure where you make an incision in the patient’s neck and insert a tube to help her breathe.
Nancy handed the laryngoscope to one of the medics. “Why don’t one of you guys take a look while Janice and I set up for a cric. Hope you can get it, but I couldn’t see anything.”
The medics nodded and got into position. I pulled out the cric kit and started cleaning the young woman’s neck with Betadine while Nancy pulled on a pair of sterile gloves. I noticed only a slight tremor in her hands as I handed her the scalpel. “You all right?” I asked quietly.
“Sure, only I’ve never done this before. At least you’re here if there is a problem.”
“Um, Nancy, this may not be the right time to tell you this, but I’ve always managed to avoid doing a cric. I’ve helped other people, but I’ve never done it myself.”
“That makes me feel so much better,” she said, and made the first skin incision. I was poised next to her with the trach tube, ready to pop it in as soon as she was in the trachea.
Nancy carefully made an incision in the trachea, barely an eighth of an inch wide. “OK, put it in.”
“Nancy, the tube is about an inch wide. You need to make the hole big enough for it to fit.”
“Oh, sorry,” she said, and extended it to perhaps a quarter of an inch. “There you go. Put it in.”
“Nancy. You have to make it big enough to put this in,” I said, holding the trach tube right in front of her face. “Now try it again.”
This time she got it right: the incision was beautiful, and the tube slid into place perfectly. We started bagging the patient with the first decent respirations she had had since the accident. The drugs I had given were starting to work, and the monitor now showed a weak pulse.
“Great job, Nancy. Let’s get out of here.”
The paramedics and firefighters helped package our patient and we were airborne within five minutes, en route to John Muir. Our patient had a blood pressure (kind of) and her oxygen saturation was acceptable. We considered placing a pleural decompression needle in the right chest, but decided she was already vented from her injury. There was nothing more to do except get her to the trauma center.
Despite Nancy’s heroic work, the young woman died the next day. Nancy still hasn’t let me forget she did that first cric while I—who had been at CALSTAR for five years by that point—hadn’t done one yet. All I could say was, “Better you than me.” I got to do enough of my own in the following years.
My first clue that this next call was going to be an adventure came when Kirstie, our dispatcher, seemed a little agitated when I picked up the phone.
“Where are we going on this lovely Sunday night?” I asked.
“This is a weird one,” she said. “You’ve been activated to respond to the Ohlone Wilderness Area for a reported mountain lion mauling. Alameda County Sheriff’s is on the line with a young woman who sounds hysterical. They’re in some trailer out there and she’s screaming that her boyfriend is lying on the floor bleeding after being attacked by a mountain lion.”
I scratched my head. “You must be joking. There aren’t any mountain lions in the Bay Area, at least none I know of. Bobcats, maybe, but mountain lions?”
“I just dispatch helicopters,” Kirstie replied. “I don’t come up with the stories.”
As we lifted off, I relayed the story to the rest of the crew. Ken, one of our newer flight nurses, was enthusiastic. “A mountain lion mauling?” he asked. “Oh, God, this job is just too cool. I can’t believe I’m getting paid to do this.”
J.B. was a bit more skeptical. “A mountain lion attack? Are they nuts?”
“Stranger things have happened,” I reminded him, and off we flew into the moonlight, headed for the Ohlone Wilderness. The night was clear and crisp, and I sat back to enjoy a free helicopter ride that probably wouldn’t amount to anything. Ken was busy working the radios with his usual enthusiasm, keeping the entire Bay Area EMS and law enforcement system apprised of our progress. As we approached the wilderness area, Ken contacted the fire unit that was en route.
“Engine 1791, this is CALSTAR One. We are currently over the Los Padres Boy Scout Camp overflying Mines Road southbound. We do not yet have you in sight. Please let us know when you have a visual on us.”
“CALSTAR One, this is Engine 1791. We’re about sixteen miles farther down Mines Road near mile marker thirty-two. We have been advised by county communications that this incident is on Mercer Ranch. We have entered a radio dead zone, so we’d appreciate you relaying information for us. We’ll let you know when we have you in sight. Also, could you ascertain who’s joining the party tonight? This dispatch seems pretty suspicious, and we’d appreciate having law enforcement backup.”
“Engine 1791, CALSTAR One. Read and check. We understand CDF, Regional Ambulance, CHP and Alameda County Sheriff’s all responding. Happy to relay for all. We’ll be overhead in a few.”
Looking back down Mines Road in the direction we had come, I saw a string of flashing red beacons. After a few radio calls, we discovered all the agencies Ken mentioned were responding, and a few more as well. “Must be a pretty quiet night in Livermore to get this kind of response,” I thought aloud. “Must be half of the law enforcement and EMS personnel on duty in a fifty-mile radius down there. Probably a few off-duty officers as well.”
“Well, this is really starting to be quite the party,” J.B. added.
After a few minutes, we spotted Engine 1791, which was stopped at the side of the road. J.B. initiated a high orbit, as the firefighters decided to wait for the rest of the party to catch up. They would be turning onto an unmarked dirt road that the others might easily miss. The dirt road stretched on for miles, so we decided to contact Alameda County Sheriff’s Office—or Alco—to see if the woman who made the call could be more helpful about where this trailer might be.
“Alco, this is CALSTAR One. We’re currently over Engine 1791 on Mines Road at approximately the fifty-three-mile marker, where the turnoff to Mercer Ranch is located. Can you recontact the reporting party for instructions as to their specific location? The rest of the group should be here in approximately ten minutes.”
“CALSTAR One, this is Alco. Be advised we have the woman back on the telephone. We are having great difficulty in gaining any information from her. She is hysterical and will not cooperate with us. We are hearing sounds of multiple gunshots in the background. We are unsure what type of situation we are dealing with. We’ll try and get more specific directions. Understand all units are in a radio dead zone, and you will be relaying all information.”
“That’s affirm for CALSTAR One. We’ll stand by till you can get further instructions to us.”
“Hey J.B.,” I said. “Could we get a couple of thousand feet up? As you know, we look suspiciously like a police helicopter, and I suspect these people are not real rational.”
“Yeah, that seems to be the prudent thing to do,” he replied. “You know, I think I’m catching a whiff of bullshit here.”
The ambulance, fire engines and the first police cars had now assembled below us, and they all turned onto the rutted dirt road, leaving a strobe light to mark the turnoff for the others following. In the moonlight we could see the huge fire engine groaning over the deeply rutted surface, making the going rather slow. We decided to fly ahead and try to locate the trailer ourselves and guide the party in, keeping a distance from the madness below.
Alco contacted us with an update. “CALSTAR One, this is Alco. The reporting party is back on the line. She now states they are being overrun with mountain lions—they are reportedly surrounding the house and attacking. We continue to hear gunshots being fired.”
Oh, jeez. “Alco, we copy you 10-2. Overrun with mountain lions. Be advised we are reluctant to approach the scene without the benefit of law enforcement, and will commence a high orbit.”
“CALSTAR One, Alco. We concur with high orbit until the sheriff is on scene. Oh, and by the way, the woman now states there must be forty or fifty lions attacking them.”
About fifteen minutes later, the first fire engine reached the trailer and Engine 1791 came up on the radio. We could hear a screaming, incoherent woman in the background. “CALSTAR, we are on scene. As suspected, there are no mountain lions in the vicinity, and no injuries. There are, however, four very intoxicated individuals and one very frightened, pregnant house cat. There are multiple shotgun holes in the trailer. All medical personnel can be released. Law enforcement to continue in. Thanks for coming tonight.”
The story made the front page in the Livermore Times. It seems two young men had taken their underage girlfriends out to the hills and had broken into a trailer on a remote ranch. They had thoughtfully provided a great deal of alcohol and methamphetamine—crystal meth—which they had been delving into deeply for two days. In a drunken, drug-induced frenzy, they had mistaken the pregnant cat for a mountain lion, and the hallucination escalated from there.
The young men were taken to jail, and the girls were taken home to their parents. The family that owned the trailer put new locks on the door. The cat was taken to the SPCA for the duration of her confinement.