Dylan David, a paramedic with Texas EMS in Granbury, is thankful to be alive.
“I was a little bit tired, but I didn’t think anything of it,” David said.
He was on his way home after his first true day as a paramedic when he drifted to sleep behind the wheel.
“I just woke up to a couple of crashing sounds, and I woke up and my car was already stopped and in pieces,” David said.
The 22-year-old shattered his leg but not his dreams when he fell asleep behind the wheel on Highway 377 in Benbrook and drifted across the road into a box truck.
“I guess being young and being on the ambulance and seeing it happen, you kind of almost feel invincible,” David said.
Nurses who came upon the accident rushed to help.
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“They decided my leg needed a tourniquet, and that’s when I took my belt off of my pants and handed it to Malory and she tourniqueted my leg above the knee,” David said.
It seems it’s in David’s nature to worry more about others than himself, going so far as to do what he could to help paramedics at the scene of his own accident.
“Just the whole time I was trying to be a good patient. I was thinking about it from their side, their point of view,” David said.
Three surgeries and eight days later, David went home without his left leg.
“I still feel like I have a left foot, and I still feel like I can feel it and wiggle my toes and move my leg,” David said.
Unfortunately, he can’t.
“Those were the cards that I was dealt, and either you become a negative person and go that route with it or you jump back up on the horse and get back out there and don't let it define who you are,” David said.
Now, what defines David is his dream of being a firefighter.
“I don't see any reason why I couldn't be as long as I can pass the physical requirements that they have,” David said.
He’ll need a high-tech prosthesis, which could cost upwards of $50,000.
“For me, I'm a giver not a taker kinda mentality, and so asking for help is difficult. But I'm also at a difficult time,” David said.“Never have I thought that I wouldn't be back out where I'm going. I look forward, not behind.”
A GoFundMe page has been set up for David to help him cover medical bills and the cost of his prosthesis.
Click here if you would like to contribute.
