Recently, I hear this tale which really makes me hope even more that I don't ever have any trauma inflicted on me in Cold Lake.

One of Sean's work friends was cooking one day and went to grab something out of the fridge, tripped, and stabbed himself in the leg. He lost his shit, and pulled the knife out. Turns out he severed his femoral artery so blood started blasting out all over the place. His wife came running in, and presumably having just completed first aid training from Black Hawk Down, reached into this guy's flesh wound and pinched off the artery.

But wait! It gets crazier!

They call 911. The firemen show up first, bust down the door and do some basic first aid crap - pretty much hanging out waiting for the ambulance, who deign to show up fifteen minutes later.

You probably aren't familiar with Cold Lake, but you can pretty much get from one place to ANY OTHER PLACE in less. The EMTs come in, take one look at the guy, and say "we can't do anything."

Dude is unconscious by this point, but the wife isn't; she's just hanging out pinching arteries.

So the firemen are all "WTF?" and put a tourniquet (First Aid 101) on the guy.
They load the newly tourniquet'd dude onto a stretcher, wheel him out of there, and get to the ambulance.

But uh-oh, the incompetent EMT staff can't even lift him into the ambulance.

The firemen (who by the way aren't the TOWN'S firemen, they're the MILITARY fire department) say "holy shit, fuck y'all", load this guy into the firetruck, and drive him to the hospital themselves.

They get to the hospital, call in the surgeon. He walks into the room and also says, "I can't do anything about this."

So the military airlifts this guy to Edmonton and FOUR HOURS LATER, he gets medical treatment.

Too bad everyone seems to have skipped Tourniquet Day in their St. John's Ambulance course, because no one ever loosened the guy's tourniquet and the nerve damage is irreparable.

He said he doesn't intend on suing unless he loses his job, which is a possibility, because his leg doesn't have any fucking nerves anymore.

Eeeek! Get me out of here!