‘My own flesh and blood’: Alberta paramedic treats her teenage daughter in fatal crash

Jayme Erickson calls it her “worst nightmare as a paramedic.”

The Alberta woman was on duty last Tuesday when she and her partner were called to a fatal multi-vehicle crash just west of Airdrie.

The 17-year-old girl who died in the crash, who Erickson treated at the scene before she was airlifted to hospital, turned out to be her daughter, and only child, Montana.

“Her injuries were so horrific (that) I did not even recognize her,” Erickson wrote in a heartbreaking social media post detailing the unimaginable tragedy.

Erickson and her partner responded to the crash around 4:30 pm and they found two patients with injuries when they arrived at the scene.

She said that she sat in the wrecked car and tended to the critically injured patient, who she later found out was her daughter, while firefighters attempted to extricate her.

Montana was finally removed from the wreckage and airlifted to Foothills Medical Centre, while Erickson went home because her shift had come to an end.

“Minutes after arriving home, my doorbell rang. My life was changed forever,” she explained.

“RCMP were at my door to inform me that my daughter had been in an accident. The critically injured patient I had just attended to was my own flesh and blood.”

She raced to Foothills to be by her daughter's side and was told that the teenager would not survive her injuries. Three days later, she said her final goodbye to Montana.

Erickson said she is thankful for the 17 years she had with her daughter, but she can’t help but be angry that Montana’s time was cut so short.

“I am shattered and left wondering what would have become, my baby girl? Who would you have been? I will never get to see you graduate and walk across the stage. I will never see you get married. I will never know who you would have been,” she said in her post.

A GoFundMe set up to support Erickson and her life partner through this tragedy had already raised over $15,000 when this story was published Monday afternoon.

If you would like to contribute, click this link.