‘This is why we do it’: Paramedics reunite with survivor of near-fatal crash

As Ambulance Victoria paramedic Jed Bellgrove treated a 19-year-old girl trapped in her crushed car after a head-on collision, he worried she wouldn’t survive to be freed from the vehicle.

On the Goulburn Valley Highway in Tallygaroopna, near Shepparton, in August 2024, Melanie French was pinned under the dashboard, gasping for air and barely conscious.

Paramedics had access to one of her arms and some of her upper body to provide critical treatment to keep her alive while other emergency services worked to get her out of the car.

“She was pressed up against the dashboard – there was maybe a pen’s width of space between her and the dash,” Jed said.

“She was in a really bad way. She had unrecordable blood pressure and was gasping and struggling to breathe. We decompressed her chest which had an immediate positive effect, but we suspected she was bleeding from somewhere we couldn’t see.

“We were worried she wasn’t going to make it out of the car or if she did, we were expecting her to go into cardiac arrest.”

Due to the extent of her entrapment, it took over an hour to free Melanie from the vehicle.

With Melanie out of the vehicle, the cause of her bleeding became apparent – a severe open leg fracture which required paramedics to apply a tourniquet and quick-clotting medication to stop the uncontrolled bleeding.

Paramedics suspected Melanie had more fractures as well as bilateral tension pneumothorax (life-threatening collapsed lungs).

Additional treatment included some of the most technical in an Ambulance Victoria Mobile Intensive Care Ambulance (MICA) paramedics’ skillset: bilateral finger thoracostomy to release blood and air from Melanie’s lungs, administering blood products to replace lost blood, and rapid sequence intubation where a critically unwell patient is placed into medically induced unconsciousness so paramedics can manage their airway.

A specialist Air Ambulance Victoria helicopter crew airlifted Melanie to the Royal Melbourne Hospital in a critical condition.

Melanie had fractured almost every bone in both legs, seven ribs and her sternum, as well as having a badly injured hand and two collapsed lungs.

It was a long road to recovery with several subsequent surgeries and time using both a wheelchair and crutches. But now, Melanie walks without either.

Two years later, she has made a near-full recovery. She is back at university continuing her medicine degree, back at work at a bakery in her hometown in New South Wales, living in her own place and back driving.

“People weren’t expecting me to walk ever again, let alone do it unassisted,” Melanie said.

“I just want to share a huge thank you to everyone involved in taking care of me. It’s really exciting to be back in Victoria and to say that in person.”

For Jed, it’s a case that has stayed with him.

“I teared up when I heard that she was doing well. Getting that message was pretty emotional,” he said.

“Hearing a patient has made an initial recovery is great but it’s not the same as finding out how they’re going a couple of years down the line. It’s pretty rare that we get that follow up.

“Melanie was probably the sickest patient I’ve cared for with the best outcome. This is why we do it.”