RANGELEY — Twenty-year-old Janessa Gordon is thankful to be alive, and credits firefighters and emergency responders for saving her life two years ago.
Gordon of Melrose, Mass., was a front-seat passenger in a car that went out of control at about 90 mph June 1, 2014, on Route 4. It went off the road and rolled over at the base of Dodge Pond Hill Road.
She was not wearing a seat belt and was critically injured.
Gordon was trapped inside when the car landed on its side. One of her friends was ejected from the vehicle. Two of the other teenagers of the five in the car received less-serious injuries.
Gordon and friends had rented a house in Rangeley for a pre-graduation celebration from Northeast Metropolitan Regional Vocational School in Wakefield, Mass.
Firefighters worked quickly to lift the car and cut it up to get Gordon out, according to Fire Rescue Chief Tim Pellerin.
Emergency medical crews, police, wardens, dispatchers and others all had a part in the effort to save her life. She was taken by ambulance to a medical helicopter and flown to a Lewiston hospital. She was later transferred to a Boston hospital.
Gordon had no alcohol or drugs in her system at the time of the crash, according to police. She spent more than five weeks in hospitals.
She had a broken collar bone, a collapsed lung and damaged eye, Gordon said via email in June.
“I had skull fractures,” she said. “I was bleeding in my brain stem. I had a deep cut on my right shoulder which is now obviously a scar.”
She also had fractures inside her nose and a broken jaw.
Gordon’s pituitary gland and thyroid stopped working due to her injuries and she is taking medication for them, she said.
She is thankful that is all she needs to deal with.
“It’s hard, but it could have been worse,” she said.
Gordon is working at a dog day care and is going to school to become a veterinary technician.
She does not remember anything during the accident but firefighters filled her in on what happened afterward. Her friends in the car with her remember some of the incident.
“Even though it’s traumatizing, at least they know a little bit of how it happened,” Janessa Gordon said. “But I’m glad it was me rather than them.”
People around the area and beyond had prayed she would survive.
Gordon and her mother, Kimberly Lepito, also of Massachusetts, posted their thanks to the Rangeley Fire Rescue Department’s Facebook page on the second anniversary of the accident.
“We can never ever thank you all enough,” Lepito wrote. “May God bless each and every one of you for giving us back our daughter.”
Pellerin thanked all those involved in a June 1 post on Facebook page.
This was one of those gut-wrenching calls that makes you go home and hug your kids afterward, he wrote.
“Knowing how severely injured the young victim was, it left us all feeling sad and brokenhearted at the scene that night,” Pellerin said in his post.
He noted that some calls have more of an impact than others — and this one was exceptionally hard.
“We knew the most probable outcome, and we also knew this beautiful young patient was someone’s daughter, granddaughter, sister, cousin and best friend,” he wrote. “We knew there were going to be broken hearts and tears shed this night for this bright shining young star, who had too much to give, so much more life to live.”
It was a long, somber scene cleaning up the equipment and picking everything up that night, he wrote.
“We were all praying for the best, but expecting the worst. I’m glad to say today this beautiful young lady fought hard to live, and survived to be here with us today. We all know that so often the outcome is the other way. We’re all glad we won this one.The stars were aligned, God was watching over, and some of the best first responders I’ve ever had the pleasure of saying I worked with performed heroically that evening two years ago to save a precious life.”
dperry@sunmediagroup.net
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