Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Dianna T. Benson Thriller/ Adventure/ Suspense Author & EMT (Guest Blog & Giveaway)

Book signings in Raleigh, NC
Listed at end
 I am so pleased to introduce you to Dianna T. Benson who is a North Carolinian - just like me.  Only she's so gifted in her writing and also in her skills as an EMT.  In March 2013 her first thriller/adventure/suspense book launched - The Hidden Son.  But today, let's ride with Dianna T. Benson - author, EMS team member, and real nice lady.  What happened on Smith road at Bailey Construction?  Let's see......
EMS 16. Fall at Bailey Construction, 1600 Smith Road
I shake my head to full awake from my cat-nap, and gear up for the trauma call less than a minute drive away. Once my partner and I roll on scene, I note the three cop cars arriving.

Additional information regarding the call flashes across our ambulance laptop screen.

Proceed with caution. Law enforcement dispatched.

“What’s the deal?” my partner yells out the driver window at a cop rushing toward the building.

“Another worker pushed the guy.”

“Ah,” I say with a nod. “Attempted homicide.”

“Or homicide, but if the guy’s not already dead, he’s gonna need us.” My partner jumps out of our ambulance.

We grab a C-collar (cervical collar) and a backboard, and toss it onto our stretcher already loaded with EMS equipment and supplies.

“Remember caution?” I remind my partner.

“Yeah, yeah. Guy was pushed not shot or stabbed. Let’s go.”

I really didn’t want to hang back either. Our patient’s life may be over if we wait.

Inside the building, we push through a crowd of gawkers. I notice three cops drawing their guns at a man choke-holding some young woman, her wide eyes glossed-over.

“Let her go,” the cop at the left yells out. “Now.”

I’m hoping the guy follows the demand or we’ll have more than one patient. As I rest my hand on my radio in case I need to request additional EMS crews, I scan the area for an injured man on the ground. I spot our patient on the other side lying supine and lifeless in a pool of blood on the cement, his attacker in the middle and blocking us from our patient. I glance up and see the catwalk and assume our patient was pushed off of the suspended walkway about twenty feet above.  

The guy fell twenty feet? I think to myself.  If he’s alive over there, he’s in critical condition.

“Clear out,” the cop to the right shouts. “Everyone. Out of this room. Now.”

The crowd scampers away. My partner and I hold our position behind the cops. The perpetrator doesn’t have a weapon, so there’s no danger to us.
 

After a few drawn-out minutes of the cops warning the perp to let the woman go, and our patient remaining lifeless and out of my reach on the ground in the near distance, I somehow dig up my most gentle tone and interject, “Sir, I don’t think you want to hurt her. Do you?”

The perp jerks his head in my direction. Ten seconds tick by with him just staring at me as if pleading me to help him out of this. “Ah…no. No, not really.”

“I didn’t think so. How about letting her go and we’ll talk?” Stop blocking me from my patient. If he’s not already dead, he needs me now. Needed me minutes ago.

 “Talk? Yeah, yeah,” he nods, “I just need to talk.” Chest panting, arms shaking, the perpetrator shoves the woman aside and drops on the ground. All three cops pounce on him and drag his arms behind his back.

I roll the front of the stretcher around the chaos on the ground; my partner pushes from the back. As I pass the perp, I ignore his insistent yells to talk with me since my focus is on my patient.

“Sir?” I say to the lifeless man as we approach him.

No answer. No movement of any kind.

I slide my fingers to his neck and find a thready carotid pulse. His chest is rising and falling in steady rhythm bi-laterally.

My partner holds his head in an in-line spinal stabilization position as I strap the C-collar around his neck. I slip a towel underneath his head for hemorrhage control and feel for trauma. I find an open skull wound, crepitus bone, and flesh.

Two firefighters appear at our side and assist me with log rolling the unconscious patient onto a spine board and strapping his body down. I secure the man’s c-collared head to the backboard with head blocks, straps and tape, allowing my partner to finally release the manual c-spine stabilization. 

“What do you need from me?” some guy asks. “I’m his supervisor.”

“How old is he?”

The manger answers that pertinent question as well as all my others, as I connect my patient to our cardiac monitor. Less than a minute later, I’ve assessed all vital signs and the heart rhythm, as my partner performs a rapid trauma examination. Our patient remains unconscious. I’m thinking internal bleeding is the main cause and he’s headed to hypovolemic shock, and if that’s the case, surgical interventions are vital. No more time to waste on scene.

“Femur fracture,” my partner says.

“Among other things,” I say. “Let’s go.”

All of us lift the backboarded man onto the stretcher, and roll it out to my ambulance.

As one of the firefighters drive, my partner and I attend to our trauma patient in the back with the assistance of another firefighter. Our patient remains unconscious. In order to protect his airway, I slide a lubricated oropharyngeal airway down his throat. With a curved laryngoscope, I lift the epiglottis and gain a visual of the glottic opening and white vocal cords. I drop the orotrachael tube between the cords, down the trachea. I connect a bag valve mask over the tube opening. To keep him oxygenated, I squeeze the football-size bulb every five seconds.  

“Take over bagging,” I say to the firefighter, and he grabs the bag valve mask from my hands.  

I spike an IV bag as my partner slides in an eighteen-gauge IV needle into our patients left arm. Since the patient is unconscious, there’s no point to administer pain meds.

I grab the radio mic. “Wake Med ED, this is EMS 16.”

“Go ahead EMS 16.”

“We are en route with a thirty-three year old male. Trauma patient. Twenty-foot plus fall onto concrete. Unconscious. Intubated. Open head trauma posterior. Fractured femur.  Normal sinus cardiac rhythm. BP 95/52 and falling. 182 heart rate. ETA 5 minutes.

Even if this man’s body survives, his brain will probably never be the same. I swallow the sadness clogging my throat, hoping he doesn’t have any children, and I re-focus on finishing my job on this trauma call.

Now, if that doesn't whet your appetite for more to come and more of Dianna T. Benson's writing, I don't know what will.  Watch for my review of The Hidden Son (partially set in Raleigh, NC) to appear here on Chat With Vera very soon. 
GIVEAWAY:  Dianna T. Benson has gracious provided a giveaway copy of her first book, The Hidden Son, for one of Chat With Vera's readers to win.  So here is how to do it.  Use the Rafflecopter form below to enter.  Begins April 9 and ENDS May 1 @ 12:01 a.m. EDT.  
 a Rafflecopter giveaway
Raleigh, NC BOOK SIGNINGS:  Book Signings by Dianna T. Benson, Suspense Novelist  -  Both of the below book signings are open to the general public and all are welcome to attend.
1) Saturday, April 27, 1pm-5pm
Alexander YMCA
1603 Hillsborough Street
Raleigh, NC 27605
Hosted by Quail Ridge Books

2) Saturday, May 4, 1pm-5pm
The Greenway Club
1300 Falls River Ave
Raleigh, NC 27614
Hosted by Quail Ridge Books 

About the author:  Dianna T. Benson is a 2011 Genesis Winner, a 2011 Genesis double Semi-Finalist, a 2010 Daphne de Maurier Finalist, and a 2007 Golden Palm Finalist. In 2012, she signed a nine-book contract with Ellechor Publishing House. Her first book, The Hidden Son, released in print world-wide March 1, 2013.
 

After majoring in communications and a ten-year career as a travel agent, Dianna left the travel industry to earn her EMS degree. An EMT and a Haz-Mat and FEMA Operative since 2005, she loves the adrenaline rush of responding to medical emergencies and helping people in need. Her suspense novels about adventurous characters thrown into tremendous circumstances provide readers with a similar kind of rush.  Dianna lives in North Carolina with her husband and their three athletic children.  www.diannatbenson.com

21 comments:

  1. If she is an EMT and a Haz-Mat and FEMA Operative, she already has a pretty exciting life. I know another woman with those creditials and part of her training is to get into a safety harness and then they go to the top of a high rise in San Francisco and push you off it.

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  2. I am impressed that she has reached thirty-one summits of Colorado's 54 Fourteeners (peaks over 14,000 feet in elevation) - We drove to the top of Pike's Peak in Colorado. I got out of the car to walk around and almost passed out because of the thin air.

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  3. The Hidden Son 3/1/13
    Persephone's Fugitive 7/14
    both part of her Cayman Islands Trilogy

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  4. Her job sounds exciting yet scary. Think about how many lives are in her hands in the course of a year??? wow! Thanks for the chance to win.

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  5. She met her husband, when they were only 11 and 13. I think that is pretty amazing.
    may_dayzee (at) yahoo (dot) com

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  6. First book: Hidden Son
    Second book: Persephone's Fugitive
    may_dayzee (at) yahoo (dot) com

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  7. The books you review are so interesting! I enjoy mysteries and suspense!

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  8. I think the fact that she has her book ideas planned out like that is so cool... that is three series planned on her website! Wow!

    PS. I enjoy reading your blog and I really admire the way you write your reviews. I am a rather new blogger and book reviewer, and am loving it so much! Thank you both for hosting this giveaway!

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    Replies
    1. Faith - Words can not express the pleasure your words bring to me. Thank you so very much for your kind remarks. I hope you will continue to enjoy and admire the reviews and blog. :)

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  9. The Hidden Son- very intriguing title!
    and Persephone's Fugitive.

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  10. Thank you, Vera, for hosting me; I truly appreciate it.

    Thanks to all here for taking the time to read my post and for writing a kind comment.

    Best wishes,
    Dianna

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  11. I know life is thrilling as an EMT. That is what my mother does, never a dull moment.living on the edge

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  12. Hidden Son
    Persephone's fugitive

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  13. I love that she met her husband in a wedding when she was 11 and he 13.

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  14. first book: The Hidden Son
    second book due to come out: Persephone's Fugitive
    scrapping2472004(at)gmail(dot)com
    Tami Valentine

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  15. There's nothing I like better than a book with such a huge twist (which it sounds like this one has!) so big that it makes me go back and reread parts of the book.
    Thanks for a great giveaway!

    Tami Valentine
    scrapping2472004 at gmail dot com

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  16. I love that she is an EMT. This must be a rewarding and also at times sad job. I don't think I would ever be able to do this. I really look up to her. Thank you for the amazing giveaway!!

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  17. Her 1st published book: The Hidden Son and the 2nd published book: Persephone's Fugitive

    tinabrownsv(at)aol(dot)com.

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  18. Book One: The Hidden Son
    Book Two: Persephone's Fugitive

    I have been interested in Dianna's work since I first saw a review of The Hidden Son, made me want to read it ASAP since it sounded so good.

    Thanks for your lovely blog, Vera! It is so easy to use and you get such interesting books!

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  19. I think the fact that she's an EMT and can draw on those experiences for her craft.
    Thanks for a chance to win this exciting book!
    MonjaBlue(at)gmail(dot)com

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  20. Book One: The Hidden Son
    Book Two: Persephone's Fugitive
    Thanks for a chance to win this exciting book!
    MonjaBlue(at)gmail(dot)com

    ReplyDelete

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