Holly and Shelly


Shelly Bickel (left) and Holly Lyons, Humboldt EMTs, share their story on an accident in 1997 which changed their lives forever. Independent photo.

By Jeff Gargano
When Shelly (Watnem) Bickel looked toward the front of the ambulance, all she could see were the wheels of a semi trailer coming at them.
When she came to, Shelly couldn’t figure out why it was so dark, wondering where the lights of the ambulance were.
“I yelled out to Holly (Lyons) and she answered. I remember hearing the sound of trickling of glass. And then it started to become difficult for me to breathe,” Bickel said.
It was Nov. 14, 1997, a night that changed their lives forever.
Holly and Shelly were volunteer EMTs with the Humboldt County Memorial Hospital Ambulance Service and were on call the night of Nov. 14. Ice coated the roadways that evening and they were paged out to a van full of wrestlers from Buena Vista University that had slid into the ditch on County Road C-49 (the Pioneer blacktop). The wrestlers were on their way home from a wrestling meet in Mason City.
Shelly drove the ambulance with Holly and Sue Briseno accompanying her. They loaded up the two most critically injured wrestlers and brought them back to the hospital before heading back to the scene to pick up additional injured.
“We discussed before we headed back that it made no sense to use the sirens or lights (flashing) when we went back. And we talked about going slow because it was so icy,” Shelly said.
They described how on the first pick up, while in park the ambulance continued to slide on the icy road surface.
Sue Briseno stayed back at the hospital to help in the emergency room.
“I felt bad that Shelly drove out the first time and told her I’d white knuckle it out this time. I went about 25 miles per hour,” Holly said. Shelly was in the back of the ambulance.
As they headed south on Highway 169 they approached the second of two hills about two miles south of Humboldt. A semi and trailer (fully loaded) heading northbound came over the hill and ended up sideways coming down the hill.
Holly yelled out, “Oh my God Shelly.”
“I looked out the front window of the ambulance and saw the trailer wheels heading at us,” Shelly said.

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