The Reynolds family attends the Canyon Lake Fire Department Open House Saturday and pays a visit with Engine 1. From left, husband Randy Reynolds, Alana Reynolds, sons Everhett, 3, and Rogan, 5, and Captain Tim O’Marra, who is not only a captain at the fire station, but is also Rogan’s first Canyon Lake Little League coach.
Fire Station opening brings back memories
When the city invited the community to visit the refurbished Canyon Lake Fire Department Station 1 Saturday, one Canyon Lake woman had memories of incredible gratitude flood over her. She was drawn by those memories to paying the station a visit.
Back on June 23, 2013, the local Fire Department was called to the Canyon Lake home of Alana Reynolds. Alana was bleeding out. She had gone into her garage during a cheer party she was hosting for her daughter, Dakodda, who was 12 at the time. While in the garage, Alana slipped and fell on an aqua bloom and sliced her leg wide open.
Alana was able to make it back to some of her guests inside the house when she passed out. Blood was gushing from her leg and someone grabbed a belt to make a tourniquet for her leg. Her friends called 9-1-1.
It took approximately 11 minutes from the initial call to the time the paramedics from the Canyon Lake station arrived at her home where they began life-saving measures in an attempt to save Alana’s life.
She was transported to a local hospital and during her transport, while nearly unconscious, she said she could hear one of the paramedics saying he didn’t think she would make it.
“The scene of the accident looked like a shark attack had happened,” Alana said. “It was the paramedic’s words that allowed me to regain consciousness long enough to beg the crew not to let me die.”
Once she arrived at the hospital, she was taken to the operating room where she received six pints of blood. After she was stable and in recovery, the doctors told her husband that they almost lost her a couple of times on the table.
Alana said she is so thankful for having a fire department within the gates of Canyon Lake.
“If we had no fire department, I probably wouldn’t be alive today,” Alana said. “It was their quick response time that helped save my life.”
Alana said it was around the time of her accident that the city had debated on closing the fire department in Canyon Lake and she said she is so thankful that the city found a way to not only keep it, but to open its very own City of Canyon Lake Fire Department.
Alana recovered from her injuries, but she wasn’t well.
She said that it was about a month after the surgery that she came to grips with her alcoholism and entered outpatient therapy, followed by AA.
Alana said she was at a fork in the road in her life and she needed to make a decision.
“At the time of the accident, I wasn’t drunk, but I had been drinking,” she said. “The drinking may have caused my blood to be thinner and attributed to me bleeding out. At that time of my life, I was drinking too much and that’s why I knew I had to change. God gave me so many slaps in the face, so many chances and it was about a year after the accident I sought a path to my self-journey.”
Alana has been sober for a little more than seven years. The best things that have come out of all this, she said, are her two little boys, Everhett, 3, and Rogan, 5.
The Reynolds family attends the Canyon Lake Fire Department Open House Saturday and pays a visit with Engine 1. From left, husband Randy Reynolds, Alana Reynolds, sons Everhett, 3, and Rogan, 5, and Captain Tim O’Marra, who is not only a captain at the fire station, but is also Rogan’s first Canyon Lake Little League coach.
The grand opening of the new Canyon Lake Fire Department gave Alana a reason to reflect on her near-death experience. She contacted The Friday Flyer and asked if she could tell her story.
She said while sitting with her sons in her arms over the weekend, she found herself joyfully asking, “How is this my life?” She was so happy. Years prior, she would ask herself the same question in tears and in desperation.
“When I knew I had two options to either change or continue living in despair and suffering, I decided I wanted to change, but I didn’t know how,” she said. “If anyone reading this is suffering, whether it be from addiction, relationships or other issues and situations, the answer I found that helped me was twofold.”
First, she said, is the H.O.W.
Honesty. In order to heal we need to be honest with ourselves about what is out of control and causing so much unrest in our lives. This takes courage.
Open. Be open to other ways of doing things, afterall, our way hasn’t worked so far.
Willing. Be willing to do whatever it takes to change what we can and find peace in what we cannot control.
And, Alana said, it takes love.
“Not human nature kind of love, but divine, unconditional love,” she said. “Love for not only the people and situations that agree with us, but especially for those who don’t, knowing we will grow stronger, wiser and kinder with the experience. As we practice walking through life from a place of love versus fear, the right people show up and solutions to our problems are revealed, even if just within ourselves.”
Those in similar situations in which Alana found herself seven years ago, sometimes don’t believe they can be brave and strong enough, Alana said.
“If you can be honest, know there is at least one person out there who believes in you until you can believe in yourself,” she said. “You are not alone. Just walk into the rooms of AA or church for the first time, or the first time in a long time, like it had been for me.”
Alana encouraged those who are suffering to turn to a verse of biblical scripture.
“If you are not sure what divine love can look like in your life, there’s a great book dating back two thousand years and you’ll find this chapter on The Greatest Gift,” she said. “It has been an amazing guide for me and I hope it helps you, too.”
“Love suffers long and kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil, does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things, love never fails.” – 1 Corinthians 13:4-8.
With her life saved by Canyon Lake paramedics all of those years ago, Alana attended the Open House at the fire station on Vacation Drive Saturday and expressed gratitude for that station continuing to be so close to her home…then and now.