Turning Turtle -- Tribute To The Emts
Monday, November 1, 2021
I was similar a turtle that but about malicious kid had turned. My hands felt similar flippers. They were slapping me inwards the face. I couldn’t recognize them every bit belonging to me. Thank goodness Nancy was at home. Or mayhap I would’ve died. Maybe that would convey been the best thing to convey happened. But it didn’t. Instead Nancy came running.
She saw me floundering at the pes of the stairs where I had fallen inwards a disastrous travail to exercise. I was trying to stretch my left leg. I lifted it toward the quaternary step. Suddenly my correct leg collapsed nether me. I barbarous apartment on my back.
"Don’t panic! Don’t panic!” Nancy said inwards a panicked note of phonation every bit she frantically dialed 911. In a affair of moments I heard a siren come upward to a high-pitched stop exterior our house. Six black-clothed, heavy-booted outset responders came stampeding upward the stairs. The ane inwards accuse leaned over me. His human face upward hovered inwards a higher identify mine similar a harvest moon.
“Can yous hear me?” he bellowed.
“Yes,” I said.
“Good! Don’t motion a muscle,” he commanded.
He said something to his partner. She disappeared in addition to returned amongst what looked similar a large valise. I heard it click open. Then but about clanging of metallic parts against ane another. The adjacent thing I knew my caput was beingness screwed inwards identify amongst something that felt similar a vice. Nancy said the contraption made me hold off similar Frankenstein’s monster.
They placed me on a stretcher. Although I could experience my trunk tipping from side to side every bit they navigated the landing in addition to downward the stairs, my caput remained absolutely fixed. It was Apr 26, 2014. I was surprised at how mutual frigidity the exterior air felt. I heard the dorsum of an ambulance open. The stretcher slid inside. Someone got inwards amongst me. Someone else slammed the doors shut. The ambulance started to move. I listened for the siren. I couldn’t hear it. All I could hear were noises from a game mortal was playing on a prison theatre cellular telephone phone. I recollect staring at the ceiling wondering why the lights were then bright. Such minor thoughts for then large an event. I couldn’t focus on the large motion painting – that is, that I powerfulness live dying in addition to that these were my real concluding moments on earth, that I powerfulness never encounter Nancy or my children again. I concentrated on the ambulance’s suspension. The vehicle dipped in addition to rocked at every pothole. I idea close the interruption on hearses. They were sure enough meliorate than this. How strange that a vehicle carrying the living was badly sprung piece a vehicle carrying the dead was not.
[After a duet of days, it was fourth dimension for surgery:]
What “going nether the knife” meant for me was xiii hours inwards the operating room. Divided into 2 operations weeks apart, the outset lasted 9.5 hours, the second, 3.5. The status I had was quite rare. In fact I never knew I had it. In a nutshell, my spinal column has aged faster than my body. This agency that it is riddled amongst os spurs. When I took the fall, the os spurs at the pinnacle of the column hammered into my cord similar tiny footling hatchets. To brand matters worse, my spinal column is abnormally narrow. A normal spinal column is close 15mm inwards diameter. Mine is close vii or 8mm.
One doctor's study pose it this way:
Patient has diffuse idiopathic spinal hypertrophy/DISH, leading to cervical stenosis, or narrowing of the cervical spinal column. Due to this, at that spot was no room for the cord to move. This combined amongst minimal daze absorption from the CSF (cerebrospinal fluid) led to a cervical spinal cord injury.
After 33 days inwards MGH it was fourth dimension for me to motion on. That meant a six-week rest inwards a rehab hospital. I was wheeled on a stretcher to the loading dock.
“Aren’t yous the driver who brought me hither a calendar month ago?” I asked. I won’t always forget the human face upward that hung over me similar a harvest Moon yelling, “Don’t motion a muscle.”
“How are yous doing?” he asked, nodding.
“Pretty well, considering,” I said. “These guys saved my life.”
“No, they didn’t,” he objected. “We did.”
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“When I saw yous lying on the floor,” he explained, “I could say from the angle of your caput that yous had suffered a spinal cord injury. If nosotros hadn’t pose your caput inwards a vise, yous wouldn’t live hither now.”
He was right, of course. Had my caput in addition to spine non been frozen inwards place, those potholes en road to MGH would convey chopped my spine into coleslaw. Even so, it strikes me every bit strange that the villagers who saved my life – the surgeons in addition to the outset responders – convey never met ane another.