“A LIFE WAS SAVED”
by OPOVV, ©2017
(Jun. 11, 2017) — “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to ‘Pulse of the Nation.’ Plan ‘A’ is to set up shop here at the VA parking lot and interview patients coming and going. Not much going on at the moment, but wait! Here comes a vehicle, if not fast, certainly not slow. And we watch it drive around to a shaded parking space – oh, a dog is hanging out the passenger window. Now we see the patient, an elderly gentleman, over 6’, in good shape, dressed in khaki shorts and a black T-shirt, but the shorts aren’t khaki: they’re red; and the shirt isn’t black: it’s soaked in blood.
“Wow, isn’t this fortuitous? We come here looking for a story and one just drives in. Now we are watching the patient make his way – a little bit of stumbling and weaving; must have lost a lot of blood — to the emergency room entrance and we see he’s got a white bath towel in front of his face saturated – and I do mean soaked – in blood, holding it to his mouth, so we can’t see his face.
“Let’s follow him inside. We’ll pretend we’re kin. Hide the camera and the microphone. Let’s look; I don’t know, obviously the guy is bleeding to death: sad? No, how about ‘distressed’: the wringing of the hands will do in this case.
“Oh, look! One look from the receptionist and he’s just rushed in to the emergency room. Well, no waiting around forever, which is nice. Since we’ve seen him leave the truck he has spit out – on my count – at least 6 mouthfuls of blood. I wonder what happened?
“Oh, yes, we’re close kin. ‘O-positive’; no, no allergies; good health, except for the bleeding-to-death part. Had a tooth pulled that went wrong, looks like.
“Everyone is very excited except for the doctor who is, and this is the only way to describe him, as cool-as-a-cucumber. He diagnosed the problem; zeroed-in on the bleeding area and immediately applied pressure, meanwhile giving orders left and right: IV with stuff added; chart; and all the 1001 things that they do in an emergency room.
“Remember in that movie, ‘Pulp Fiction, when these two guys need a helping hand and in arrives The Wolf; the cleaner; the problem-solver. That’s who this doctor reminded me of: this guy is bleeding to death in front of everyone and at the very center of this tornado of activity stands the doctor, calm and serene as anyone could possibly imagine. It was a pleasure to watch the performance in person; I wouldn’t’ve missed it for the world.
“Once the bleeding was under control the doctor instructed the patient to hold the gauze – 4X4 – in place and then it was anticlimactic from there on. The nurse found some Bermuda shorts and another shirt to send him home and, after a couple of hours, it was all over.
“The patient was discharged and the last we saw of him was driving out of the parking lot heading for the grocery store to buy ice cream and milk, because, on doctor’s orders, nothing but milkshake for the next couple of days.
“And so ends our little stay at the VA hospital. A life was saved, and had this life arrived just a couple of minutes late, he would not have arrived at all. I should know, because I was that guy who almost bought the farm.
“It happened at 5:30 p.m. June 8, 2017. Thank you, VA, and I thank all the wonderful crew in the ER that evening. Like the man said: I wouldn’t’ve missed it for the world.”
