While working as a paramedic on the California coast my partner and I responded to a 911 call to a heart attack. We arrived at a home and
found an elderly woman unconscious with no heart beat.
We began our treatment and frantically proceeded to place her in the
back of the ambulance.
Usually the local police department responded to help us with CPR, but unfortunately at the same time a gas station had been robbed and they
were busy taking care of that situation. So there we were with no help;
you see it's better for the patient to have two people to do CPR and
someone needed to drive. With no time to lose I told my partner to go
ahead and go and I would do my best. With a necessary ventilation tube placed and a lifepack heart monitor hooked up we loaded our patient, my partner pushing the gurney while I "rode the rail" doing compressions
and ventilating the poor woman. My partner got into the driver's seat and started to pull out of the driveway when there was a loud knock on the back door of the ambulance. I looked out and there stood a tall handsome blond man.
He opened the door and calmly asked, "can I help?" "Sure" I said with a sigh of relief. "I need you to do compressions." I told him. He just looked at me so I asked stressfully, "can you do CPR?".
"No but you can teach me".
I was a CPR instructor so I thought, 'any help was better than nothing.'
We were picking up speed and he still hadn't gotten in.
"Hurry and jump in" I shouted.
"Ok here is what you do", I said as I guided him through the proper placement of his hands. He caught on real fast and so I decided to
let him squeeze the air bag that was connected to the breathing tube
I had placed.
He seemed to get the rhythm down instantly. Everything was going
so well I decided to go ahead and start an i line so I could administer necessary medications that up to this point I hadn't been able to do.
Bingo! The line went right in, next the medication, IN! I took over
squeezing the air bag so my helper could do compressions with both
hands. Another quick set of vitals and when we arrived at the hospital shortly after, a miracle. A heart beat!
Into the E.R. we whisked our patient, where a physician and nurses
took over. Clean up and paper work were next AND a big thank you to
my "helper". Out to the loading area we went and to my dismay no one
was there. My helper had vanished into thin air.
Just then my boss came around the corner. "Please step into the radio
room. I want you to listen to your last radio report." "What did I do
wrong this time", I asked impatiently. Our boss was a notorious perfectionist. "Nothing, but who in the heck were you talking to? Your
mic key stuck and we could hear you during the whole transport!" He
turned on the tape and sure enough the whole 8 minute trip was there
word for word. Except one thing was missing. My "helpers voice". The
only voice audible was mine. My boss thought I was losing it and so
did my partner. "I didn't see anybody", he kept telling me. I was more
than frustrated by this weird turn of events. But I had to shrug it off and
get back to work.
A few days later my partner and I went in to check on our patient. A very grateful lady thanked us and asked, "and where is the other angel that made me better?" We nervously told her "he" was busy and told her we would tell him thank you for her. We didn't say a word to each other but drove straight to the local newspaper office and placed an ad to find out who the "angel" was. No one ever answered.
~~
Anna Bateman
The music on this page is "El Shaddai" which is interpreted as the name
of God which sets Him forth, primarily, as the strengthener and satisfier of His people. He sent help this day to a person who was frantically trying to save a life and strengthened that worker by sending the help that was so desperately needed at the exact moment it was needed.
The Webmaster
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