Daddy, Papa and Me

I mean that literally. We live on a corner. Life is interesting on that corner.

This morning I was driving Guy to jury duty and Emma to school (just part of our normal gay agenda . I was parked in front of house, Guy and Emma were in the car and I was waiting for the car stopped to my side to move (we live on a street that leads to the highway, the traffic backs up at the light to our house). All the other cars in front of him had moved forward but he hadn’t and was blocking my way. Before I hit the horn, I looked over to the driver. He was in the middle of what looked like an epileptic seizure…

I told Guy and we both jumped out of our car. I told him to call 911 right away.

I went over to the driver’s side. I felt so helpless. Here we were in the middle of a lot of traffic (and some people blowing their horns) and this driver is in the middle of a seizure.

I wasn’t sure exactly what to do. I opened the driver’s door and tried to get him to respond to my question (“are you all right?”) and there was none. The driver was breathing and had calmed done. He wasn’t in any immediate danger. He was passed out though, so I gently laid his head to rest on the head rest (he was bent forward and looked like he was having a hard time breathing). But other than that, I just directed traffic around him.

Guy in the meantime was ON HOLD with 911 and a neighbor came up and helped direct traffic around the car.

Emma was calling from her car seat wondering what was going on (told her the man was sick).

Some overly caffeinated driver honked incessently because he couldn’t get around fast enough, flipped us off and cursed at me (as if that would help get traffic moving). What did he think we were all gathered around a car for our health? I did snarl at him as he passed that “we have a dying man here you idiot.” Ok, not the most elequent and reasoned response.

Have to say though, 90% of the drivers were very patient, neighbors and passerbys stopped to make sure everything was all right, but of course there always seems to be that “one” doesn’t there?

Anyway, the driver regained consciousness. I asked if he felt all right and the answer was yes, but you could tell that he was very disoriented and his speech was incoherent.

Our neighbor then stayed with him to make sure he was taken care of. We hope he’s all right. We told the emergency workers what happened. I drove off to get Guy to jury duty (we were late). It was less than 5 minutes between the call and the EMT’s arrival. Always comforting to know they come so fast.

As we drove off, Emma of course had a million questions. Why did he get sick so fast in his car? Why did he move like that? Who was daddy calling?

She was fascinated that both the firemen and the ambulance came and asked if they did the same thing and why their trucks were different. She deducted that the ambulance would have to take the man to the doctor because the fire engine was too big and slow.

After some reflection she said:

“That man needs to wash his hands more. He got some germs.”

Kid logic. We tell Emma that she needs to wash her hands before eating and after using the toilet because dirty hands can make us sick.

The man was sick.

So he must not be washing his hands.

Of course we explained to Emma that sometimes we get sick from things that aren’t germs.

For me, it’s made me a bit more paranoid. Because of modern technology, cell phones, emergency response teams, etc., this experience was tense, but everything worked.

But what if there was an earthquake? Something like this happened and the cell phones weren’t working, the EMTs were busy elsewhere, other people need help around you, you maybe.

I really need to take that NERT training. I felt helpless this morning. In an emergency setting like an earthquake or Katrina-like disaster (or even just a blackout), I don’t want to feel that helpless.

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This entry was posted by Trey on Monday, April 23rd, 2007 at 12:24 pm and is filed under Darndest Things, San Francisco. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.