Real Life in The ER

As fate would have it, yesterday after I posted my thoughts on rural health care, I was notified that one of my best friends had crashed his motorcycle and was injured. My friend is the son of the woman who has become like a mother to me here in Somotillo. He is the brother of my ex-boyfriend and the brother-in-law of my best friend. All things considered, he's family.

Without more details, two friends and I headed to the hospital. Upon arrival, I saw William's mom and brother waiting outside the emergency room. They doctor was still working on him so they didn't know what kind of shape he was in. From what the police had been able to piece together about the accident, William had been headed straight down the highway when an elderly man crossed the road without looking, on his bicycle. Because of the narrowness of the highway and other traffic, William hit the man, sending him flying into the air. The man was in the same trauma room as William, being checked out by the doctors.

It was evident that William's mom was in shock. She is normally a very bossy, outspoken woman but in all the hours we spent at the hospital, I never heard her say more than a few sentences. I went to investigate. I planted myself in the hallway in front of the trauma room door. The first time it opened, what I saw nearly put me in shock as well. There was blood all over the floor. I saw a battered, bloody face I didn't recognize, coughing up even more blood. The door swung closed. During an instant of panic, I pondered if that man could have been William, swollen and unrecognizable. To my immense relief, the nurse returned, opening the door once more. This time I looked across the room and saw William, bloody but conscious. He shot me a half-hearted smile before the door swung closed once more.

When we were finally let in the room we were all relieved to see that William was going to be OK. He had a gash on his head that the nurse had stitched up, road rash in several spots and a broken finger.

The first man I had seen was the old man William had hit. Still unconscious and vomiting blood, it was clear he was in bad shape. To make matters worse, the man carried no identification and the hospital needed the consent of a family member in order to transfer him to a hospital better equipped for severe injuries.

William's brother went to the accident site to see if anyone had recognized the man and came back a short while later, having found the man's brother-in-law and notified other family members. The problem now became that the one ambulance the hospital has was already on its way to drop off patients at the regional hospital, two hours away. We would have to wait for it to return.

As we waited, two more motorcycle accident victims came into the hospital. The one guy escaped with a couple scrapes but the other was badly injured with an open fracture on his leg.

We sat in chairs near the trauma room to see if the old man's condition would improve. To my disbelief, we heard the nurse say that she was tired of suctioning the blood from the man's mouth and told the brother to take over.

When the ambulance finally returned the rush was on to transfer the patients. It was a logistical nightmare because five patients, five family members, the driver and a doctor somehow needed to fit inside the ambulance. All of the patients urgently needed to be transferred and couldn't wait four hours for a second trip. William's mom hired a taxi to take William and two other patients to the hospital, following behind the ambulance. What do you suppose would have happened if she wasn't in a financial position capable of hiring the taxi?