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A Mothers Nightmare
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A Mothers Nightmare |
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Zinsser Senior Member
since 2001-02-27
Posts 1641Calif. |
A Mothers Nightmare I had been home from work about an hour when the telephone rang. “ Hello, we have your daughter in the ambulance…” I couldn’t understand the EMT’s words. I only heard a few things, what hospital she was going to and that the driver of the car she was in had ran in to a telephone pole going ninety miles an hour. The look on my face or something I had said alerted her father and siblings that something was not right. Slow motion running, blank thoughts, in my room putting on the work clothes I had just taken off in favor of sweats. I’ve got to get to the hospital she must be so very scared were the thoughts now beginning in my mind. Through the sliding doors of the emergency room I fly going directly to the man, the security guard. I told him what the ambulance person had told me to say. Then I got scared. Scared because I didn’t have to wait. The security guard parted a path in this huge crowd of people huddled by the doors that your not to pass through unless they call your name, so I could get to the back. The EMT person whom I had spoke to on the phone was waiting right there for me to show me where my baby was. When she saw me she started to cry, I wanted to hug her so tight, tighter then ever before but I couldn’t she was in too much pain. The Doctors ran all kinds of tests to make sure everything was, as it seemed. In between these test my daughter and I were able to talk. They had been drinking and driving out on a country road, way to fast. In an instant it seemed (the all the sudden of a intoxicated person) there was a turn. Brakes slammed but then so did they, right through a concrete wall then to be greeted by a telephone pole, which split the car in two up past the windshield. Live wires on the car and around the car. One by one they climbed out two of them getting the driver out to safety. Now my daughter was resting on the hospital bed asleep, now that I knew she was ok I was getting angry at the stupidity of it all. One of the nurses came and sat with me for a few. She asked me if I realized how lucky I was, I said some smart remark like yes she lived so now I get to kill her. The nurse smiled then told me of an earlier accident this very same night. Four kids riding around in a car and ran into a telephone pole. All four kids died in the ER. She told me of all the parents and siblings in the waiting room not wanting to believe there lives had changed so very drastically in just a moment. I remembered when she said that of the large crowd of people that I had to pass through to get back here and how upset they all had been. I didn’t notice at the time but I could remember now. The nurse left the room. Left me alone with my thoughts, prayers of gratitude and my first-born child, alive. |
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| © Copyright 2002 Connie McDonald - All Rights Reserved | |||
Midnitesun
since 2001-05-18
Posts 28647Gaia |
What a devastating phone call and ER scene. Your child was one of the lucky ones. Hope she learned something from this that will keep her on that lucky list. The waiting room families were not so lucky. I am so glad that you were sent to the back room and not asked to wait. |
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majnu
since 2002-10-13
Posts 1088SF Bay Area |
by God you must have been frightened. i'm sure my mother would have had a heart attack. but then, i was always the one chauferring people home and ending up with a couple hundred thousand dollars worth of car key.  -majnu |
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Janet Marie Member Laureate
since 2000-01-22
Posts 18554 |
a powerful write or impact Connie...gave me goosbumps..my daughter just got her permit... its a lesson all parents must learn. thank you for sharing your story so that we all can think twice about what matters most. |
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