Paramedic Practicum—Our terrifyingly exciting ride to the hospital

Our girls went on a youth campout on the weekend that would have been Labor Day weekend for you gringos. Nine of our 11 girls attended the campout at Delfines with the district D youth. Aaron used the organization’s pickup truck to take our girls and their things out there (about 10 kilometers beyond the outskirts of town). We were ready for a very relaxing weekend with Olga, Meri and Jessica, having just sat down to supper, when the phone rang…

Mama Teresa was at the campout and called us to pray because one of the teenage boys from our Union church was unconscious. What?! I wasn’t sure if I had heard correctly, and so I asked if it was a joke or a medical emergency. It was the latter. Thanking God that, with no 911 type of system out here, we still had the truck—a much quicker means of transportation than the motofurgon—we raced out to Delfines. En route, we tried to find out what had happened and only understood something about how he accidentally got hit hard in the chest—directly on his heart—with a heavy metal object, complained that it hurt, then passed out.

When we arrived—after many “please hurry!” calls—the situation did not look good. Tony, maybe 15 or 16 years old, was unconscious, and when he lapsed into consciousness, he was incoherent and in excruciating pain. Two of his friends came with us to help carry him, comfort him and explain to the doctors what was going on.

It was a somber car ride as the boys in the back worried over their writhing friend while Aaron and I were trying to decide which hospital to go to: the closest hospital or the best quality hospital, the Adventist hospital on the opposite side of town? We also had to decide which of the only two roads to take into town: the slightly more out-of-the-way main highway Quiñones, which is wide (4 lanes) and more developed, or the more direct route along Participación, which is narrow (2 lanes), heavily populated and more dangerous? As we came upon the fork in the road the situation turned for the worst in the backseat and we decided—closest and most direct!

Tony’s two friends were panicking, crying for their friend—“Come back!”, “Breathe!”, “God, no!”, “It’s all my fault!”—like a death scene. He had stopped breathing. Aaron floored the truck while I jumped into the backseat, desperately trying to remember all the CPR classes of the past. He wasn’t breathing, but in all the panic, I couldn’t tell if there was a heartbeat. I am not a medical professional (so those of you who are, please don’t judge…) but all I could think of was, “It is better to do something than nothing! He doesn’t have time to wait! Go!”

In the front seat, Aaron laid on the horn (swerving around buses, motorcars, dogs, people, cops, stoplights, etc.) and yelled back to me, “15-2!” I began to shove his chest, yelling the countdown in my panic. I gave him mouth-to-mouth and kept pumping while yelling out to God to clear the road for Aaron and keep this kid (and everyone else in our path) alive. Still unsure if he heart was pumping, I figured it was better to error in hitting him relentlessly for no reason—and hopefully wake him up!—and say sorry later, than to error the other way.

After a minute—or a lifetime!—he gasped for air and opened his eyes. His eyes moved everywhere, but seemed to not be able to focus on anything. Now I just wanted to keep him awake. I began asking him if he knew where he was or who he was with. After a bit he was able to barely breathe out one of his friends’ names. They tried to encourage him through their fearful tears. I told him to stay awake or I would start beating him up again. Then I tried to calm him and all of us by assuring him that God was in control and that we would be okay, we were almost to a hospital, he would be taken care of by doctors, etc. He looked at me and nodded with hope and fear. I felt his pulse and I calculated about a million beats per second.

The lines are long and numerous in the public hospitals. I had always wondered how they dealt with a real emergency situation where a victim can’t wait in 10 different lines, get copies, stamps, initials and fingerprints from every corner of the hospital. I figured I would soon find out.

Iquitos Hospital threw open their gate as our truck careened in to the emergency entrance. By then, Tony had become unconscious again, but he was at least breathing. They rushed out with a gurney and Aaron pulled his body out of the truck. As they rushed him into the hospital, my adrenaline rush collapsed and I began shaking all over and practically hyperventilating in my “What just happened!” shock. The two friends came over to comfort me and tell me everything would be alright and to not worry. I couldn’t help but thinking, “Hey! I was comforting you guys just moments ago!” Boys…gotta be all “manly”.

If you’ve read this far, I believe you have an idea of the thoughts and feelings we had at the moment. We were so thanking God we had made it and ready to stick around for the long haul when, after about 10 minutes, someone came out to tell us that the doctors said Tony had been “really stressed” and that he was calming down and would be ready to go home within the next 5-10 minutes.

Our thoughts were, “What?! That’s it?! No tests?! No…nothing? Did a doctor even see him? Did they just wheel him inside the door, give him a lollipop and a gold star and tell him he was a trooper? Did none of the previous events seem a bit worrisome to anyone else?” Within 10 minutes, Tony slowly walked outside to us and his family, who had been notified and arrived by that time, and was regaining strength. He announced he wanted to go back to the campout.

Needless to say, for us Americans, it was a shock that the doctors didn’t begin an onslaught of tests and monitoring of things. After a while of waiting around, someone brought word that a doctor wanted him to get an x-ray to see if maybe there was some internal damage. Since it was late Friday night (about 10 pm) we were sent to a clinic on the opposite side of town.

When we arrived, Aaron and I waited outside for about 15 minutes then they all came out again. The doctor didn’t want to do anything because he was fine and sent him with a couple shots of painkillers and penicillin, just in case he needed it later. That was it. Nothing happened.

With an oddly surreal feeling, we all returned to our respective locations, whether it be home or the campout. Yes, Tony returned to the youth campout (they were having an all-night prayer vigil and fasting). Aaron and I came home about midnight and just…just…had no idea what to think. We began looking around in the Merck Manual Lisa had left in Peru and tried to guess what had happened—maybe a heart attack? I guess everything on the hospital end was cost effective. Congratulations.

We just found out that a couple days later, Tony did get an x-ray at the hospital and they found he has an enlarged heart. Aaron and I don’t know if it was a previously existing, but unknown, condition or if the heart enlarged as a reaction to the whole ordeal (like, maybe if it was a heart attack). I guess we will find out in due time.

The end.