Two friends, two ambulances

We had a meeting of our church group on Monday evening. We had a pretty good turnout, though it was beautiful outside. After the meeting a group of us stood in the parking lot talking, and another member came up and told us that Karen had been hit by a car.

Karen is small, with red hair cut short, looks like a kid as she walks all over town, getting her exercise. She is forty-something, with three grown children. She is very active at church, involved in several groups with me and others. She’s kind of quiet but pitches in whenever we need help.

We got to the intersection just as the paramedics were loading her into the ambulance. We hung around for a while to get the story: A woman driver had struck Karen as she crossed with the Walk sign. The driver did stop, call 911 and then she took off. Two teenagers followed her to her home and told the police where to find her.

Two women from our group and I decided to follow the ambulance to the ER. They took her to a hospital a little further away from the scene, but one with a better trauma unit than the neighborhood hospital. We waited for about an hour an a half—not bad for ER time—and the social worker came out, met us, then checked with Karen. She returned to tell us that Karen knew we were there and had given her permission to inform us about her condition. She had an open fracture of the tibia and bleeding into her brain.

They were taking her to surgery when her son and daughter-in-law arrived. They have only been married a month, and suffered the loss of Karen’s mom three weeks ago, so the son was pretty upset.

Today, two days after the accident, Karen is out of intensive care and in a room on the floor. Praise God for that.

Tuesday afternoon, the very next day after seeing Karen loaded into an ambulance, I was walking the dog past the church and here comes another friend from our group, Bob, being rolled down the sidewalk and into a waiting unit. He had fainted in church and an ER nurse I know (how sad that I actually know these people on a first name basis) watched over him until the paramedics arrived.

I spoke to him tonight, and he is still in the hospital for tests. He is one of those people who has never been in the hospital, and so is chafing to be released.

After they took Bob away, I walked through that same intersection where Karen was hit. Her blood still stained the asphalt, pooled in the little cracks in the road.