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Published: August 6th 2007
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Sick Hartes in New Zealand
Does that mean they're over the weather? Paul has been fighting a bug and has charged me, Astrid, with summarizing the last three weeks, so here goes:
The week before last was remarkable because Josh was attacked by another child at school. The fact that Precious might be the target of anybody's anger was disturbing in itself, but when the school called hoping to confirm that he had arrived home safely after class we knew we had a problem. A few days of researching alternatives passed, culminating in our deciding to switch the two younger kids to the other school in town. The other school only goes to year 8 so Avery has to stay where she is. We met with Father Phil who made it his business to thoroughly interrogate Paul to determine if his progeny might be more Catholic than not, ultimately announcing that Paul was not bad looking for a non-Catholic. The kids were accepted, have started in this miniscule two-room 45 student school. So far so good, they're happy, have yet to be beaten up, and seem to be challenged academically.
The next week was punctuated by Paul and the kids coughing and blowing and generally feeling lousy. Avery has become involved in the local netball club, playing a game much like basketball without dribbling. She likes it enough to wake at the crack of eight am to take a bus to Westport to play other teams from the West Coast. Her team has yet to win, but they work hard at it and will no doubt taste victory, hopefully before we leave. Speaking of victory, we tied for first place at quiz night but reluctantly had to take second place when, in the sudden death round we didn't know that Anna Mae Bullock was Tina Turner's original name. Our crown rightly should have been taken anyway since we didn't know the sycamore is more commonly known as the great Canadian maple.
We celebrated Adrianne's birthday early with a surprise party. Avery had organized a scavenger hunt around the town that involved finding hidden clues and completing goofy tasks. The kids loved it, taking it very seriously. The teams were vying for "vouchers and lollies" which were McDonald's gift certificates and bags of candy, so were motivated in a way that was awesome to watch. It was fun for all but no doubt the parents won't be thrilled that some time in the next year they'll be compelled to make the one hour drive to the nearest fast food restaurant to redeem the prizes.
This last week was more of the same. From my perspective this trip has been surprising in many ways. The fact that access to technological and radiological support is different from what I'm used to means that practice is very different although pathology isn't. Two weeks ago, within the span of 24 hours we had two successful suicides, a serious crush injury and three truck accidents on three separate roads. There are many serious injuries around; a rare day passes without having to attend to a medically significant event.
It's now Sunday, call day three of the long weekend in celebration of the queen's birthday. It's unclear which queen is being honored by this public holiday, the locals I've talked to certainly don't know, but we are happy to have a day off for almost any reason. Friday was the first day of winter so Reefton marked it with rain and wind, and, come evening, profound darkness. I was called out to three separate car accidents on Friday afternoon, then again later in the evening the siren went off, ruining my plans to have a nice dinner out at the hotel with the still not better, quietly moaning family.
This last call was to attend yet another car accident. On the way out the ambulance driver nodded ominously, predicting many accidents for the next three months as the mountain passes become more treacherous with black ice in all the shadowed areas. We barrelled full out with lights and sirens on for the better part of an hour, me hiding my anxiety over the fact that the ambulance was hitting these shadowed patches without braking. I'm fairly certain the driver's eyes were closed, perhaps in prayer, a lot of the time too. We finally came to the crash scene - a tow truck was hauling a car involved in one of those three accidents earlier in the day when an oncoming vehicle lost a wheel, carreening across the road forcing the tow truck off where it canted over in a ditch, throwing the car it was carrying. The tow truck diver, a local, was fine and able to climb out but his two passengers were pinned inside. By the time we arrived the fire guys and police had stopped traffic and determined that the passenger in the middle, the one covered in blood, was indeed alive but significantly injured. The driver of the car that lost its wheel had minor injuries. I squeezed into the cab of the truck to find a young woman, her face from crown to neck studded with glass from hitting the dashboard and the windshield. Her husband was miraculously unhurt, but pinned between the door and his wife. I supported the woman, who likely had a fractured pelvis under all that blood, while the fire guys used the jaws of life to peel off the top of the truck as if it were an aluminum can. They used pneumatic pinching tools that looked like they should have been unweildy but, at least in the hands of these guys, weren't. They knocked out the windows after telling me my role was to be a human shield, then pulled off the driver's door, cut off the two pillars at the front, then winched the top off and cut off the gearshift, clearing a place for me to climb over to sit on the dashboard to get access to the patient. It took about three minutes to decimate the truck.(The fire brigade, like the ambulance team, is made up wholly of volunteers. They are amazing, certainly saved this woman, and completely unsung too - although I'm hoping to do something about that.) Because it looked like this woman had fractured her pelvis we had to get her out of the truck with minimal disturbance to her lower body. I fitted her with a neck brace but the glass imbedded in her chin and neck went deeper, bleeding copiously, making the patient slippery. She was twisted but basically in a seated position. With an admirable agility the firemen managed to wriggle around her and heft her onto a backboard without changing the position of her legs. It was a graceful, almost choreographed exercise. We got her into the ambulance where I stabilized her, all the while complaining that I couldn't hear the rescue helicopter. The helicopter had been dispatched an hour before from Christchurch, a 40 minute flight away. It's manned by highly trained paramedics and is sent to pick up surgical emergencies. As happens here regularly, the rain and the fog had become too heavy to land so they found a layby 45 minutes southeast of the crash site and waited there to accept the transfer. The patient will live.
After all that drama was the really fun part - we, the policeman and I, stood at the side of the road in the pelting rain watching a huge digger pick out the three stranded vehicles - it made quick work building a ramp to pull out the SUV that had once been on the bed of the tow truck, but struggled hauling out the huge truck. At one point the digger was up on its tiptoes with the effort of pulling at the much bigger truck, but despite defying gravity and my understanding of physics, it managed and the site was cleared within hours. The tow truck was Reefton's only, leaving the town at the mercy of the next closest garage. Apparently the owner of that place is going to Australia for a couple of weeks and is expected to gladly hand over his truck to the competition to use while he's away, so all's well in Reefton. At least until that cursed siren goes off again.
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Rita Cothier
non-member comment
Get well soon
Hi there, Here's hoping that the poorly people in your family will soon be fit and well and will have developed some imunity to the NZ bugs. Was disappointed to learn that Josh had been attacked and hope he is happier in his new school. The Queen in question is good old Queen Eliabeth II, who not only regally reigns over Great Britain, but is also known as the "Queen of Australia and New Zealand" and will do so unless or until either become independant. Hope you have a quiet winter Astrid. Thanks for helping all those accident prone Kiwis. regards to all, Rita