These two Americans stood still as statues in the town square.
I tried to talk to them but they seemed not to know I was there. I decided to use my training to determine the pulse of the woman and was astounded to find that after all my training I could almost not find it. Her skin was very cool to the touch. She looked ready to topple over like a tree.
The father was not much better though his pulse was right where I was trained to find it.
I immediately called for assistance and once the mother was looked at and a nurse with far more training than I have found what the blood pressure was, there was such a fuss. I will explain blood pressure later. Let me just explain that blood pressure is very important. Without it you will die unless the miracle of the IV can be performed. I will write more about those two things later when I learn more about them.
The charge nurse took me aside and said I had done the right thing and let me sign on the record. They were admitting the mother and keeping the father under observation until his blood pressure rose enough for the charge nurse to stop muttering to herself that a corpse had a higher blood pressure than he did.
This worried me a bit but I learned later she was making light of the matter. I did not want to admit and lose my first patient in the same day. That cannot look good.
The girl received her stitch and was angry with her parents for delaying her. If I had been asked for my opinion I would have suggested that the young girl be reminded of her manners.
The father, with some help from his family, was able to get the girl home and stayed with his wife through the night. She recovered but was telling everyone about all the blood.
I did not tell her that there was barely a drop of blood. I was happy that my first patient recovered enough to go home that next morning.
I can only hope that all of my patients recover so quickly.
The girl comes back in two weeks to have the stitch removed. The mother should be able to do that without using a sewing machine. A sewing machine is a miraculous device for stitching together cloth into clothes. I have been told it would not be useful to remove stitches from the chins of little girls who should be more careful both of sidewalks and their parents.
I hope that someone tells these parents that German children can survive much more horrible injuries than the one she came to the room of emergency with. I have seen it but I will not trouble your spirit with descriptions of some of the horrible things that can be done, with purpose or by accident, to the human body, both adult and child.
And I have now learned well the meaning of triage. It means that sometimes the obvious injury is not the most dangerous and that a young girl with a cut chin is less of a problem than an overly concerned American parent ready to faint and fall down. I hope these German orphans survive the coddling of their American parents.
The attending physician said that something called 'plastic surgery' might be necessary to remove any scarring. I have seen this substance called plastic. I hope this surgery will not be necessary. Better a scar than having plastic sewn onto one's face.
I will write again soon. Please send any small amount of money you can spare. Paper and postage is expensive. The beer is tolerable. I go to church every Sunday. I have sent a piece of plastic along with this letter.
Your loving niece,
Adalheid
Second Chance Bird, Episode Seven
Chapter Thirty-Nine: Man Down
Pam would never forget the sound of the scream, followed by the sickening thud. Her heart stuttered a beat as an intense chill arced through her body. She tried to get up to run to the door but her legs felt like rubber. Something terrible had happened, and she thought she recognized the voice behind the terrified shriek. She hoped she was wrong and felt guilty for it, but if it was the boy . . . Pam felt as if she were trapped in a nightmare and knew there would be no waking up.
Somehow she managed to make it to her door. She wrenched it open to find the men gathered below, surrounding a still form on the deck. She tried to shout but her voice could only muster a painful croak. The bosun stood up from the crowd and looked at her, his face ashen. Summoning his own voice, shaky and pitched too high, he called out the answer to the question he could see in Pam's stricken face.
'It is Pers! He has fallen!'
'Dear God, not Pers!' Pam whispered, and found it hard to breathe. Somehow she climbed to the bottom of the ladder and made her way toward the men. They opened a space for her, all of them wearing the same pale look of fear as the bosun.
There was Pers, lying on his side, blood leaking from his ear. His right arm lay akimbo, badly broken. Beside him was a shattered spyglass, its shards gleaming in the sun. To Pam's amazement and relief the teen-age boy was still alive, breathing loudly in ragged gasps. Pam knelt beside him and gently touched his forehead, but Per's eyes were rolled up into his lids, he was, perhaps mercifully, unconscious.
She turned to the bosun. 'How?'
'He was climbing the mainmast to spy ahead for us, you know what a monkey he is! His foot became tangled in the unfamiliar rig and as he was trying to get himself loose the line slipped. He fell . . .'
'How far?'
'From up there, just above the third sheet. A good thirty feet at least! His feet landed on that coil of rope there first, which took some of the impact, but his head hit the deck pretty hard and his arm is all broken up. Damn my old eyes, I was the one who sent him up there.' The bosun was starting to tear up. Pam fought the urge to cry as well, but somehow a part of her that she had come to think of as 'the cool captain' stayed in control.
'Bosun, go get Dore, now!' she ordered him, partly to give him a chance to pull himself together and not be seen weeping by the crew. Without a word he jumped up and headed for the galley where Dore would be preparing the skin dye they would apply to the sailors after lunch.
Gerbald appeared over Pam's shoulder. With remarkable gentleness he took the boy's pulse and pulled back his eyelids to view his pupils. They were dilated as big as saucers.
'He is concussed. I've seen symptoms like this in men thrown from horses or hit with blunt weapons. His pulse is good but the blood from the ear is bad.'
Pam could barely speak. 'Will he live?'
Gerbald took her shoulder in a firm, encouraging grip. 'I won't lie to you, Pam. It's hard to say just now. The head injury may be very serious, or it may not, only time will tell. I have seen men with injuries like these pass away suddenly without ever waking up, and I have seen some up and about within a few hours. We must think positively for him; there is plenty of hope. He's young and the rope helped break the fall. I saw the whole thing with my own eyes. There is hope.'
Dore arrived, plowing through the crowd like a bulldozer. Although they were trying their best to get out of her way the men couldn't move fast enough and the unlucky were bowled over by her fast-moving, low center of gravity mass. She knelt beside Pers, clucking and softly praying under her breath as she gave him a thorough check. She was not really a nurse but years following a soldier had taught her many first aid skills. Her methods were mostly homespun remedies, but effective ones. When she moved Per's broken arm he moaned and his legs kicked slowly as if to flee the pain.
'He can feel the pain, and move his legs, that is good. His neck isn't broken, Thank the Lord!' she announced. 'But, I am most worried for what may be damaged inside his head.' She had brought her home-made first-aid kit with her, and began to splint the boy's arm with expert skill, Gerbald assisting her. Pam gently stroked Pers' flaxen hair as they worked, telling her dear, sweet boy that he would be all right and trying her best to believe it. Sailors
