Trip to the Hospital

It took Louise and her husband Larry several years to move to Maine. Larry retired and spent months at a time, over the course of those years, building their retirement home on a plot of land, perched on the side of a hill overlooking the stretch of ocean between Belfast Bay and Searsport Harbor. For years Louise and Larry took trips to the area, staying at a The Admiral Inn, a roadside motel, just short of a mile from where they would eventually nest. Larry talked about retiring in Maine since the day I met him, some 25 years ago. No more trips to Maine; they were now Mainers.
 

They did, however, take trips in Maine, driving all over the place, as retired people tend to do. Larry and Louise would get in the car and take off to visit the malls or to take in the natural beauty of their new state. She’d tell me often that she was heading to Bangor looking for good deals on fabric or to find pottery to fit their new house. Last Wednesday morning it was to gather with her quilting friends. She was always on the go. 

A helicopter ride may not have been the sort of ride Louise would want to take as she is very prone to motion sickness. It may have been her first-ever helicopter ride!  One account said it took 6 minutes to get from the scene of the accident to the hospital. You don’t often think of in-flight service including intubation – especially on such a short flight! 

I think of the people there to greet her - without shock, without reservation, without hesitation; waiting on the helipad to take her to a room where they would give her 11 units of blood (the average body has 15), and start the repairing. They, the members of a Trauma Team at EMMC, repair bones, fix organs, mend tissue and restore vessels. They read charts, use tools and know medicine. They have experience and our faith. And they joined the fight to keep Louise breathing, pumping, living. 

Louise’s known injuries included: ruptured spleen, punctured bowel, fractured left tibial plateau, fractured right wrist (including the radius and ulna), torn tendons in her right wrist, severed artery in her right arm, fractured pelvis, fractured sternum, fractured neck vertebrae, fractured sinus bone, fractured maxilla, brain and brain stem contusions. This list includes known injuries, some of which were repaired when Louise arrived at the hospital.

While Louise was in the OR, the officer at the scene of the accident drove to Louise and Larry’s house to inform Larry what had happened. Larry and a neighbor drove to the hospital and waited.

Calls were made. Strength was summoned. Yvonne, Louise’s sister in Louisiana, contacted my sister Kim in California. She contacted me. The three of us would scramble our lives to make it to Bangor - to be by Louise’s bedside.

Louise lost most of her blood and her list of injuries upon entering the hospital was vast. She somehow managed to keep her strength - making it through the life flight, the trauma surgery and the first night.