My First 911 Call

Last night, I jumped in the van with my family to deliver our kids to AWANA.The Belgian Wonder walked them in, while I sat in the car pondering where we could go for cheap coffee. I was thinking about the tiny white cups of sample coffee at Trader Joe’s when I heard an unearthly howl. I remembered seeing some young people walking down the main road, just before we turned into the church. I thought maybe they were near the church now, making crazy noises just to draw attention to themselves, and didn’t really think much about it.Then I saw The Belgian Wonder step out of the church. He looked straight ahead, concerned. Puzzled. He quickened his step and headed straight ahead instead of turning down the sidewalk toward our van. Then I realized that the howling was a cry coming from the parking lot and jumped out of the car.A woman had slipped on the ice and was lying on her side, her arm bent around awkwardly to clutch her head. The Belgian Wonder and another man had come to her side to see if she needed help getting up, but she didn’t want to be moved.”Can you move your legs?” somebody asked.”I don’t know. I don’t know. I’m in a lot of pain. I don’t know.””Can you feel your feet?””Yes. I can feel them. Am I bleeding?” She pulled her hand away from her head, slowly pulling her arm down to look at it. Blood. “Blood! I’m bleeding, oh God help me, I’m bleeding!”I ran back to the car and got my cell phone. I came back, “Do you want us to call for an ambulance? Should we phone for help?”Nobody answered right away. “I’m going to phone,” I said. “Okay? Are you okay with that?”Somebody nodded that I should go ahead and phone. More people were gathering around her. Somebody brought a blanket and slipped it under her head. Someone brought another blanket and placed it over her. The Belgian Wonder started directing traffic away to another part of the lot.I called 911. I tried to explain what happened. As I was talking, somebody else slipped and fell, but they weren’t hurt.A woman in scrubs came out of the church–I guess she’s one of the moms–and leaned down and swept the hair from the lady’s eyes.”Are you a nurse?” I asked.She said, “Believe it or not, I’m an EMT.” She spoke softly to the woman. More blankets were set gently on her. We phoned her husband, and the EMT held the phone to her ear while she spoke to him.The fire truck came. The Belgian Wonder waved his arms in the air and directed them to the site of the accident. One of the firemen hopped out and skidded across the sheet of ice and almost fell. “Careful!” he called to the next one, but the next one slipped, too.  None was hurt. “Well,” they laughed, moving more gingerly, “now we know how it happened!”The ambulance came, and the EMTs both slid a bit as they moved toward us.We called out to everybody who was coming and going with their kids to watch out for the ice. Be careful! Move slowly! People are falling!The husband showed up. The emergency workers wheeled her to the ambulance.I don’t know what happened after that.The Belgian Wonder and I stood for a while, watching the shadows of the workers move across the window of the ambulance as they worked.We don’t know the family. We didn’t even know the woman until that night, and we only knew her as “Mindy,” the woman who lay on the ice-coated asphalt, too hurt and too scared to move.We stood in the bitter cold. My pants were too thin for that temperature, but I thought I was going to be sitting and having coffee somewhere, or shopping for Jasmine rice at Trader Joe’s and mooching off their samples. I didn’t dress for an emergency. We didn’t say much, The Belgian Wonder and I, as we stood there. My teeth were chattering so dramatically, I looked like I was faking it. Eventually he nodded and gestured toward the car. We leaned against each other, arm-in-arm, and walked slowly, knees bent, alert to each place where our feet landed, each step.