Michael here in Stephenville. I have had a rough day today -- but a great day at the same time. The mock accident today was hard to view, but maybe it will get at least one kid to stop and think. Having the policeman come to my classroom to pull me out of class and tell me that Stephanie had been "killed" in an alcohol-related accident was mentally hard. [Stephi is fine!!! Several folks have skimmed through some of these posts -- and thought that tragedy has struck us again. No!!! We are fine!!! It is a simulation sponsored by MADD. But thank you (to those of you who called and mailed us) for your concern!!!] In fact, the school broadcasts announcements of these simulations for weeks leading up to them. Notices are printed in the newspaper, aired on the radio stations, posted all over Web sites, etc., etc., etc. Still, every year, we will have frantic parents calling school and driving to school to pick up their kids when they see or hear all the emergency vehicles scream down to the "accident site" in front of the school with their sirens on and their lights flashing, they see or hear the CareFlite helicopter land on the campus to take the "injured student" to the hospital, or they see the hearse transport the DOS [Dead on Scene] student to the funeral home. It is bad enough for those of us who know what is happening. I hate to think what those folks must think initially who just blunder into the situation.
Today, I knew it was a simulation. [All the involved students and parents meet with the event organizers before hand, and parents are warned to notify employers and coworkers of what is going on before the "death" of their student is announced because sometimes there is panicked response from friends and relatives of the parents/students who are not informed.] However, occasionally, even the parents who KNOW it is a simulation break down in hysterics. My students and coworkers wanted to know how I was doing after I lost Stephanie. I really was (and am) fine. I have had far too much real tragedy to have something like this phase me. However, I did have to tell the policeman who had to inform me of her "death" that the responsibility of having to report deaths to families was one reason I could never be a policeman. We chatted outside my classroom for a moment as he told me that death notifications are his least favorite responsibility he has as a policeman. I could see in his eyes that this brought back too many memories of real announcements he had had to make during his career. I thank God for our law enforcement officers and emergency responders, and I pray for them. They play such a crucial role in our society.
The "drunk" driver did a phenomenal job (and actually performed so well that some of my students actually thought he was drunk.) He resisted arrest so forcefully that three officers (whom I could tell were a little surprised at the level of his resistance) had to forcefully take him down on the pavement to cuff him. He and some of the officers will be a mite sore tomorrow. The make-up folks did a most realistic job, and I could tell that the "injuries" really got to some of the kids. The "accident victims" sported a wide range of sickeningly realistic injuries including head injuries, a partial disembowelment, and compound fractures.
Most of my kiddos have never seen a real injury -- as it should be. I still get taken aback seeing such injuries, though. When I see this sort of thing, I always flashback to a kiddo at a school where I was teaching a few years ago who had a motorbike accident in which he was thrown off the bike, smashing his skull on a metal pole. A fifteen-year-old sophomore, he had just left my class a few minutes before he had the accident. I heard the wreck from my classroom, so I rushed out to see what had happened. As the first one on the scene, I discovered him turning blue, face down in a pool of blood with obvious head and probably neck injuries. Obviously, I shouldn't move him, but he was definitely going to die if I did not. I carefully rolled him over enough to start mouth-to-mouth on him and tried to clear his airways, but he was bleeding profusely from the mouth and nose. [Later we learned that every bone in his skull was broken.] I will always remember the feeling of helplessness I felt as I had to blow more and more forcefully into his mouth -- without result. Finally, blowing very hard, I was able to force air into his lungs, but only to the accompaniment of the audible gurgling of blood being forced into his lungs. About that time, tissue gave away somewhere in his skull, probably in his sinuses with the result that my breaths into him began escaping from the top of his head. I had to clamp my hand to the top of his head so I could force air into his lungs -- knowing that I was probably forcing foreign material into his brain. I was finally able to get him to start breathing again about the time the ambulance arrived, and he was CareFlited to Fort Worth where he was taken off life support a few days later. [His parents met with me later and thanked me because they maintain that they were able to communicate with him via hand squeezes (although I have my doubts to that claim) and they were able to donate many of his organs so they felt like parts of him lived on.] That experience really tore me up, though, and today as I watched the accident scene, I found that once again I could taste his blood and vividly remember the helplessness I felt as I tried to hold his head together enough to force air into his lungs, gasping then to refill my own lungs as I yelled at him to breath and to stay with me, and then trying once again to breath for him...
That, in turn, brought vividly to mind the morning of 9 March, 2004, when Lorena had her stroke, of turning Lorena on her side so she would not drown in her own saliva, of yelling at her to breathe and to stay with me, of calling the girls and marveling at how well my little darlings handled the emergency, of trailing the ambulance to the hospital and then of kissing Lorena goodbye before the CareFlite took her to Ft. Worth. I saw several of those same paramedics today at the accident scene...
Ultimately, though, we are well, Lorena is better, and we are all going to make it. Thank you for your support...
I should delete this, and I apologize for subjecting you to it, but this has been a difficult day. Stephanie is "dead" tonight, so Lya and I are here alone. [Stephanie is out at Rocky Point Baptist Church with the rest of today's "victims", and she will not be reunited with us until tomorrow afternoon.]
Recent Comments