A woman paramedic writes about a case that has stuck with her nearly five years later. No matter how hard she tries, she can't forget of the woman's suffering and the dire condition she was in prior to going to the hospital.
It has been four and a half years since that call went out, but no matter how hard I try, I can't seem to shake the images or the horror of the situation from my mind. I close my eyes, and I still see the pain-stricken face of the young black woman, and I still smell the sickening stench of rotting flesh.
The patient was then only in her early 20's; she couldn't have been much older than 22 at the most. She was quite young, and she was the mother of a six-month-old. She had previously been released from a doctor's care after spending nearly a year in the hospital, recovering from burns; but burns were not the reason we had to go to this young woman's house. She had fallen ill the day before, and as the hours went by, she only became sicker and sicker; and it was the next morning--Christmas--when her husband called for paramedics, asking for an ambulance to be sent to their residence, as he had found his wife collapsed on the floor in terrible shape.
When we got to 18 Champlain Road, which was way out in the country (they lived at least 45 minutes from the Nashville city limits), we were met by an obviously distraught young Hispanic-looking male in his 20's; he was saying that his wife had collapsed and that he couldn't arouse her; and that she was also burning up with a very high fever.
Upon entering their spacious home, the husband took us to where his wife still lay postrate on the bedroom floor. A pair of Lofstrand crutches lay at her side, and she wore braces on her stick-thin legs. Her legs were heavily scarred from burns and past surgeries. A baby, a boy, was screaming his head off, and I had my partner, Johnny, go to the baby, to try to comfort it, while I and my other partner, Kendall, tended to the young unconscious woman on the floor. She was very dark of skin, and perspiration soaked her fine-looking features; and it appeared as though she were in great pain. She was very thin in build, and she was also very tall: she was easily over six feet in height.
The husband told me of her medical history and gave us her name and age. The woman's name was M'buti (pronounced like Em-boo-tay) Ayala Sormiento, and he and she had been married for a little over a year. She had previously been in the hospital from burns suffered to her lower limbs due to a fire; and she had only recently gotten out of the hospital just a few months prior to this moment. She was in bad shape, and she appeared to be having some difficulty with her breathing.
While I put an oxygen mask over her mouth and nose, my partner Johnny hooked her up to an EKG monitor, and Kendall got an IV line going into one arm. We then did a quick medical exam, taking her vital signs, checking her reflexes, and her breathing, and we tried to elicit some sort of response from her, but the woman didn't move when we called her name or pinched her. When she did react, it was quite delayed, which concerned us. We didn't know what exactly was going on with M'buti, but one thing WAS clear: she was very sick, and she needed to be taken to a nearby hospital, fast.
"Does she have any relatives?" I asked Roberto, her husband. He said she did, but her brothers both lived in Africa, which was where she had been born, and she was now living in the United States, where she was planning on trying for her citizenship. She was under the "Green Card" program, which gave her permission to stay in the United States, even though she wasn't officially a citizen as of yet. I told him to notify her brothers, to tell them that their sister was now very sick and needed to go to a nearby hospital.
We then placed the ailing young woman onto a rolling gurney, and we wheeled her out to the back of the waiting ambulance. My partner Kendall got in with the driver, but Johnny and myself both stayed with M'buti, and we tended to her. Whatever was going on with her was still a mystery, but it was clear that it was something serious, and she needed medical care as soon as possible.
We raced towards the nearest hospital, Nashville Memorial, our sirens on full blast. Time was of the essence for M'buti if she was to have any chance at making it through this crisis involving her health.
Suspenseful and close to home, Rain of Deception 2 will leave you in Tears. Much like Part 1, this will shocking sequel will keep you on the edge of your fingertips.
It has been four and a half years since that call went out, but no matter how hard I try, I can't seem to shake the images or the horror of the situation from my mind. I close my eyes, and I still see the pain-stricken face of the young black woman, and I still smell the sickening stench of rotting flesh.
