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Paramedic Stories, Part XIII: Breathe, Little Girl, Breathe!! (By Kendall Victor Smith, Paramedic/EMT) by Karen Lynn Vidra, The Texas Tornado
Friday, July 23, 2004
Rated "PG" by the Author.
A young girl suddenly stops breathing, and it is up to emergency personnel to try to save her life.
I enjoy my job as a paramedic/EMT: that is, suffice to say, I enjoy meeting (and serving) the public, and I enjoy the variety and excitement that my job often brings. Yet, despite it, my job is fraught with stress beyond compare, and I often have to deal with human suffering, death, and heartbreak that no human has a right to. But that is life when one is a paramedic/EMT.
One of the hardest things to deal with is when children are involved in serious accidents that leave them seriously injured or fighting for their very lives; and it is also difficult when you deal with children who have serious chronic health problems that sometimes warrent emergency treatment in order to save their life. Such as the case of one particular young lady named Ronee', whom I have grown very fond of over the years.
Ronee' is now 11 1/2, but she and I (and our emergency squad) go back a long way. Ronee' has a long standing history of asthma and allergies, and there have been times when her breathing has been seriously impaired, and we have had to go on runs to try to help her. She would either have a severe asthmatic episode that caused her severe difficulty in breathing, or she would have periods of anaphylaxis, or an overwhelming allergic reaction that not only affected her breathing, but her entire body as well. At any given time, throughout the years, we could be counted on to make a run to this young lady's house because for some reason or another, her breathing was involved, and she would get into trouble and would need our help.
Such as the time when she got stung by a bee. Now, for most people, a beesting is nothing more than an annoyance that causes pain and discomfort, but usually, a short time later, the incident is forgotten as the pain lessens, and the person then carries on with what they were doing prior to getting stung. But with Ronee', it wasn't that simple. One sting from a bee would cause her body to react in a sudden and violent way, and in a few minutes time, she would be gasping for air, and her breathing would be severely compromised. Big, red hives would pop up all over her body, and her face would swell up to twice its normal size, and it would take all of our wits to try to help her get some air to her lungs.
If she didn't get help right away, there was the liklihood that she would die. She was that severely allergic: one sting could mean death for her if she didn't get the needed medical help as soon as possible.
Every time we heard the call for a beesting, we would wonder if it was Ronee' who was involved; and somehow, it seemed that half the time, the call WAS for Ronee'. I dreaded these calls because I knew Ronee' quite well, and if anything were to happen to where she would die, I don't think I would have ever forgiven myself because I loved this child. She was funny, bright, and loved life, and even though she lived with physical disability on a daily basis, she still was a very happy child, and she never let her problems get to her. I hated to think of her dying, and whenever she was in danger, it just made the situation more critical.
I remember one time when we had to go on a run for a beesting with possible anaphylaxis. Ronee' was then seven, and she had been playing in her yard when a bee landed on her, and in her panic, she swatted at the bee, and the bee got her. The bee stung her right in the forearm, near her elbow, and a few minutes later, she couldn't get any air into her lungs, and she started gasping for air as big, red welts popped out all over her body, warrenting a sense of panic for her and her family. An ambulance was called, and her mother used the Epi-Pen on her, which probably saved her life. When we got there, to the scene, Ronee' was unconscious, and her blood pressure was very low. Her lips were bright blue in color, and her face was pale, which told us that she wasn't getting enough air, so we knew we had to act fast.
We started an I.V. in her arm, and my partner, John, hooked her up to an EKG monitor, and I tried to get an oropharyngeal airway down her throat (but to no avail; her airway was quite swollen, making the placement of the airway difficult), hoping, desperately praying that the kid wouldn't die on us as we tried to help her. Well, I ended up giving her a shot of epinephrine, to try to open her compromised airway, and I then got the airway down her throat and to her lungs, where I then attached a breathing bag to it and started squeezing the bag every few seconds. When I saw her chest rise, I never was so relieved, as I knew that she was finally getting air down to her lungs, and I could get some life-giving oxygen to her brain before brain damage set in. As we worked on her, I kept saying in my mind, "Breathe, little girl, breathe! Come on, baby...BREATHE!!" I never was so scared in my life; but seeing kids in this position, when they are so near death, always makes me uneasy, and it just makes our job more meaningful, as it is up to us to try to help them live.
We put Ronee' into the back of the ambulance a few minutes later, still working over her as we did so, and we continued to hope and pray. We were so certain that we could bring her back, and we were hoping for the best for her. God must have heard our prayers because as soon as we had placed her into the back of the ambulance and had her locked into place, she started gagging, and she started fighting the airway in her throat as she began to breathe again. That told us that we were successful in reviving her, and suddenly, things started looking up, way up, for the little girl. There was a chance that she would pull through the crisis, and it made us feel good in knowing that we had successfully saved her life.
At the hospital, Ronee' was checked over by the staff of the ER, and I am sure she wasn't at all happy by their poking her or prodding her, but at least she was now awake and aware enough to know that she was alive and found herself in a hospital ER, people looking down at her and doing things to her. I am sure she was quite confused as to how she ended up in the hospital in the first place: one minute she was in her backyard, playing, and the next, she woke up to find herself in the hospital, in the ER. But she was alive, and that was probably the most important thing because she had once again cheated death, and it proved that she was a fighter. She wasn't ready to meet her Maker yet, and it was just one of several instances of where her determination and will to live won out over dire circumstances.
That picture was a bummer to me......it reminded me so much of my little girl the day she died...it's like that was a picture of her...same clothes same position..blue pants and a red top,,,,,,tears!!
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