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Brooklyn
Memoir (37)
I still clearly
remember that accident. It was around 11 am on Christmas Eve in 1982. I
was driving home from Brooklyn and was hit by a car at the Houston Street
intersection in downtown Manhattan. The driver of the car ignored the red light and crashed my car from the left side (driver's side). I lost consciousness from a severe blow to my left chest and had been so for about half an hour.
I was awakened by the noise of the rescue personnel who tried to save me.
I regained consciousness gradually in the ambulance. I was surprised to realize that I was able to answer the questions by the rescue personnel very smoothly under such a crisis situation. I didn’t even forget to add that I was a Chief Resident in Family Medicine at Downstate Medical Center and asked to introduce myself as such at the hospital.
Luckily, around noon, I was brought to Beekman Hospital which had a good
reputation for emergency medicine, which was about one hour after the
accident. Not bad. It usually takes so long to be seen by a doctor after
arrival. That’s why I emphasized that I was a doctor myself. There is
a feeling of fellowship among doctors universally. Take “doctor’s courtesy”
for example. We usually don’t charge a fee to a doctor-patient.
Well anyway, it worked at that time. I was seen by an on-call resident
immediately. The chest X-ray showed six rib fractures with hemo-pneumothorax
(collapsed lung with bleeding ) on the left side.
No wonder, I felt so much pain and difficulty in breathing. I was admitted
to surgical ICU in case of cardiac complications after having a chest
tube inserted in the ER.
At 1 pm I was lying on the bed at surgical ICU. A nurse greeted me, smiling, “You gonna celebrate Christmas with us, aren’t you?” Six rib fractures with hemo-pneumothorax, it was a severe trauma, but there was no bandage or cast. All I got was a chest tube and a narcotic medication for the pain.
E-mail:kidot@momo.so-net.ne.jp