A Stranger’s Gift: Blood on my Hands [Plus: The absolute worst autocorrect of my entire phone life. To MY MOM.]

awkward-family-pet-photos-541x600

This is a gift that is ALWAYS appropriate to give…

pet-01

 Because skunk butthole.

Help! Someone call 911!! When you hear this on TV, people immediately come running to the rescue. In real life, as I learned on the 4th of July, sometimes it takes a minute to sink in. One minute we were happily taking an (inspired*) pre-fireworks walk with my friend J and her family and the next we were all staring dumbly at a man on the ground surrounded by his wife, young children, oh, and a rapidly spreading pool of blood. That was coming from his head. Specifically his ear. But not like a scrape on his ear. Like from in his ear. Did I mention there was blood everywhere?

That’s not good, I remember thinking. I’m no doctor but I’ve watched enough people fall off buildings on TV to know that blood gushing out of your nose and ears means massive internal bleeding. You know, the kind that means your character will definitely not be coming back next season. (Unless you’re on Pretty Little Liars. Nobody ever stays dead on that show. Not even the central character who is, by her very definition, a dead girl. I still watch. Feel free to commence judgement.) And like a TV show, it didn’t quite feel real.

I’m not sure how long the pause actually lasted (or if anyone else’s mind immediately went to silly ABC Family tv shows – please let me be the only vapid one in an emergency!) but then we snapped out of it and all went running to them. J’s quick-thinking son called 911 while J found a t-shirt to hold against the man’s head. My husband took over talking to the 911 operator and J’s husband sprinted back to their house for towels, water and a wagon that oddly came in handy more than once that evening.

What can I do?! I thought frantically as I tried – and failed – to suppress a shudder. I didn’t used to be such a wuss but for some reason ever since I popped my babies out I’ve gotten really squeamish around gore.  (Ironic, considering the gore fest that is childbirth. Or maybe not ironic? I swear I had PTSD after my deliveries. That ish is traumatic.) All the big important things were being handled so what did that leave for me to do?

First I tried doing what I do best: Asking dumb and slightly invasive questions. “Did he have a seizure?” “Did he slip on the wet pavement?” “Did he complain of chest pain?” “Is that your tennis stuff over there?” As I did my best to talk to his wife, I noticed their 6-year-old twins staring horror-stricken at their poor dad on the ground. I noticed the tiny bloody footprints on the pavement. I noticed one of them was still holding a tennis ball. Kids! I love kids! I have lots of them! I can help with the kids!

“Why don’t you come over here a little bit and give your dad some room?” I asked as I herded the boys a few feet away. “So… what are your names? How old are you? Where do you go to school? What’s your favorite subject? What’s your favorite flavor of ice cream? Do like tag?” I was trying to distract them so they wouldn’t be in the way when the paramedics arrived and perhaps trying to also shield them a little from the awful scene.

At first they played along but then I realized I might be doing more harm than good when their little eyes welled up with tears and they kept peering around me to their mom. Understandable. And as worried as she was, she held out her arms to her boys. “It’s okay, they should stay with me,” she said kindly. I felt bad that I was making her comfort me, the one without an injured spouse. Oops. “You’ve done enough.”

But I hadn’t done anything yet! And I wanted to help! What could I do? All the other adults were doing smart, useful things. Next I tried running to the nearest street to help flag down the ambulance when it came but was quickly called back when it appeared on a different street. Which meant I really just spent several minutes running in circles in terribly impractical shoes. (I’ve totally convinced you that I’m the person you want with you in a crisis, yes?) Once back to the group, I noticed their things scattered on the ground so I started picking them up, placing them in the tennis bag on the ground. Cleaning! I love cleaning! (No I don’t.) I do lots of cleaning! As I reached around the man to grab his hat, I pulled my hands back to discover they were coated with dark, sticky blood. I’d put my hand right in a puddle. Of blood.

Blood on my hands. It felt strangely symbolic. There I was holding the life force of a stranger in my hands… and I had no idea what to do with it. What do we ever know of a stranger’s life until it is thrust into our hands?

But the blood. You guys, I can’t even watch the commercials for horror movies without dry heaving. Okay, okay, I tried to talk myself down from the freakout ledge. Sure you’ve got some strange guy’s blood all over your hands. There are bigger issues to deal with. 

I ran back to the wife. I successfully suppressed the urge to ask her if her husband had hepatitis as I held my streakily anointed arms stiffly at my sides.  “Can I call someone for you?” my voice squeaked. “You’ll need someone to come get your boys so you can go with your husband in the ambulance?” Phoning! I love phones! I’m basically surgically attached to my phone I use it so much!

Her face told me she hadn’t even thought about that yet, even as the paramedics pulled up. (Not only did we get an ambulance with flashing lights and sirens but we also got a huge firetruck too! My kids were in truck heaven.) The rest happened so quickly: She borrowed my phone to call the kids’ grandmother. J managed to keep both the wife and the man calm as the paramedics checked him out. I’m not going to sugar coat this, the paramedic said. This bleeding out of your ear, it’s bad. It concerns me a lot. The wife went with her husband. My husband and J’s husband helped the EMTs scrub all the blood off the pavement with bleach and a huge broom. I watched the twins until some neighbors showed up to take the boys to the grandmother.

And that was it. As the last siren wailed away, not so much as a blood spatter remained on the pavement. There was only a damp spot as a testament to what had just happened. Well, except for the blood that had congealed on my hands and forearm. I’d tried to wipe it off with a bloodied towel but while most of the red was gone, the sticky still remained.  There was blood under my fingernails. There was dried blood on my cute-but-still-terribly-impractical shoes. How was it that the man was long gone and I’d only just realized I’d stepped in his blood? The blood that should have been safely inside him but instead had split open like a water balloon. Or an aneurysm. In front of his kids. Who also carried his blood, yet safely inside them.

I wanted to cry. I wanted to not cry and appear brave and blasé. I wanted to know what had happened to him to make sure that it could never happen to me. I wanted to tell J all the times in my life I’ve been close to a death. (I think I actually told her the story of watching the guy die in my gym last year.) I wanted to call my mom – first, because she’s a nurse and would know exactly what to do but mostly because, well, she’s my mom.

I went with texting my mom. (The emotional equivalent of calling mommy but still allowing me to appear brave and blasé.)

After explaining everything to her, I texted her dejectedly: “I didn’t do much.”

And this is where the universe stepped in and made everything awesome. I’d sloppily left out the space between “do” and “much” and my jerk phone auto-corrected it to “I didn’t douche.”

Silence. And then my mom: “HAHAHHAHHHHHAAAAA!!!!! I hope you didn’t!” Because that actually would have been the least helpful thing I could have done. Here I was worrying about how I didn’t know what to say to little kids watching their dad bleed out when in reality I could have done a lot worse. Like starred in my own Summer’s Eve commercial. So yeah, my first aid skills were lacking but hey at least I DIDN’T DOUCHE.

Laughing at myself helped but the feeling of wrongness stayed with me all weekend. I kept replaying the scene over and over. What could I have done differently? Why did everyone else know how to help but I didn’t?

And then the answer came to me today, while I was doing dishes. I was listening to a TED talk “When Is The Right Time To Give?” by Mark Bezos, a volunteer firefighter with an amazing (and kind of similar) story. I can’t do it justice so I’ve embedded the video below. It’s a must-listen. It’s hilarious. It’s profound. It’s only 4 minutes!

This is what changed everything for me: In the clip Mark says, “It’s so easy to dismiss the opportunity to do something good because you wanted to do something great.”

He was so right. I’d been beating myself up for not knowing the perfect Great! thing to do to help when all along there were plenty of good things to do. I didn’t need to be a hero. I didn’t need to save his life (thank heavens for the awesome paramedics!). I just needed to be there. And I was.

Mark answers his own question – “When is the right time to give?” – by saying, “If you have something to give, give it now.” Even if what you have to give isn’t the exact right thing. Even if giving ends up being messy. Even if the giving doesn’t result in the end that you expected or wanted. It all matters. The real miracle is in the giving, not the gift. As soon as I realized this, I immediately felt relieved – relieved of my guilt and fear and confusion. And relieved of my inability to be perfect.

Mark concludes his speech by saying, “Not every day will offer us the chance to save someone’s life but every day offers us the chance to change one. “

And so I learned: It isn’t the size of the gift that matters, just that you were willing to give it. I’m just grateful that I had the chance to help someone else, even if it meant getting blood on my hands.

Have you ever been in a situation like this – are you good in a crisis? How are you with blood? Do you ever feel like what you have to give isn’t enough and so maybe it’s not worth giving at all?

*We were just sitting around J’s house, digesting a delicious meal when out of the blue she announced we should take a walk to a nearby park. No real reason was given but as soon as she said it, it felt very right so we all immediately stood up, gathered the kids and walked out. J is a remarkably sensitive person and I personally believe she was inspired by the same God who doesn’t let a single sparrow falling escape His sight. We were the only other people in the park at that time. Which happened to be the perfect time. Some people say miracles don’t happen anymore but I’d say that while this wasn’t a lightning bolt from above or a sign in a burning bush, it was a miracle nonetheless – albeit a small, quiet one. I also believe God often works His best miracles through other people and I’m grateful I got to play a tiny role in this one, imperfect as I am. It is things such as this that compel me to say: I believe in miracles.

**When I recounted the story to my sister she said, “Why does this stuff always happen to you?!” And she’s right – it kinda does. Maybe the universe is telling me I need to get certified as an EMT??

***No, I don’t know what ended up happening to the man. I don’t even know his name. I left the grandmother a message, from the number left on my cell phone but I haven’t heard back. I hope it all ended well.

19 Comments

  1. You did the right things, Charlotte. I’m an icu nurse and you were perfect in my opinion.

    So glad that you are already gaining so many friendships. Still miss your gym buddies though. Sniff, sniff.

    The autocorrect typo was hilarious.

  2. You had a lot more presence of mind than I would have! To think of how to help the wife and kids when there was more than enough going on around the guy was really smart; more people crowding around wouldn’t have helped anything.

    I laughed out loud at the autocorrect; that made my morning. The way you can combine weighty subject matter with hilarity is beyond awesome.

    Hope the poor guy survives, that did NOT sound good.

  3. I totally agree with your sister. You seem to be some sort of magnet! But it sounds like you did what you could at the time and that’s what counts. Also, I just recently had someone else tell me that post-baby they’re extremely squeamish about gore.

    Also also, I love Pretty Little Liars, lol. Guiltily love but love. But I haven’t figured out why every 20-something, successful guy with a career on that show wants to date high school girls…

  4. Wow. That’s an incredible situation.

    I’ve found that in these situations I often want to find something to do to help to help and usually it’s because I want to appease my own need to feel needed than to help the person in crisis. Sometimes I have to ask myself “Is this to make me feel better, or to make them feel better? Will doing this help them?” And sometimes I’m amazed at how asking that changes what I think I should do to help.

    I don’t even know if I’m making any sense. It’s hard to think clearly in those situations. Especially covered in blood! (Eek!)

  5. J loves the story….

  6. That’s an awful situation to be in! I’m so sorry. Not to scare you but are you considering being tested for blood bourne illnesses? I’m a worry wart but I’d be testing after having my hands covered with blood, especially if you have any small cuts or torn cuticles.

  7. I hope the guy gets better, that sounds really serious! Probably put a slight damper on 4th of July festivities.

  8. How awful! However, I love the epiphany you had…It was one for me too. One daughter is struggling with a fierce eating disorder, the other is struggling with several autoimmune disorders, and my best friend’s cancer has now reached her liver. I want to do something great for everyone–no I want to fix everyone– but I’ve settled on loving on them as much as I can. I feel like it’s not enough. But just maybe it is. Thank you!

  9. As I always tell my clients, Do what you can with what you have.

    Even if it doesn’t feel like much, it makes so much more happen through a domino effect than you can ever realize. You did more than you think I’m sure of it.

  10. This post made my hypochondria flare up in the worst way. Eek! How scary.

    Great lesson though.

    (But for real I’m going to be checking my ears for blood compulsively for like 3 weeks now)

  11. I seem to have a built in “emergency management” mode that makes me good to have around in an emergency. One day a boy was hit by a car in front of my house. I was home alone and helped watch the girls of the driver while the she (a RN) was helping the boy. I called my mom after a friend came to get the girls to let her know the police tape around our house had nothing to do with me. She asked if she should come home early, and I told her no. She called my aunt who knew the driver. My aunt didn’t even ask, she just jumped in her car and drove over to stay with me until everything was over. I didn’t even realize how much I needed someone until she hugged me. Just being their is one of the best things you can do. (Oh yeah the boy lived . . . so yay happy ending!)

  12. Wow, Charlotte–what a story! It gives me chills, and makes me laugh out loud. I hope the man is okay too. And I do think you did all you could. Just your willingness to go on the walk was obviously huge as it offered your presence as well as that of your family/friend. Beautiful thoughts about just giving what we can too. Makes me think of being a mom and just valuing all the little things we do, even when they don’t feel as mighty as saving a life. 🙂

  13. Hello Charlotte,

    You are my guardian angle. I am the wife of the man whose blood was on your hands (and no, he does not have hepatitis 🙂 I loved your blog. It was such an accurate account of the events and the emotions. I met with your friend J today to thank her and want to thank you for your heroics. You were awesome and brave and took action, when all I could do was cradle my husband. Thank you. Thank you for being there and doing so much that evening for our family. My husband is doing better. He ended up with a concussion, skull fracture, and perforated ear drum. He tires easily at night but his pain and nausea are under control. The fracture will heal with time and he should get his hearing back. I, too, wish I could erase that memory as I am a gore wuss as well. I have to say, when the time comes, however, we all responded with grace and greatness :). Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

  14. Pingback:What Christine Needed [5 Lessons I Learned From My Terminally Ill Sister]

  15. Pingback:There Are Two Kinds of Panic Attacks – So Why Do We Only Talk About One? [Plus: Curing anxiety with probiotics!]

  16. excellent publish, very informative. I’m wondering why the opposite experts of this sector do not
    understand this. You must continue your writing. I am confident, you have a huge readers’ base already!

  17. What a data of un-ambiguity and preserveness of valuable knowledge on
    the topic of unexpected emotions.