Nov 19, 2008

 

Tragedy—From a Different Perspective
By Bob Daughrity

I spent 30 years working for the California Highway Patrol. I’m no stranger to emergencies, accidents, injuries, or deaths. But my past as a first responder didn’t prepare me for being on the other side of a tragedy. Last Christmastime, I saw an emergency from a different perspective.

December 25, 2007
My wife, Karen and I spent Christmas following the family tradition: making the day special for our grandkids. We saw the bounty that Santa had delivered to our son Jason’s two boys in Coarsegold, allowed them to goad me into playing their new video games with them, and, later, we gorged on a delicious Christmas dinner with our daughter, Rhonda, at her home in Clovis.

As Karen and I lay in bed that evening we both remarked how beautiful the day had been and how much we loved each other. Karen told me how blessed we were to have such a good life. Little did I know as I drifted off to sleep that Christmas night our world would soon take a drastic turn.

As I woke up at around 7:30 the next morning I heard sirens. Sirens are not uncommon, so I didn’t give the noise a lot of thought. I went into the kitchen, poured a cup of coffee and flipped to the all-important sports section of the paper. Karen usually rises earlier than I and takes a morning walk with our Queensland Heeler, Weema.

Karen and Weema usually return from their walk around 8:30 and at 9:10 I thought it was odd that I hadn’t heard them. I went out and looked down our street but didn’t see them so I quickly dressed and called Karen’s cell. I heard her ring tone in the distance, but my relief was short-lived as I tracked the sound to her purse, under a desk in our kitchen.

The clock now glared 9:28 and still Karen and Weema hadn’t returned. Worried, I drove my pickup along Clovis Avenue, which parallels the path they always walked on. A short portion of the path winds behind a residential section away from the road, but I drove alongside the rest of the path. They were nowhere to be seen. I also checked the nearby Starbucks but didn’t see the faces I was now urgently seeking.

The clock read 9:47 and I called Rhonda. She hadn’t seen her mother. I filled her in and asked for her help finding her mom. Back home, I phoned the Clovis Police Department. The dispatcher took my information and said she’d call me back within 15 minutes.

Unable to just sit and wait, I got into my pickup again and drove to an area where the pedestrian trail winds through a large orchard bounded by an irrigation canal. I was now thinking Karen could have been abducted and this area was most likely for this type of crime.

At 10:17 I called our son, Jason, a sergeant for the CHP in the Oakhurst Area. I left him a voicemail telling him Mom was missing and that I needed him to help look for her. In the short time it took him to call back he had been able to get support from the CHP Central Division Air Operations Unit. One of their airplanes was already in the air and was notified of the situation.

I recontacted Clovis P.D. and the dispatcher said that a black and white unit was enroute to my home. I asked the dispatcher what was happening and she said I would be informed when the officers arrived.

Within minutes, two units arrived: a patrol car and a motorcycle. My heart was in my throat and the world seemed to be going dark as a sergeant told me Karen and Weema had been hit by a car.

Trying to make sense of it, I explained that they always walk on the pathway. The sergeant said a driver had fallen asleep, run off the roadway and onto the pedestrian path where my beloved Karen and Weema were struck from behind.

When I asked how they were doing, the sergeant said, “All I can say is (Karen) was breathing when she left the scene but you need to get to the hospital right away.”

The sergeant said the motorcycle officer would help Rhonda and me get to Community Regional Medical Center in downtown Fresno, where Karen was transported. As we drove to CRMC, Rhonda and I prepared ourselves for the worst.

At the reception area of the CRMC emergency room I asked to see Karen. The receptionist looked over the roster and said, “We have no patient here by that name.”

“We were told by Clovis P.D. that she was brought in here by American Ambulance,” I said. Again the receptionist couldn’t find Karen’s name in her computer.

Frustrated, I asked her to call back to the emergency room treatment area but again we were met with the same answer. “She’s not back there.”

As I asked to speak to the emergency room supervisor, the emergency room coordinator entered the reception area and Rhonda and I followed him to a room reserved for the hospital Chaplin.

I looked at Rhonda and she looked back at me. “I’m going back into the treatment area to find your mom,” I said.

‘This is my wife’
The Clovis P.D. motorcycle officer took me from the Chaplin’s room, where I had met up with Jason, who briefed the many CHP officers who had arrived at the Emergency Room. Then, through a maze of treatment rooms we finally arrived at the last trauma area.

At first glance, I didn’t recognize the motionless body being attended to by the emergency room doctor. Karen was unconscious, her face was swollen and bruised, her eyes were taped shut, a life support breathing device was taped to her mouth and nose and a cervical collar covered her neck. Intravenous tubes dangled from the hanger and trailed into both arms. Electronic equipment flashed vital diagnostic information.

“This is my wife,” I told the attending physician. The doctor took my hand. “I’m sorry your wife had to go through this,” she said. Looking into the doctor’s eyes I asked, “Is she going to be okay?”

Her eyes drifted away from mine as she explained that Karen had been stabilized as best as could be expected but she suffered so many critical injuries that her blood pressure had dropped perilously low.

The doctor explained that Karen had a life-threatening closed-brain injury that they were closely monitoring. In addition, she suffered a basal skull fracture, a fracture/dislocation of her right shoulder/arm, a double pelvic fracture, and rib injuries plus numerous cuts and abrasions all over.

The E.R. doctor said Karen was being transferred to the Intensive Care Unit. She advised Rhonda and me to go upstairs and meet Karen there.

As I left the emergency room I met with CHP Motorcycle Sergeant Spino who told me his motorcycle crew was out searching for our dog, Weema.

Weema ran from the accident scene and witnesses said she appeared injured. He said when they found her he would see that she was taken to a veterinarian.

Rhonda, Jason, and I met Karen in the ICU where we got to touch her for the first time since her accident. As she lay in a deep coma with medical devices sustaining her life, my thoughts raced through the 40 years I had been married to her. I couldn’t stand to lose her.

As I was making the dreaded calls to inform our relatives and friends of the accident, the chief neuro-surgeon for CRMC, Dr. Myers, walked up and told me he needed to take Karen into emergency surgery right away. The pressure from the bleeding in her brain would kill her if they didn’t operate and relieve it.

At 7:00 Karen was taken to neuro-surgery for an emergency craniotomy. A large gathering of relatives and friends waited anxiously for any word on the outcome of the procedure.

At 9:30, we got news of the surgery—and some guarded relief. Dr. Myers came into the waiting room and said the surgery went well but Karen was not out of the woods. He said that she had taken quite a blow to her brain and it would take a long time to recover.

Karen stayed in the ICU at CRMC for seven days. For four of those days, she survived on life-support. She remained in a coma for five days and when she woke she was very lethargic and barely able to speak.

Healing and rehabilitation
From CRMC Karen was transferred to Horizon Sub-Acute Medical Care Facility where she underwent six weeks of healing and rehabilitation. There she was assisted in learning how to walk with her fractured pelvis. She went through intensive rehabilitation on her right shoulder, arm, and hand.

Her right hand remains partially paralyzed but doctors are optimistic she will regain full function. Karen continues her follow-up treatment for her other injuries.

Weema was found lying, injured, in a front yard near the scene of the accident. Clovis SPCA transported her to a local veterinarian where she was treated for abrasions and bruises. She stayed there overnight under observation and I picked her up the day after the accident.

Later, some of the puzzle pieces that made the day so confusing were put together and the details became clearer.

When Karen and Weema went for their walk the morning of the accident Karen was dressed in her jogging suit. She didn’t have her identification or her cell phone with her.

Karen was taken to CRMC and admitted as an anonymous patient, since no one knew her identity. Hospitals don’t use John or Jane Doe for patients who come in without identification any more. CRMC assigns names like the National Weather Service assigns hurricane names, beginning with the letter A and working through the alphabet as the season progresses. CRMC was down to the letter R, thus the name Raven was assigned to Karen and this was the name on her hospital identification wristband. We still chide her with the name Raven sometimes.

Karen was struck by the errant driver at approximately 7:20 a.m. on the Clovis pedestrian/bicycle trail where it winds through a residential section. This was the only place I didn’t thoroughly search that morning. You can see most of the trail from the roadway and this seemed the most unlikely place for a person to be struck by a vehicle.

Gratitude
Our family owes a debt of gratitude to the agencies whose superior actions and life-saving efforts helped us invaluably: Clovis Police Department, Clovis Fire Department, American Ambulance, California Highway Patrol Central Division and Fresno Area, Clovis SPCA, the doctors, nurses, and staff personnel at CRMC and Horizon Health. Without their quick response and dedication to duty, this story would have ended much differently.

More than nine months after Karen’s accident she is still experiencing pain and partial paralysis.  Under the care of doctors, specialists, and physical therapists, she attends weekly rehabilitation with hopes of some day being fully recovered.  Her attitude remains very positive.  She tells me almost daily that she is extremely thankful for the good Lord allowing her to continue on in life.

And I’m just as thankful that she continues to be the heart of my life. 

No comments