A true story

Your daddy set off for a mission trip to Honduras to work in an orphanage where they took in street boys and gave them an education. I went to church the next day and asked a friend’s son to come mow the lawn that afternoon. Just as he finished the mowing, it started to rain, hard. It rained for about an hour, and then the sun came out to a beautiful, warm June evening. I was on the phone talking to my mother when I thought I should go out and check that they had locked the garage door when they put the mower away.

As I moved down the steps, my foot slipped on the bottom step, there was a “crack”, I looked down and saw my leg was not right. I screamed “I’ve got to go, I broke my leg” into the phone and hung up. I turned it on again but couldn’t get a dial tone. Off again, and then on, still no dial tone. I yelled for help. Surely no one could hear me, we lived so far from any house. I tried to move up the steps and crawl into the house, but my leg was so bad, I knew the bone was broken clear through.

I tried the phone again, this time I got a dial tone. Quickly I dialed the police and explained that I had broken my leg, I was pregnant and all alone. They said they would send an ambulance. When I hung up, I called for help again. I was worried I would go into shock and faint, that something would happen and my baby wouldn’t be okay. I picked up the phone and started dialing the first numbers I could think of. First I tried our friends the Cunninghams, there was no answer, so I left a message. I later found out that they were home but had a rule about not answering the phone during dinner. I also found out that they changed that rule that night. Next I called my friend Betsy . Her family was also having dinner with some other friends, Nick and Laura . Betsy said she’d be right over. “Right over” was relative, I figured, since it was a 10 minute drive from her house to mine.

I called for help again, afraid to be alone while I waited. This time a voice called back “are you okay?” “No” I called, “I broke my leg”. Very soon I saw a woman come up out of the woodsy driveway with 2 dogs. “I was walking the dogs, and I heard you yell.” She said. “I was afraid, but I thought you might be in danger.” I don’t think I’ve ever been so glad to see a stranger in my life. She put the dogs on the porch. She sat down next to me, she helped me get into a position I could sit in and she held my hand and talked to me. She assured me it would be okay. She sat with me and comforted me for a while before I thought to ask “what’s your name?” “Shawnda” she replied. She was sweet, and quiet and she treated me like a friend or a sister, not a stranger she’d just met. She worked at the bakery in town, but I’d never noticed her before.

It felt like forever, but it was just moments when a pick-up truck pulled up and out rushed Betsy and Laura. Now things were cooking, but there was no ambulance. We called the police again and found out that no one was on duty at our local volunteer station and there was a wreck on the interstate, so the ambulance was coming from half an hour away after the call had been relayed twice. Thankfully my friends were there, and Shawnda stayed too.

It felt like forever again. I was sitting in pain, just trying to hang on, when I heard the sounds of the siren. “Thank God!” I thought, but my relief quickly turned into tears as I heard the siren pass by on county highway that our road forked off of. They had missed the turn. I called the police station again “They missed the turn!” I cried to the dispatcher. Meanwhile, Laura and Betsy got back in the truck, one went to the end of the street, and the other to the end of the driveway to flag down the ambulance as it came back. In all it was more than 45 minutes after I placed the first call that the ambulance arrived with paramedics to splint my leg and take me to the emergency room.

The local Emergency Room was just 5 minutes away, even for a slow driver, but it was just a stopping point. They couldn’t set my leg, I’d have to be transferred. The doctor barely looked at it, there was no need for him to do an X-ray since it was clearly broken. He gave me some morphine. He checked the baby’s heart beat, it was about all he could do. It was okay, but fast, 155 beats per minute. Not too fast, technically, but faster than her normal 130-140. The doctor would have sent me to Chattanooga, except there was that wreck on the interstate between us and there. Nashville would be the choice, which was fine since that’s where I was having my prenatal care, but it was an hour and a half ride in the ambulance with a broken leg, and now it was getting late, I was tired, and in pain. Sleep wasn’t possible. And how was my baby?

“How’s my baby?” I begged to the ER doc in Nashville. Someone came in with a lap top, and rubbed a probe across my belly. “She’s fine” they told me as an ultrasound image came up on the lap top screen. “Thank God!” I thought. “Your sister’s here, we gave her your things.” The nurse told me. I didn’t even have time to wonder what they meant when Laura walked in, it was late, maybe after 11, and she had driven the hour and a half to stay with me. It made sense, of our friends there that night, she was the only one without children, but what a long drive to make for me.

“When was your last tetanus shot” a young doctor asked “I don’t know.” Came my reply. “You have a compound fracture” he said, “you need one.” “Wait, what about the mercury, does it have mercury?” “very little” he said. “No” I said firmly. “You don’t understand” he assured me, “we can’t tell if you broke the skin in your fall, this may not be a sterile wound. You need a tetanus shot.” “Can’t you tell?” “Not until after we set it” he said. “Well, take my titers then, see if I’m still immune.” “We may not have results in time.” He left the room. Minutes later he came back. “I spoke to the pharmacist, the shot only has trace amounts of mercury.” “You people won’t let me eat a can of tuna fish, but you want to shoot mercury straight into my body?! No!” I said with fierce determination. It turns out I was right, after they set my leg they discovered I had only an abrasion, the skin had not broken.

The pain was getting really intense. I’d had a shot of morphine at the local ER, but they were refusing to give it to me now. “We have to wait, there’s no Obstetrics staff to okay it.” Came the answer as I cried in pain. “Please” I begged… “Please”. A technician came to take me for X-rays. “Could you be pregnant?” she asked “Yes, yes I am pregnant.” I told her. “Hold on, I have to go check if I can film you.” She left me in the hall. She came back with a lead apron she draped over me and wheeled me into the X-Ray room. “Hold your leg straighter.” She ordered. “I can’t” I said. “Straighter”, she called back with an edge in her voice. “I’m trying” I cried, putting as much effort as I could into moving a leg I had no control over. She marched over to me and moved my leg, I screamed. She shot the X-ray, came back over and moved my leg again, I screamed louder. I had never felt so much pain in my life. Falling hadn’t hurt this bad “stop your yelling, or I can’t get these films” she yelled at me. I couldn’t stop screaming. Tears we pouring down my cheeks as she brought me back, I was so stunned I couldn’t even tell them what she had done to me. And no more pain medicine that night. In all I was 15 hours with only 1 shot of morphine to make me comfortable.