A narrative essay on the short time I spent time at the hospital as a child |
On December 7 2003, my mother stepped on the gas pedal after she sighted the green traffic light, the car jerked forward and began to move forward down the street. As the cars in the street moved, the black sedan ahead of us suddenly stopped without no warning. My mother without reaction crashed the front of the car into the back of the black sedan, as the cars crashed, I saw the black sedan drive away before the air bag exploded and blocked my view.As the air bag covered my face, I felt a large weight of force squeeze me like a vice grip, soon I lost conscious and everything faded into black. The sounds of my mother crying brought me back into conscious and I opened my eyes to my mother unable to move her arms to unbuckle her seatbelt. As I cried for help people gathered around the car, I tried to help my mother with her seatbelt but then found myself without the ability to move, I tried using my arms, but I could not get the feeling of my arms, or my legs. Two men, one opened a door for me and the other opened the door for my mother and unbuckled our belts and dragged us out of the car, they told us they called the ambulance five minutes earlier at around twelve-twenty p.m. and it was not be long till the ambulance came for us. As I lay in the soft grass near the sidewalk, I had people asking me if I was okay, but I could only respond with "I can't move". As the sirens of the ambulance rang into my ears, the ambulance stopped on the street, with paramedics bursting our with a stretcher. The paramedics carried my mother into the stretcher and placed her safely into the ambulance, they quickly focused their attention on me and picked me up and placed me in to the stretcher and brought me inside the ambulance, where I continue to hear the siren of the ambulance with a mix of my mother's crying. All I could do is tell my mother with a voice full of anguish and pain to not cry. As the the ambulance came into a complete stop, the paramedics opened the doors and slowly took my mother and me off the ambulance into the hospital's emergency room, the emergency room physician ordered a MRI on both me and my mother in order to see the damage done during the crash. The paramedics, nurse, and physician took me through a room, adjacent to my mother's room and took my vital signs, I soon heard my mother cry out in spanish "Take me back to my child" over and over again. By the corner of my eye I saw in the hallway, the orderly taking my mother down the the corner and turn to the left, I cried out where were they taking my mother, and the physician spoke to me in a calm voice that they were going to take her to radiology in order to get a MRI. After a few minutes they soon came in to take me to radiology, they layed me into the cold machine and I soon felt the warmth of the machine's light upon my face. Once finished, they told me that I wouldn't be able to walk for about a week, soon orderlies came and took me into large room where patients were laying in there beds, I was placed next to my mother who was smiling and crying at the same time at the sight of me. A hour passed, as I layed in the bed still unable to move my legs but witht he ability to move my arms, my brother Hugo and my grandmother came to see us as, my uncle Samuel checked us out with the receptionist. As my uncle carried me on his back I was placed into the car seat and taken home, away from the screams said in the hospital. As my uncle carried me upstairs to my family's apartment I was placed onto the my parent's bed. I soon had the feeling to go to the restroom, and I travaled there the only way I could, I rolled myself to the ground and crawled into the restroom. Once I was done, I crawled out of the restroom towards the room me, my brother Victor, and my brother Hugo shared, with all my strength I grabbed the matttress and slowly rose to my knees, and soon I was on my feet, and with courage I took my first step towards my bed. |