Ambulances Are Not as Fun as the Toys

Shane fell down the stairs last night.  He's 100% okay, thank God.

I pulled Shane out of the bathtub at 7:30ish. Carrie and I dressed him and let him run around our room until close to 8. It was near his bedtime, but Shane was still energized so we brought him to the main floor to run off some of it. Everything happened in a few seconds.

The gate to the top of the stairway wasn't shut. Shane does not walk, he runs. I heard my wife scream, "Shane's on the stairs!" I froze for a split second. My brain didn't believe her, even as my body started to process. My wife shot up. My brain unfroze and I sprinted to the stairs right behind her. I yelled as I caught the tail end of Shane tumbling on his side down the last three stairs. In that instant, I was terrified. It felt like my guts were reaching up to stab my chest. My whole body felt like it was somehow pulled inward and swelling around my heart. It's not a feeling I want to go through again. It is ingrained in my memory and will be until the day I die. I don't even know what I yelled. There's just a vague knowledge that what I was feeling bubbled up and ripped out.

Thank God, we had the steps carpeted to help childproof the house. Praise God, my son has my extra thick skull and my wife's grandfather's size. Shane fell a total of 12 steps. He started to cry almost immediately after the fall stopped and my wife and I descended upon him. In the next frenzied, panicked moments, we had Shane in our arms, saw that he was moving and responsive, and blitzed back up the stairs. Nothing seemed seriously wrong with him, but he'd just fallen down stairs for heaven's sake and we were in full-on scared parents mode. There's an urgent care right around the corner from us that we thought was 24/7. We were there in under 5 minutes.

It was closed.



From there, we wanted to go to a hospital to make sure Shane was all right. Carrie was still panicking. Shane wasn't crying anymore and enjoying himself believe it or not. I was no longer in fight or flight mode after seeing Shane, without a new bruise on his body, sitting and kicking happily.* I pointed the car in the direction I thought the nearest hospital was in. In case there was any internal damage or something we weren't noticing, we wanted a professional to check our son out. Carrie tried to look up directions on her phone, but was too panicked. We decided to call 911 for directions. Who else could you immediately get medical advice and help from? The dispatcher asked Carrie a bunch of questions and told us to go home. It would be faster for an ambulance to come to us and asses the situation.

Then we raced. I wasn't driving like a maniac, but I did pull an illegal turn. We started hearing sirens as we got near the house. Was the ambulance going to beat us there? Carrie was talking to the dispatcher as we were waiting at the red light just outside our development. When the light changed, I gunned the car into the turn and we beat the early responders by less than a minute. I saw one of my neighbors looking out his window at us before flashing red lights lit up the entire block. The ambulance pulled up behind us and the Volunteer EMS's took Carrie and Shane in to asses the situation. Meanwhile, I pulled out the car seat at the direction of some others so that Shane could ride more comfortably in the ambulance.

Inside, Carrie was still crying a little, but basically in control. Shane sat happily in her lab while a medic poked and prodded him. When I climbed in with the car seat, the testing had just begun. All of the medics seemed calm and unworried, so that further calmed me down. At this point, I was convinced (rightly or wrongly) that we had dodged a major bullet and Shane was going to be just fine. Eventually, one of the medics made a phone call to a doctor to see which hospital would be the best for Shane to get checked out. They exchanged pleasantries on the phone, and the manner he spoke further assured me that the medic wasn't concerned there was an immediate threat. There's no "sure, I'll wait a minute while you get the doctor" when there's a crisis at hand.

A few minutes later, the ambulance drove off with a frightened mommy and excited baby. I wonder if he was surprised there was a much larger version of his toy fire truck in real life. Several of the neighbors came out and I explained what had happened. I was trying to appear calm and unconcerned at that point. I did feel a little embarrassed from all the attention and flashing lights, and I felt slightly euphoric knowing Shane was going to be okay. I also noticed that that wasn't entirely true as I went inside to fill Shane's diaper bag and rendezvous at the hospital. I manged to knock several items all over the counters as I grabbed at what I thought Shane needed. My hands were trembling slightly. I told myself to suck it up and then I left the mess to hop in the car and get underway.

I called my parents en route. Carrie had already called and explained the situation. They told me that they'd already started praying for Shane. I thanked them, and gave permission for my mom to let my siblings know so they could pray, too. Then I called Carrie's parents, but no one answered. I figured that they were already on the phone with Carrie and focused on not getting lost. That didn't happen until I got to the hospital.

After wandering around without a secretary in sight, I saw a security guard hopping in an elevator and chased him down. Ken was then kind enough to walk me through the labyrinthine corridors to the emergency reception area. From there, I asked about Shane and Ken took me to the pediatric wing where Carrie was clutching Shane. The boy had no idea anything was wrong. He was singing and fascinated by all of the people and sights around him. It was already an hour past bed time and he showed no signs of fatigue. Several nurses stopped by to see who the happy singing boy was.

Carrie filled me in on what had happened while I was lost in transit. Shane's forehead stated to develop a red mark and he began pulling at his ears in the ambulance. When the medics saw this, they kicked the ambulance into high gear and raced the last part of the way. I took Shane from Carrie for some 'Dada' time. I could see the red mark at the top of his forehead where the hairline started. It was about the size of two quarters side-by-side. The poor kid had a little bit of rug burn on his cheeks, too. Shane didn't seem to be aware of it. When the doctor did come in, Shane was fascinated with his bade. Whenever the doctor leaned in to exam the little man, Shane would snatch his badge and drag it in for nomming. The doctor liked what he saw, so he told us to wait until 10:00 and then he'd revisit us for checking out. Wide awake, Shane watched some Toy Story 2 while we tried to keep him from running up and down the emergency pediatric ward. He started yanking and tustling with the room curtains after a while. I tried to stop him at first. Then I noticed that each patient had their own curtain, so it wasn't like Shane was terrorizing our neighbor. It was well over two hours past what was going to be bedtime and my son was still 100% awake when the doctor came back. He gave Shane a clean bill of health and we were on our way. By 11:00, we were home.

Home brought it's own set of challenges. Shane fell asleep in the car, so he wasn't a problem. Carrie was still worked up. She'd been afraid of Shane falling asleep and then she stated she wasn't comfortable going to sleep. She loves Shane dearly, and her brain was already going a hundred miles a minute trying to figure out ways to protect Shane in the future. I told her I'd sleep in Shane's room. The hope was, Carrie would be willing to go to sleep as long as she knew I was with Shane. I grabbed a blanket and a pillow and laid down in front of the crib. The reality was, Carrie sat in a chair watching us sleep. She eventually went downstairs to research doors, doorknobs and anything else she could think of to better babyproof the house. I have no idea how long she slept if at all. At one point, she tried to lay on the ground next to me. I was so far gone I have no recollection of the attempt. I remember waking at some point and wondering why there was a second blanket in the room, but that's it. Carrie's been tired and trying to recover from the stress all day today.

Through all of this, Shane's doing fine. It's like he doesn't recall there was ever a moment of danger. The mark on his forehead is barely visible. He's still fascinated by the stairs and shows no hesitation at climbing up or trying to jailbreak again. I felt euphoric when I first realized Shane was fine. I've felt like we've dodged a bullet since and haven't been stressed. I feel like it's these sort of situations where something terrifying happens but no one is hurt, where it can all come out for the best in the long run as long as lessons are learned. That way future, worse accidents are avoided. The only one I'm worried about right now is Carrie. She's taking the whole situation much harder. I'm ready to start bragging about my son being invincible, but I can tell that she's still playing the fall over and over again in her head. She needs more time to process things. I'd recommend that she write everything down in a journal, but that's more of a Mike sort of thing it would appear.

In the meantime, prayers for Shane to grow up hearty and hale and my wife to work her way through this are welcomed.  Thank you for taking the time to read my ramblings.




*This may sound corny, but in times like these I keep thinking of a Dune quote, "Fear is the mindkiller." When I'm in a really stressful situation, I bottle up. I don't want to make any irrational choices and create more of a mess than I'm already in. I feel like people have a tendency to get riled up and make poor choices that exacerbate the problem. I try to suppress my fear and (usually) I'm able to function (mostly) in a rational and logical manner. It almost feels like I'm not fully me, but that I'm slightly removed and that I can make decisions and watch myself react. Afterwards, my hands will sometimes start jittering as my system reacts to the adrenal dump and everything rushes back. That parts no fun. I guess it's just how I react to stress.