Work trips and head trauma

Holy crap what a day. I want to get this written down while it is fresh in my mind; details and analysis will come later.

I am currently on a trip for my former employers in Massachusetts; my coworker A. and I are in the Chicago area. After a morning of work and coming back from lunch, we were headed back towards the test house, hopping up onto a 2' retaining wall. I climbed up just fine, took the computer bag from A. so he could climb up easier. I waited for him to climb up, but he just stood there on the sidewalk, and stood there, and stood there....

"A.?"
"A.?"
"A.--what's up buddy?"
"Hey A.--you there all right?"
"Um."

Then his eyes then rolled back in his head, and he fell down backwards to the sidewalk. I jumped down from the wall, and saw a pool of blood growing under his head. Oh shit.

Bat's hindsight error #1: If I had been a bit more responsive, I might have jumped down earlier to shake him or check what was going on, in which case the fall might not have been as bad.

He seemed to be having a seizure or something; he was twitching, and his face was distorted in a complete grimace. Nobody was within earshot, as far as I could tell; I made the call to run to get help.

Bat's hindsight error #2: Did I check breathing before leaving? As in A/B/C airway/breathing/cirulation test for CPR? I don't think I could have determined it, based on his spastic twitching; also, what would I do if he wasn't breathing--start CPR and hope somebody showed up?

I sprinted to the sales office, and asked them (as calmly as possible under the circumstances) to call an ambulance/911. Then I ran back to my coworker.

Bats hindsight error #3: I didn't tell them which direction we were from the sales office; we were not within line of sight from the front of the office.

When I got back to him, he was no longer shaking, and seemed to be breathing (although in a lot of pain or something). He was completely unresponsive. I had to roll him onto his side when he vomited (see... living at Tep teaches you things other than how to recognize the smell of marijuana).

Local police were there within minutes; paramedics a few minutes after that (this is a retirement community, so they're used to coming here, although they were not expecting this). He was not responsive to basic awareness tests (date, what is your name, age, etc), although he did look up, and was verbal (when people asked him questions, he said, "Are you talking to me?"). The medics put on a cervical collar, put in an IV, and strapped him down to a backboard. A. was conscious enough to be combative (I think that's another typical head trauma reaction)--trying to pull out the IV and remove the collar. They then sedated him (the paramedics called it 'darting' him).

They medevaced him by helicopter to the nearest Level I Trauma Center (about 30 miles away).



I did not ride with him; I had to call the office to get directions to a hospital I only knew the name of (yay intarnets), and drove there. Once there, as typical for emergency rooms, I just sat around for a few hours, waiting for any information. Not knowing anything sucked--is he not in bad shape, or fighting for his life? I realize that I am not a family member, but I am pretty much the only person he knows in the state right now. However, after asking the new nurse on shift, they let me go back and visit him. As is typical for hospitals, the nurses were super nice and helpful, and I didn't talk to a doctor once. In case you're wondering, I took that photo during the they-aren't-telling-me-anything stage, when all I had to do was stew around, worry, and do logistics crap like extending the car reservation.

He was conscious and doing all right; they moved him from the ER to the neuro/trauma ICU. I stayed with him for several hours, and he could chat, although he was groggy. He seemed to be managing to maintain a sense of humor through this ordeal (e.g., "Well, I guess this is one way to get an afternoon nap..."). They will be doing an MRI on him either tonight or tomorrow; they have stitched up the cut on his head. They are keeping him at least overnight for observation; it is my understanding is this is standard procedure with a head trauma.

I hope that on the scale of things, I generally kept my shit together during this situation. I think I was informative to the police and paramedics on site. I tried to get contact information for his wife and parents to let them know what was going on (however, nobody at the office had that info; it was all on A's cell phone, which was still in his pocket). I dealt with cancelling/extending car, hotel, airline flights, and informing our bosses. I have left voicemail messages for his wife, with A's current status, while she is en route from California.

Now excuse me; I need to finish washing blood and vomit off of my bag (the paramedics needed to elevate his head; they grabbed whatever was nearby; I wasn't planning on arguing with them when they grabbed my bag).

Jean--we should discuss this over a bottle of wine sometime.