I was too shook up to post about this yesterday; needed a night to sleep off the high emotions first. Im posting it today because I think there is important information here for parents of children with asthma.
Yesterday morning, there was an incident with a little girl being administered CPR outside the police department. I was witness to the incident, and it shook me up pretty badly.
Heres what happened:
8:00 am: I was standing at the corner across the street from the building I work in, waiting to cross. Across the street from my building the other direction is City Hall, which houses the police department. The street I was waiting to cross is a three-lane one-way street that is down to just one lane due to construction, so traffic is quite slow right now.
As I was waiting to cross, a car FLEW around the corner, tires screeching the whole way, floored it for ½ block until they were in front of the police station, and then slammed on their brakes, tires squawking once again. The driver runs into the police station, and runs back out a couple seconds later with an officer. The officer opens the rear car door, yanks out a little blonde girl, puts her down on the sidewalk, and starts performing CPR on her.
It was absolutely terrifying to witness. We just stood there a second, in shock as what we were seeing, and then we went inside. I didnt want to stay and see any more than that. My office windows face the police dept, but there is a skywalk that was blocking the actual car and people, so from my office, we only saw the fire dept and ambulance as they arrived and left (very quickly).
I wasnt able to put it out of my mind all morning, so at lunch I went over to the police department to see if I could get an update on the childs condition. I was actually able to talk to the officer that responded to the incident, who I could tell was still just as shook up as I was.
He said the 4 year old girl was having an asthma attack. Initially, it didnt seem to be an emergency, and the child had never had a severe attack before. The father was driving her to the hospital, but she stopped breathing as they approached the intersection near the police department, so thats how they ended up there.
The officer started CPR, and he said it was very fortunate that the Public Health Department was right across the street, as they were able to provide an epi-pen. The ambulance arrived very quickly, and she is now in the ICU. They are very hopeful that she will make a full recovery. When the officer began CPR, she did still have very shallow breaths and a pulse, so there didnt seem to be a concern about lack of oxygen.
For me, it was quite scary to witness, and now knowing that it was an asthma attack, it hits home for me. My son has many allergies that he gets allergy shots for. He is considered to have asthma, but has never had an attack, and doesnt use an inhaler at all. I am unprepared to deal with an asthma emergency if one should arise; something I will be taking steps to correct promptly.
I remember a time as a child when my step mother chose to ride it out rather than to call an ambulance when my brother had an asthma attack the worst one hed ever had. Why did she make that choice? Im sure you can guess - because they didnt have health insurance. How scary it is to think back to that day, and know that the outcome may not have had a happy ending.
We never know how serious these things can get the first worst one ever could be the last.
Yesterday morning, there was an incident with a little girl being administered CPR outside the police department. I was witness to the incident, and it shook me up pretty badly.
Heres what happened:
8:00 am: I was standing at the corner across the street from the building I work in, waiting to cross. Across the street from my building the other direction is City Hall, which houses the police department. The street I was waiting to cross is a three-lane one-way street that is down to just one lane due to construction, so traffic is quite slow right now.
As I was waiting to cross, a car FLEW around the corner, tires screeching the whole way, floored it for ½ block until they were in front of the police station, and then slammed on their brakes, tires squawking once again. The driver runs into the police station, and runs back out a couple seconds later with an officer. The officer opens the rear car door, yanks out a little blonde girl, puts her down on the sidewalk, and starts performing CPR on her.
It was absolutely terrifying to witness. We just stood there a second, in shock as what we were seeing, and then we went inside. I didnt want to stay and see any more than that. My office windows face the police dept, but there is a skywalk that was blocking the actual car and people, so from my office, we only saw the fire dept and ambulance as they arrived and left (very quickly).
I wasnt able to put it out of my mind all morning, so at lunch I went over to the police department to see if I could get an update on the childs condition. I was actually able to talk to the officer that responded to the incident, who I could tell was still just as shook up as I was.
He said the 4 year old girl was having an asthma attack. Initially, it didnt seem to be an emergency, and the child had never had a severe attack before. The father was driving her to the hospital, but she stopped breathing as they approached the intersection near the police department, so thats how they ended up there.
The officer started CPR, and he said it was very fortunate that the Public Health Department was right across the street, as they were able to provide an epi-pen. The ambulance arrived very quickly, and she is now in the ICU. They are very hopeful that she will make a full recovery. When the officer began CPR, she did still have very shallow breaths and a pulse, so there didnt seem to be a concern about lack of oxygen.
For me, it was quite scary to witness, and now knowing that it was an asthma attack, it hits home for me. My son has many allergies that he gets allergy shots for. He is considered to have asthma, but has never had an attack, and doesnt use an inhaler at all. I am unprepared to deal with an asthma emergency if one should arise; something I will be taking steps to correct promptly.
I remember a time as a child when my step mother chose to ride it out rather than to call an ambulance when my brother had an asthma attack the worst one hed ever had. Why did she make that choice? Im sure you can guess - because they didnt have health insurance. How scary it is to think back to that day, and know that the outcome may not have had a happy ending.
We never know how serious these things can get the first worst one ever could be the last.
