Tragic Experiences Life Never Prepares You For

Breathing air into an unconscious person was a weird experience. Time both flew and came to a standstill. Lifelong alliances can be forged in a moment of crisis. Shock ultimately rolls in quietly over ensuing days. Death always challenges and changes your philosophy for life.

I learned these things and more on the Nineteenth of March 2010, and days and weeks after. At just after 10AM that morning I was required to attempt to revive someone who later died.

As part of my debriefing process I wrote a blog article titled, Life’s Last Day. In it I said:

I dialled “000” at 10:07 AM and spent the next few minutes guiding the operator to our precise location, ambulance en route. The woman, Sue, lay their motionless barely breathing and then she stopped completely. A policeman had just arrived. He did chest compressions and I did expired air resuscitation. We did this until we were relieved by two doctors—university faculty—one a professor at the School for Medicine. Then a medical student arrived—a critical care nurse of eight years. Sue was in the best of hands. Yet, still no ambulance.

We desperately needed a defibrillator machine so I dashed back to my workplace to grab ours and then returned in minutes—a shock was delivered but it didn’t revive her. The ambulance arrived. A saline drip was fitted, her throat was cannulised and cleared and CPR continued throughout. It was a real team effort and Sue was blessed with much qualified assistance.

Co-workers of Sue’s—two of which did their best—stood by traumatised.

We saw the ambulance off and went for our planned coffee; a little amazed at what had just taken place, indeed, bewildered actually. Now, twenty hours or so on, there have been many thoughts of how we might have done better. Yet, our intent was precise. We wanted her back.

As I look back, that event impacted me profoundly, physically, mentally and emotionally. Physically, I endured a headache that lasted ten days — never before that or since have I experienced anything like that. Mentally, I kept asking myself if I or we could have done better. And emotionally, it rocked me for the suddenness of loss. Re-reading my brief journal entry I can see how I had neither words nor energy to write about the experience. No matter how much of a blessing it was that we commenced resuscitation quickly doesn’t quite make up for the fact that she died. And yet, it is what it is. It can only be accepted.

I still think about Sue’s family. Her husband Brett. Her son Bon. Her daughter Kia. To have lost their wife and mother, only fiftyish. And nine years on now. Losing her changed their lives irrevocably.

We never get used to what life never prepares us for. How can we? Who willingly says goodbye to partner or parent or child? And yet, somehow, we learn to thrive in new ways, notwithstanding our loss.

Life never prepares us
for the trauma
that life inevitably brings.

But we’re protected by knowledge that what we endure has been endured. One human being can encourage others as they share what they endured. We’re not alone. Endurance is possible. We’re indeed encouraged as we recall and relive history; those brave souls who have gone before us. Endurance pushes us to believe in a bravery we never knew we had.

Death and loss and grief are common to the human experience. It doesn’t make us happy, far from it, but it is something we learn to accept, for there is no point in not accepting it.

As for the trauma that comes at us, there is hope for recovery and meaning-making, and such a hope drives our recovery.

Even still, there is no explaining trauma away and only empathy for anyone who is burdened by it. My sincere apologies if this article doesn’t help or hinders you.

How are we to anticipate trauma, let alone manage it well? A commendation is due for bearing it. To do all that can be done is enough.