OP
@mayorofnow avatar
UTC

Molto Verboso
2020 GTS 300 HPE
Joined: UTC
Posts: 1384
Location: NYC
 
Molto Verboso
@mayorofnow avatar
2020 GTS 300 HPE
Joined: UTC
Posts: 1384
Location: NYC
UTC quote
One more on the list of posts I'm not looking forward to writing, but feel like I should get down while I still have some memory of them.

As I walked into the ambulance, I texted my Airbnb host that I'd been hit. Before I could reply to her, the medic took my phone away. I was lowkey anxious about responding to her while everything else went on around me. At some point in the ambulance, the police came and tried to question me. I got my phone back, called her, and handed my phone to the cop.

I've never been comfortable with needles or anything like that. I really don't like having my constitution violated.

One nice aspect of being in that helpless situation is that I'd basically resigned myself to whatever happened. I was already exhausted, lightheaded, bloody, and carrying unknown injuries. I was totally happy to let the experts do their thing.

I'd already taken my helmet off before the ambulance arrived; didn't even think about the possibility of a spinal injury. One of the medics shined a light in my eyes - I figured I was supposed to track it. While I was back there, they put a neck brace on me, put an IV tap into my elbow, and took my boots off. It was surreal hearing the sirens going from the inside.

The stretcher was really cool. It was exactly the height of the ambulance floor, so they could wheel you out of the ambulance seamlessly. They brought me into the trauma center of the local teaching hospital and wheeled me into a corner.

I've never read Dante, but I presume one of the circles of hell must be an emergency room. I wasn't even half the age of any of the other patients there, and their constant groans of agony were literally haunting. They were on loop, like the sound track to a video game, and some of the most disturbing sounds I've heard in my entire life.

I'd never been in a hospital, let alone a foreign emergency room. It was certainly an adventure, just not the one I had hoped for that weekend. Somehow my helplessness and the inevitability of whatever was happening helped me keep that perspective - like I was just there to observe whatever might happen.

One of the nurses there grew up in the UK. Her name was Enza. She was easy to spot - her uniform was the only one in bright pink. (The trauma nurses were all dressed in jerseys with PRONTO SOCCORSO emblazed on the back.) Whenever I went to have a procedure done, she escorted me there, explained my situation to the doctors, and came back to pick me up when it was finished.

They checked me over and removed the neck brace. I presumed this meant I was okay. Whenever one of them would interact with me, I'd crane my head up to look, and Enza would remind me that it wasn't safe. I laid there for a while, listening to the groans of the other patients, and waiting to see where I went next.

I was quite impressed at how well the master builders of the hospital could construct a sled under me, basically without me moving. They'd assemble a sled, move me between stretchers, and disassemble it while I just laid there.

The first stop was a CAT scan. Enza vanished back into the trauma center and they put me onto a conveyor belt with a big white ring around it.

One of the things this experience made clear for me is how a language gap can feel like a chasm when you're outside your comfort zone. I speak enough Italian to travel. I can order food, talk to the hotel staff, and make conversation out in public. I certainly can't discuss medical matters, and the stress of the situation made the whole thing feel even more foreign. I wanted to have total understanding, which meant I needed help in English.

As the conveyor belt rocked me back and forth, and automated voice echoed something about "respire." (I took a guess that it was something about breathing, which is even more obvious now that I see it written out.) I eventually figured out that they wanted me to hold my breath during the scan. Holding your breath for that long isn't easy, particularly under stress. It scanned my whole body a few times, and particular areas a few more. Eventually Enza came to bring me back to wait in my corner of the ER.

When I was pacing after the wreck, I though maybe a toe or two had been broken. When the results came back, they assured me my toes were fine, but surprised me with the news that my ankle was broken. I was now free to move my neck and use my phone while I waited for the next step.

The police came by my bed to take a statement. I was a little delirious from the whole ordeal, so it was particularly intimitidating to have authority figures interrogating me while I laid there helplessly. They asked for my account of what happened. With no lawyer present and no formal knowledge of Italian traffic laws, I didn't want to say anything incriminating. I was pretty confident in my memory and tempted to draw them a picture, but I was afraid that if I got a detail wrong it would look bad. Enza translated, and I gave them a very simple recounting of the events.

Vietnam doesn't recognize international driver's permits, so I got a local license for that trip. Germany and Portugal recognize American licenses. Nobody seemed to care about my IDP the last time I was in Italy and I wasn't planning on going there this trip. The embassy says your US license is valid with an official Italian translation (which I presumed included my IDP), so I never bothered getting a new one during my American intermission between trips.

The police asked for my IDP in the ambulance and again in the hospital. To my chagrin, one of them noticed and understood the "valid for one year from issue" statement on the front cover and asked if I had a more recent one. He opened Translate on his phone and told me I'd receive an "administrative sanction." I expect I'll get a request for a wire in the mail one of these days, just like I did for riding in the secret bus lane last time around.

The next stop on my tour of a southern Italian hospital was the casting department. They wheeled me back into the ambulance, locked me in place, and drove me to the other end of the hospital. A younger nurse accompanied us. I couldn't quite figure out if she was flirting with me, but I wasn't exactly in a situation to do much about it. As I mentioned earlier, language barriers felt particularly tall that day.

Enza and the other nurse brought me to a basement hallway where I waited alone for about fifteen minutes before an ortho inspected my CAT scan, and two folks who looked more like construction crew than hospital staff wheeled me into the next room. They held my leg up in an L and wrapped my leg first in a cotton gossamer gauze and then in white ACE bandages. Finally, they dipped a few in a warm liquid chalk and built a plaster trough along the back and bottom of my leg. It was quite cozy to be bundled in something warm and soft after that hellish day.

They wheeled me back into the hallway. The guy in charge of the cast saw my name and made a stupid pun that would have pissed me off in elementary school, but wasn't worth engaging over now. He made sure to make the same remark to anyone else who saw us together until Enza finally came and rescued me.

I was brought back to the trauma center, where the same cops encircled my stretcher again. Apparently the statement needed to be in call-and-response form, so they had a new version of my dictation written up, interjected with questions like "and then what happened?" The language wasn't quite what I had written (for instance, substituting "skidding" with "sliding"), but it was close enough and I signed it. They gave me a little paper with the woman's name on it. They hinted that I should sue the lady and said I had 90 days to do it, but I'd have to remain in Italy.

A while later, Enza and I went on another field trip to get stitches. My arm received a few rounds of novocaine and four layers of stitches. A minor scrape on the side of my belly got three individual stitches, which might have been the most painful part of the whole ordeal. The stitch doctor spoke reasonably good English and let me know everything he was doing. There were a handful of other people there, including a resident with a particularly gentle touch who cleaned and dressed my wounds (except for the one that was hidden under the cast). You could feel the love in her touch, and I really appreciated the tenderness.

It was about sunset when I got the cast, and about 8:30 when they brought me back to the trauma center. Enza got off at nine, and I was hoping to get a debrief from her, but an older couple that had been admitted from a cruise ship had her attention when I came back, so I only got a quick goodbye.

At a quarter to ten, a man came by who spoke broken English. He got out Translate and used the 🚫 emoji to stress that I can't put any weight on my ankle, and then discharged me. I asked for a copy of my CAT scan, but he said I'd need to go to the records office on a weekday to get one. A poor girl who comported herself more like a maid than a doctor came to wheel me back upstairs. I got out my phone and explained that I'd received no information - could I shower? could I fly? She went to ask someone and typed back "wait 48h for both. it's better"

I waited alone in that hallway for something like 45 minutes. The staff told me they'd called a taxi to take me back to town. I was getting anxious, because I'd had nothing to eat all day, and I hadn't had anything to drink since the swig of water I took waiting for the ambulance. I really wanted to get back before the restaurants closed.

If you're an American millenial, your high school was across the street from something called Smoker's Corner. It's where the slacker kids would hang out during breaks to grab a cigarette, biding time until they get someone pregnant or otherwise drop out.

A taxi finally arrived. An orderly from Italian Smoker's Corner came to wheel me to the door. The driver took one look at me on the stretcher, muttered the Italian equivalent of "I'm no fucking ambulance," and peeled away.

The orderly then said "you should sit in a chair. It looks better." I tried to explain that I had just been given explicit instructions not to walk, but the next thing I knew, I was sitting in a chair at the entrance of the hospital, awaiting Taxi no 2.



I'm staying with family in Nevada now, where it's 100F outside. There's lots more to write about my odyssey to get here, but given how long this post already is, this feels like a good stopping point. I've got lots of couch sitting to do over the next month, so I'll come back and write more later.
The view from the stretcher, post stitches.
The view from the stretcher, post stitches.
@fledermaus avatar
UTC

Veni, Vidi, Posti
2007 LX150 2015 GTS (on the bench) 2017 BV 350
Joined: UTC
Posts: 12250
Location: Fond du Lac, Wisconsin
 
Veni, Vidi, Posti
@fledermaus avatar
2007 LX150 2015 GTS (on the bench) 2017 BV 350
Joined: UTC
Posts: 12250
Location: Fond du Lac, Wisconsin
UTC quote
Oof. What an ordeal. Hope you heal well.
@jess avatar
UTC

Petty Tyrant
0:7 And counting
Joined: UTC
Posts: 37836
Location: Bay Area, California
 
Petty Tyrant
@jess avatar
0:7 And counting
Joined: UTC
Posts: 37836
Location: Bay Area, California
UTC quote
mayorofnow wrote:
One more on the list of posts I'm not looking forward to writing, but feel like I should get down while I still have some memory of them.
As difficult as it was to write, thank you much for posting the details.

Heal well.
@petercc avatar
UTC

Molto Verboso
Piaggio Beverly 300 ie - 2012
Joined: UTC
Posts: 1287
Location: Belgium
 
Molto Verboso
@petercc avatar
Piaggio Beverly 300 ie - 2012
Joined: UTC
Posts: 1287
Location: Belgium
UTC quote
mayorofnow wrote:
(...)
I've never read Dante, but I presume one of the circles of hell must be an emergency room.
(...)
What a story.

Now about reading Dante.
I would not recommend it.

On our journey to Italy last year in one of the agriturismo's we have been staying,one of the guests persuaded me to read Dante. According to what he said the language of Dante is the Italian of today.

So I downloaded his work "La Divina Commedia", 14th century. After maybe 15 words I decided it is just too difficult to read.
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