This is a true story, that was published in one of the Duncan hospital annual reports. Read on.
She looked very calm and peaceful as she lay on the bed; though the endo-tracheal tube and the soft purring of the ventilator didn’t quite fit into the picture. The whole medical team looked intently on her face. The small beads of sweat on her forehead shone brilliantly in the glow of the fluorescent lamps lighting the ICU. A nurse started wiping her face. All of a sudden the girl made a snorting noise and her eyes popped out. For a moment every one stood stunned. Nobody knew what to do. But when she started pulling out the endo-tracheal tube, one of the doctors shouted, “She needs to be restrained.” And then after a short discussion with the team added, “We have to paralyze her. Her lungs need rest.”
Go back a couple of hours and you see this 16 year old newly married girl standing beside a field covered with water. This year it had rained so much that water had begun to fill up all potholes and farms. It was a rare sight. What if she had epilepsy? She was still going to see it. Now did she forget her medication or was she off them for a while? We do not know. What we do know is that she dragged her baby sister with her to see this splendid scene. And as she stood there at the edge of the field now filled up to the brim with water she threw a fit. She fell in such a manner that her head was within the water while her body remained outside.
There she lay fitting away and there was not a soul in sight except the little girl who had accompanied her. Now, what can a little girl do especially when a person is having convulsions? She tried to pull her out of the water but abandoned the idea when she realized she was not making any progress. Time for plan B. So she ran towards their house, met some people on the way and brought them to the field. Together they pulled her out and tried all they could to make her bring out all the water that had gotten in by now. When she did not open her eyes they knew it was time to go to the hospital.
That’s how Seema* ended up in Duncan hospital. She was hardly breathing when she arrived in the Emergency. And though she was promptly intubated she did not respond well as her lungs were filled with water. Soon she was shifted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU.)
No, that is not where our story began. Within a few hours of admission, she arrested. No respiration. No heart rate. In plain English, she died. Cardio pulmonary resuscitation was initiated and after fifteen minutes which seemed like an hour, she started breathing spontaneously. Everyone there was so fascinated! The nurses, the doctors; in fact the whole team stood around the bed wide eyed. She started struggling against the tube and lines, and it was decided that she needed to be paralyzed. Now that is where our story began.
As the team dispersed for the night nobody expected to see Seema alive the next morning. On making rounds in the morning, they came to her bed, and lo and behold there was the girl sitting up and smiling without any tube in her mouth! Now one can conjure a hundred different hypotheses as to what had happened. But ask any one of the people who stood around the bed that day and you would hear, “This was the Lord’s doing. And it is marvelous in our eyes.” And that is what they told the girl. She and the family listened intently as somebody shared the gospel.
The floods brought us a lot of misery. There were crops destroyed, people left stranded without homes and sickness thrived. Many succumbed to cholera and other waterborne diseases. Snakebites claimed many lives. But we are so glad that among all that, it pleased the Lord to send this lovely girl here and work His wonder in her so that we could all realize and proclaim once again, “What a mighty God we serve.”
*not her real name
