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Thought you folks might find this interesting. A lawyer I know (by his forum posts on the internets - don't know him "IRL") on another forum was vacationing in London with his family when he responded to a young woman having a seizure.
Source*: http://www.shaggybevo.com/board/showthread.php/157881-Her-name-is-Emily-from-Bristol-University
* it can be a rowdy and raunchy place - not well suited for those who are easily offended
...
So – on to the incident . . .
We then headed to the Beauchamp Tower, one of the older structures ... tower – you enter through doors at the bottom, and then you access the various floors through a narrow stone spiral staircase that occupies the tower structure on the left:
<image>
So, we check out the exhibit on the first floor, then make our way to the top. I am checking out all of the graffiti, so I’m taking my time. At some point, there was a group of Spanish tourists up there with us. My son finished checking it out, so he headed down and wandered around outside. My wife and daughter are still up there reading with me.
THUNK! I heard an impact in the spiral stairwell. Just one. Without really thinking it through in detail, I ran through the possibilities in my head: nobody cried out or said anything, so I presumed that someone must have dropped their purse, or a package, and picked it back up. Then, a second or so later,
THUNK! THUNK! Two more impacts, close together. Again, nobody says anything or cries out . . . it must be a package, but why is it still falling? A very short pause, and then
THUNK! Fuck. I wheeled around and started running down the stairs. I really don’t remember any of the running, or how I did it, or how many stairs I skipped, or anything like that. I just remember that I rounded the first corner, about a third of the way down the stairs, and I saw a woman tumbling down, limp like a doll. I hollered “Senora! Senora!” . . . I guess because I remembered the Spanish tourists, and just defaulted to that. Again, I don’t remember exactly how I got to her. I just remember sliding down, catching myself with my left hand and catching the back of her coat with my right hand, bracing my right foot against the wall as she was rolling down another step.
She was folded completely over on herself, facing to the left. Her face was touching the knee of her left leg, which was completely outstretched. Her right leg was folded completely back, one step below the rest of her body. She wasn’t moving. At all.
Well now what do I do? I hollered like hell “HELP!” – kind of feeling ridiculous doing it. Isn’t there something better to yell? The first face I see is my son’s – he heard me outside and came running. I told him to go get someone in uniform, fast. My daughter came right behind me – I told her to climb over us and do the same. Get someone fast. And then came my wife. She crawled over both of us, and positioned herself below the girl. Who still wasn’t moving. We weren’t even sure if she was breathing. She said “we have to get her head back so she can breathe.” I worry like hell about a spinal or neck injury, but we do it. We tip her torso backwards. My wife cradles her head, which rests in a small windowsill at the outside of the stairwell.
I found a photo of the stairwell online -- this window is where we rested her head. You can see how narrow and winding the staircase is.
<image>
Her eyes are open. They are grey-blue. But they are fluttering. My wife says “look in her purse, get her name.” I do. The first thing I see is a syringe of some sort of prescription medication. It has a name on it, but I want to be sure it’s her. I open her wallet, and see her ID. Her name is Emily, and she’s a student at Bristol University. I tell my wife. Who is a hospital chaplain, not just by training, but by clear gifts. She is cradling Emily’s head in her hands, and she’s got her face close to Emily, looking into her eyes. “Emily! I’m here. We’ve got you. I’m here, Emily. I’m here. I’m with you, Emily.” I kept my hand on Emily’s right hand, just holding it. But my wife was WITH her. It was amazing.
As she is talking to her, Emily’s eyes begin to flutter, picking up speed. Her body lightly twitched. For those of you from hunting or ranching families, who have ever killed a large mammal, you’ve seen the same . . . the eyes flutter frantically, then fade. And they’re gone. Emily’s eyes fluttered, rolled back . . . and stopped. We were there with her, just the two of us. Neither of us said a thing, because we both knew what had just happened.
I was certain that we’d just held her as she died. And I had no idea what to do.
Then her eyelids fell. And her head rolled slightly, and I could see a slight rhythm in her head from breathing. We check her pulse. It’s there.
It’s taking freaking forever for the damned guards to get there. We keep talking to her. My wife says “Emily! Emily! I need you to talk to me Emily!” It takes a minute or two, but she started to slightly roll her head, and grunt a bit. We stayed engaged with her, “Talk to us, Emily.” Her grunting begins to take on some verbalization, but we can’t really understand it.
Finally, two beefeaters show up together. One of them takes my wife’s place, holding Emily’s head. The other stands back, and gets on the radio to call for help. By now, Emily is grunting a bit more clearly. I stayed there, holding her hand, and talking to her with the Beefeater. I tell him what happened in very short form, that her name is Emily, and what we have deduced by now: Emily had a seizure somewhere near the top of the stairs, and when I got to her, and we flipped her over, she was still seizing, and then the seizure ended while we held her. She even had medication in her purse, they need to tell the EMTs that when they get here.
By now, Emily was a bit clearer (but still speaking in barely articulated grunts), and was moaning something, which I was somehow able to translate to the beefeater: “she says that her leg hurts.” I asked her if that was it, that her leg hurts, and she was able to weakly nod. We both looked at it, and decided at the same time not to try to move it, as it looked like it might be broken. One of us told her that we had to leave her leg alone, but just hold on for a bit longer. I have no idea which one of us talked to her at that point.
I held her hand for a moment longer, and then realized that I was superfluous. So I told the beefeaters that I guess I should leave it to them. I stepped over her, and went down the stairs. Where my wife and kids were working de facto security, turning folks away from the tower, telling them that it was closed for an emergency. Where the fuck were the other beefeaters? I went to get one, and he took up a position outside the doors. We started to walk away, toward the White Tower, at the center of the complex. And I stopped, and turned to my wife, shaking a bit. She asked me if I was okay, and all I could say was “that was awful,” and fought back some tears. I couldn't say anything else at the moment.
We couldn’t really focus on much else. We went to the White Tower, but kept looking out the windows for the response. Let me tell you, I don’t think I want to put my life in the hands of the NHS first responders . . . it took probably 20 minutes for a little NHS motorcycle to show up, then another 10 minutes for an ambulance. They got her loaded in the ambulance, and then it took them another 20 minutes to leave the grounds. They took their sweet British time.
As we left the grounds, I gave one of my cards to one of the beefeaters who had responded, in case they needed a witness statement or something like that. I don’t think they did, but I wanted to do it anyway.
We went and found a place to sit down and have a drink, where my family was able to ask me what happened, and how did I know something was happening? I told them what I heard, and what I was thinking as I heard each THUNK. And all I could do was kick myself for not going to look when I heard the first noise, which CLEARLY didn’t belong in the stairwell. If I had, maybe she would have only fallen a step or two. I should have reacted when I knew something was out of place. I haven’t been able to stop thinking that.
And, as a sobering dose of family humor, and a testament to how well my kids know me, I asked the boy what he thought when I hollered for help. He looked down, then looked up grinning a bit – “honestly? I heard you calling for help, and I thought you’d done something stupid like gotten yourself stuck in some passage or something.” Sadly, he knows me too well. Anyone who has ever fished with me is nodding their head right now, agreeing with his first instinct.
It also bothered me that she was clearly traveling alone. Nobody came back to look for her. For the longest time, all she had was us.
That night, I woke up at least 4-5 times. Each time, the moment that I realized I was awake, the image of Emily folded over, my hand gripping her coat, filled my mind. Her broken body filled my entire vision. Every single time. And since then, I’ve seen her face, and her eyes fluttering what I thought was her last . . . I can’t tell you how many times. When I’m asleep. When I’m awake.
Emily. Her last name was something like Sillman. From Bristol University. I hope that she’s okay. I’ve thought about her every day since then.
Source*: http://www.shaggybevo.com/board/showthread.php/157881-Her-name-is-Emily-from-Bristol-University
* it can be a rowdy and raunchy place - not well suited for those who are easily offended
