The girl and the peach

I wrote this some time ago, back in September, a lot has been going on.  I feel much more settled in my new home and work environment, but I still need to set aside time to collect my thoughts.

The girl and the peach.

I was also talking to the ER pharmacist today.  We went out to breakfast at Denny’s then tried on boots.  She had worked there during her residency for three months.  The docs and nurses didn’t always like having a pharmacist there.  The ER is small and cramped.  It is often overflowing and beds are set up in the walk ways as needed.  Less critical patients are often moved out of beds and into chairs.  Space is limited.

Besides the trial of becoming accepted as a useful resource in an already crowded area came the emotional toll of seeing good people or children coming in hurt and sometimes permanently damaged from preventable circumstances.  The story that has been told to me repeatedly by ER pharmacist is the story of the girl and the peach.

A young girl (2 years old? 6 years old?) was being watched by her grandmother.  Her parents had gone out for the day.  She was eating a peach.  A slice of the peach slid down her throat.  She was choking.  Grandma called the parents.  They were still in town shopping.  They would be home later.   Grandma knew no first aid.   She didn’t even know enough to try to hit the girl on the back to help her to get it back up.  As the little girl slowly lost oxygen, she became tired.  Grandma told her to go lie down and get some sleep.

When the parents came home hours later, the girl was still sleeping and now, unresponsive.  They moved her into the truck and drove the the ER.  By the time she had gotten there, she had had the peach lodged in her throat for hours already.  She was blue and unresponsive.  As the doctors pounded on her tiny chest and struggled to get breathing tubes down into her throat, they saw a tiny heart rate come back.

A child’s heart is very resilient, the pharmacist told me.  It will keep beating even after they’re gone.

The little girl was probably already gone long before she came into the ER, but they continued to struggle to save her life.

Eventually, the heart monitor showed only a flat line.  She was gone.  She died because she had choked on the soft flesh of a peach and her family was so uneducated about basic first aid that the only recommendation her grandmother had given her was to go lie down in her room.

We all cried that day, she told me.