Neither Man nor Beast
A hard night for emergencies, so pray
This is from a couple of years ago. In fact, I am not working tonight. Jan and I are safe at home together. But my colleagues in WV, SC and NC are facing a serious weather emergency. The sick and injured will arrive, the hospital may be full, the medics stretched thin, and the helicopters grounded. I pray that they have a quiet weekend.
Our house is stocked with water and the bathtubs are filled as well, as we anticipate ice that may 1) snap power lines and 2) leave us without power resulting in 3) no power and thus, 4) no heat and no water from the well pump. Every year we say ‘oh, we should get a generator’…and then, of course, we don’t.
So many people are on my mind and heart. My people are on my heart and mind.
And after so many years of working in endless chaos, I have to admit that I am ever a bit envious of those who have to navigate it.
It is, as the song says, ‘a hard habit to break.’
Tonight where I am in West Virginia, the snow is blowing across the mountains and valleys. It is blowing across small roads like he one in front of our house and drifting across the interstate highways like I-77, that long, lonely, twisting four-lane through the state.
I am attuned to weather. I have worked enough cold nights in the emergency room, in enough remote places, to know what this night means.
It means that the homeless and addicted will need a place to be warm, and we understand that. Later tonight it will be 18 F. (Sorry youngsters, I’ve never been able to get that Celsius system drilled into my head.)
The winter storm means that those who are poor or live with dementia may be without food, medicine, or oxygen. If they fall they may lie on the floor for a day or more. If their phone dies, they cannot call for help.
It means that the victims of car crashes, or even those who break hips while walking in their yards, are in very real danger of hypothermia. It means that the homeless, psychotic or those addicted and impaired may well die in parking lots or park benches, or in boxes too thin to keep out the wind. Cold complicates thing in ways that we seldom consider as a civilization of people with access to energy.
This weather also means that in many small hospitals, people who need to be sent to bigger centers, for heart attack, for stroke, for trauma, for complicated deliveries or pediatric intensive care units simply won’t be able to go. The roads will be treacherous for ambulances and the skies far too dangerous for aircraft.
When the snow and ice fall from the sky and the temperature plummets, we find ourselves traveling back through time to an era when winter was less beautiful than deadly, less celebration than invading army. And when men, women, children and beasts were lucky to be out of the weather’s direct touch, even if they were cold. And when the afflicted had no place to go to get help for the things from which they were suffering or dying. A time our ancestors knew, when the best one could do was stay put, try to stay warm, do one’s best to offer comfort and pray to whomever the people worshiped for relief.
Tonight my friends and colleagues in fire, EMS, law enforcement, medicine and nursing all across the country will fight against death, against pain, against social calamity and against the shocking, aching, murderous beauty of a winter night which, despite our advances, directly impacts the care they can give to patients.
And alongside them, linemen, snow-plow drivers, road-workers, National Guard troops and so many others will try to keep things functioning so that my colleagues can do their thing. (My son works for the SC Electric Cooperative and may well be involved in the logistics of response.)
If you pray, pray for all of them. And if you don’t, then hope for them.
Because even now, the cold kills in ways we too easily forget.
Nature knows when to prepare and hunker down. Humans need to learn from nature. Who says we are smarter than a ……….
I've been thinking about all the workers that get out there to make things happen, to care for others. Thanks for writing this. My sister has been hospitalized for a couple weeks with organ complications. Thank you for all the work you've done to care for others in their worst and weakest moments.