“Goodnight
sweetheart. I’ll see you in the
morning,” I overheard my wife whisper to our daughter as she tucked her into
bed. We have said this to all of our
children countless times over the years, but that night it felt a little more
special. I had just gotten home from
work. I work in the emergency room and
it was not a good day. We said our goodbyes
to a 19 year old woman; a mother of a 2 year old daughter. A child that will grow up and never know the
comfort of being tucked in by her Mommy.
A little girl who will never hear those simple yet beautiful words,
“Goodnight sweetheart. I’ll see you in
the morning.”
What made this tragedy so bitter was
the cause of this woman’s death. There
was no medical reason. She did not
suffer from a disease. She did not have
a congenital disorder that caused her death.
She fell victim to the leading cause of death to young people in this
country – accidents. It wasn’t even an
accident that was her fault or even the fault of the people she was with. In other words, she did absolutely nothing
wrong. She was completely innocent, yet
she had been forced to suffer the ultimate sacrifice and her child the ultimate
loss.
This young mother was involved in a
car accident (MVC). She was the front passenger, while her mother was driving
and her daughter was strapped in her car seat in the back seat. They were on their way to buy clothes for their
little girl. Something my wife and
mother have done many times in the past.
Instead of having a special day with a daughter and granddaughter, it
turned into a nightmare. While waiting
to make a left hand turn they were suddenly struck from behind. It is estimated that the driver was
traveling around 80 mph. The speed
limit was only 35. Pictures of the
vehicle clearly show the violence of the impact. The whole back half of the vehicle was
destroyed, and the car was thrown over 100 feet through the intersection. Grandma was unconscious at the scene and
ultimately sustained a serious concussion.
Baby was screaming when helped arrived and was air-lifted to a trauma
center. We were told that she sustained
a leg fracture but was otherwise okay.
Mom was DOA at the scene. EMS
immediately got to work to bring her back.
She arrived in our ER pale and lifeless with strangers all around her
trying to save her life. We continued
the effort. By the time we gave up
trying to do the impossible, the young mother had tubes coming out of her mouth,
both sides of her chest, IV’s in both her arms, her neck and even drilled into
the bone of her leg. She did not go in
peace.
After helping to fight the good
fight I had to resume my duties and continue helping others. Unfortunately, my next patient was the
gentleman who caused the accident.
Years ago they re-named car
accidents in the medical field. They
used to be called ‘motor vehicle accidents’ (mva), however the powers to be
felt that there truly were no accidents.
There was always a cause, and with our never ending need to finger point
in this country, they were re-classified as ‘motor vehicle collisions’
(mvc). I always had an issue with
this. I felt it represented what is
making this country sick; the need to blame and punish, while being politically
correct. I see their argument. There is always human error in every car
accident, but it doesn’t mean that those who were at fault need to be sentenced
by society. Sometimes bad shit happens,
caused by good people. That’s life. We don’t always need to play the victim.
With that said, there are those
accidents that truly were avoidable and punishment needs to be delivered. This is one of those times. The asshole that lay before me that day told
me, “I must have passed out.” He did not
know why he fainted while driving his car.
He did not have a history of seizures.
He never passed out before. He
did not have a heart attack. The answer
is one that I have seen before, and mentioned in my book ‘MediSin’ when another
mother was taken away from her children.
He was taking high doses of multiple prescription pain and anxiety
medications. Highly addictive
medications, prescribed by his physician, pushed by drug companies, regulated
by the government, tolerated by society and enjoyed by millions. He had been taking them for years for
bullshit reasons (such as “advanced osteoarthritis” and the debilitating
“fibromyalgia”) and simply became addicted to them like every other drug
addict, but his addiction was “legal”.
His addiction finally caught up to him that day, and unfortunately stole
the life of a young mother and robbed her daughter of a life with her
Mommy.
What was harder to hear, was this
drug addict had no remorse. He didn’t
care that he just killed someone. He
didn’t care that an entire family has been torn apart and their lives forever
altered. He kept saying that he had
prescriptions and he was taking them like his doctors were telling him. He began to cry when he found out that he was
going to prison, because this was the second time he hurt someone while driving
when he shouldn’t have been. He tried to
escape from the hospital after he found out his life was going to be forever
behind bars. I am sure the dead mother
in the room next to him would have gladly changed places with him if given the
chance.
The threshold for the use and ultimately
abuse of prescription medications, whether they are taken for physical or mental
‘pain’ is so low that we are literally killing ourselves in this country. If you fracture your arm, take a Vicodin or
two if the Tylenol isn’t enough; but if you sprain your ankle, put some ice on
it, take some Motrin and suck it up America.
Seventy five percent of the narcotic pain medications taken in the world
are popped by us. If you lose your child in a horrific accident and need some
Xanax to get you through the grieving process, that is understandable, but don’t
claim to me that you have PTSD because your dog died 10 years ago and you need daily
Ativan to get you through your day. When
did we become so weak minded and unable to cope with any sort of pain? We are ‘a society of drug addicts’ as well as
‘a society of enablers’. Two chapters
that are at the center of my book. This inability
to cope with reality is central to the disease that is weakening this country
and killing us all; sometimes one mother at a time.
Buy Niam Hew's new book MediSin NOW!
