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On the way to
Smithfield
something unexpected happened
"I'll be back for lunch in twenty minutes," were
the parting words to my wife, Karola, as I drove off in my
utility to the supermarket, 5 kilometres away, to check out a
measurement for shelving at the Woolworth supermarket. While
keeping my eyes on the road, my mind was preoccupied with all
the work I had planned for the afternoon. What awaited me
further up the road, or that I would be more than an hour late
for lunch and finding myself in a position to save a man’s
life, was something I could not have anticipated.
On the straight stretch of the road, on the outskirts of
Yorkeys Knob, I could see four cars in the distance in front
of me. Their brakelights were lighting up, one after the
other, for a short time, but kept driving on, and I wondered if there
were some
obstacle on the road. I soon discovered the reason for their
braking. Beside the road was a car and trailer parked, and the
owner, a man, giving the appearance of being intoxicated and
stooped, waved his hand frantically, beckoning them to stop,
but they ignored him.
An article from Readers Digest, which I had read the night
before, sprang immediately to my mind. The article gave an
accurate account of a heart attack, the symptoms, and their
manifestation.
As I pulled up beside him, he opened the door and in a
slurred, but anxious pitch in his voice, he said to me,
"Please call an ambulance!"
I immediately suspected a heart attack and recognized the
gravity of the situation. To drive home, to the nearby petrol
station or the nearest farmhouse, was out of the question as I
figured too much time would be lost, as this man needed urgent
medical attention, so I said to him, "I do one better, I’ll
take you direct to the doctor’s surgery at the Smithfield Shopping
Centre, please hop in." I made sure his car was
locked and that he had the keys and his wallet with him.
"What is your name?" I asked him, as I drove off.
"John Brewers," he answered in a faintly hoarse
voice and slumped against me on the seat. Further along the
road I found out that he lived at Holloways Beach, the
adjacent beach village, east of Yorkeys Knob.
I had to steer with one hand, using the other one to shake
him constantly and pleading with him not to die on me. He
managed to sit upright again, but in a somewhat stooped
position. However, he kept slumping against me on and off.
When I arrived at the busy T intersection of the Captain Cook
Highway and Yorkeys Knob Road, and only one Kilometre from the
doctor’s surgery, the traffic on the highway was extremely
heavy. It seemed an eternity before I finally could cross into
it and at the same time constantly shaking John and talking to
him. I thought that if I get him to the surgery alive, I would
be really happy.
I drove behind the shopping complex, which was the shortest
way to the doctor’s surgery. I helped John out of my ute and
put him prostrate on the footpath, then raced inside. On my
way, I ran past Ann-Marie Whelan, a customer of mine, whose
kitchen I had recently installed, but still had some work to
finish there. I called out to her, "Sorry I can’t talk
to you, I’m in a hurry." This, of course, is something
unusual for me, not to talk to people I run into, especially
a customer.
Breathlessly, I said to the girl behind the reception desk
at the surgery: "Please send a doctor out to the back, I
left a man there, whom I suspect has suffered a heart
attack!" Two doctors overheard me, one ran out to where
John was, while another got an injection ready for the heart
attack suspect, and the office girl called an ambulance. I
handed in John’s wallet and his car keys to the office girl
for the next of kin to pick up. I let out a sigh of relief,
for me, this had been a very strenuous and stressful 5 km
drive.
I was just about to go into Woolworths, when I saw the
ambulance arrive, so I walked to the back to see if John was
still alive. He was, but only just. One of the doctors had
injected a drug to stimulate his heart, but the patient’s
face looked deadly pale. They put him onto a stretcher and
then into the ambulance.
They were just about ready to drive away to take John to
the Cairns Base Hospital. One ambulance officer jumped behind
the steering wheel, while the other officer was about to close
the tailgate of the ambulance when, all of a sudden, John had
muscle spasm in his arms and legs. He clenched his fists,
pulling up his arms and legs. This was followed by a big sigh,
and he went limp.
"Let's give him shock treatment", one ambulance
officer called out to the other officer with great urgency in
his voice.
With every electric shock John’s body jolted upwards, the
fourth electric shock brought him back from the brink of death.
He started to struggle violently and ripped off the oxygen
mask; a doctor jumped into the ambulance to administer an
injection, but was unable to, because the other officer wasn’t
able to hold him still. Eventually, with one officer holding
the head, the other his arms, one doctor and me holding on to
one leg each, while the other doctor kneeled on John’s chest
and finally managed to give him a Valium injection, which
calmed him down. The ambulance finally drove off and was on
the way to the Cairns Base Hospital with its sirens wailing.
I could now finally go to Woolworths and do what I came
here for in the first place. On my way home, I thought the
first thing I had to do was to ring John’s wife or family,
who by now would have been wondering what had happened to him.
After all, he had only gone to the Yorkeys Knob rubbish dump
to dispose a trailer-load of rubbish and was only six
kilometres from home. I was browsing through the phone book,
but could not find a Brewers at Holloways Beach, but then I
thought the surgery would call the family, they had the wallet
which would contain his drivers’ licence and other personal
details. The reason I couldn’t find a Brewers in Holloways
Beach, I found out later, was because the name was spelled
Brouwers. John was of Dutch descent.
I couldn’t get John out of my mind, I wondered if the
ambulance got him to the hospital alive.
After some considerable time, it got the better of me. I
couldn’t resist my desire to know whether John had arrived
at the hospital alive, any longer. I had to ring the ambulance
service.
"Yes he made it and he is now in good care in the
intensive care ward", said the man on the phone.
This was all I wanted to know for the moment, and now, I
was able to relax.
My wife and I drove to the hospital in the evening and
headed straight to the intensive care ward.
A sister stopped us at the door. "You can’t go in,
unless you are next of kin to a patient," we were told.
"Well", I said, "I just wanted to find out
how John "Brewers" was, the man brought in by
ambulance around midday. I am the person who picked him up at
the side of the road and took him to the doctor's at
Smithfield."
"Oh, we heard about that, and wondered who it was.
John is doing fine," she continued. "Come on and
have a quick look."
And she led us to the doorway. John’s bed was next to the
door. He was propped up with pillows and was sleeping
peacefully, a heavily sedated sleep, but his face had a much
healthier colour than when I saw him in the ambulance. We left
after a short while, but I experienced a wonderful feeling of
satisfaction. It is hard to put it into words how I felt.
Perhaps I could try. I was intoxicated with blissful elation
to have saved the life of fellow human. It was an assignment,
I hadn’t anticipated.
This was an experience I'll never forget.
Four days after I took John Brouwers to the surgery, I
returned to Ann Marie Whelan to complete her job. I apologised
for running past her in the supermarket foyer without taking
time to have a chat with her. I told her about the man who
suffered a heart attack on the road and that I was in a hurry
to get help for him from a doctor.
"Oh, that was you!" she said. They have been
looking for you for the last four days."
"Who is looking for me?" I asked perplexedly.
She handed me the newspaper and pointed to the personal
column. In a small space was a request. It read, "Would
the person, who picked up the man beside a yellow Suzuki car
with trailer on Yorkeys Knob Road and took him to the doctor's
surgery, please ring this number."
I was astounded.
When I arrived home, I rang that number and a man answered.
I announced who I was and why I’d rung. The man was a
long-time friend of the Brouwers. He wanted to know what had
actually happened, so I gave him an accurate account of what had
transpired between the spot where I picked John up, and the
Smithfield surgery. After a lengthy conversation, he thanked
me profusely for saving John’s life.
We kept ringing the hospital daily to find out about John's
progress. When I was told that he was out of the intensive
ward and was able to receive visitors, we visited him one
evening. There, we met John’s wife, Pon, who is of Dutch
Indonesian descent. John, of course, had only a very vague
recollection of what had happened and he was extremely
interested to hear from me the whole story. When we left, Pon
followed us to the corridor and, with tears welling in her
eyes, she gave me a hug and a kiss and thanked me profusely
for saving her husband’s life. She went on to tell us that
in a fortnight’s time they would celebrate their
twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, to which you will be
invited. "If it hadn’t been for you," she
concluded, "this milestone celebration would have been
denied to us."
When John and Pon made a trip to Holland and Indonesia the
following year, they sent us a postcard from both countries,
and one sentence read, "Thank you again, if it hadn't been for Werner, John would not have been on this
trip."
John was sixty-six years old when he suffered the heart
attack. He had never had any heart trouble before or been
seriously sick. In 2001, we were in Brisbane on our yearly
visit to our daughter and family. As always, when in Brisbane,
I buy our local newspaper The Cairns Post to keep me up
to date of what is happening in our local area. Sadly, one
day, we saw in the funeral notices that John Brouwers had
passed away. But, beside the sad news, I felt somewhat elated.
After all, I had given John eleven extra years of life.
ooo
Some background info
Cairns: in the State of Queensland, the tropical
northern-most city on the east coast of Australia. To the west
is a high mountain range and to the east is the Pacific Ocean.
It is where the rainforest meets the Great Barrier Reef.
Population 140 000. The distance from the southern to the
northern town border is 85 kilometres. The widest distance
between mountains and the ocean only is about 20 km.
Yorkeys Knob: on the Marlin Coast, where the writer
lives. It is a beachside village with a population of about 3
000, and is part of greater Cairns, which is 12 km from the
centre of the city.
Smithfield: A long established rural settlement. Up
till the 1980s had mainly sugar cane farms, but they have now
gradually made way for building allotments. It is now a
thriving build-up area located on either side of the Captain
Cook Highway, with two large shopping centres, many tourist
attractions, other large commercial businesses and it is the
place where the James Cook University and a Bungy Jump site
are located.
Port Douglas: is now an international tourist
destination and a popular place where eminent
international politicians, film stars and other well-known
personalities stay when they come to Australia. US president
Bill Clinton and his wife, Hillary, stayed there and walked
along the beach, which is renowned for its hard sand on which
busses can drive. Helmut Kohl, former German federal Prime
Minister, and Michael Schumacher, five times World Champion
Formula 1 Driver, to name a few, also stayed in Port Douglas.
Captain Cook Highway: is the road from Cairns to the
rural towns of Mossman and Port Douglas. For 25 kilometres, it
snakes its way along high mountains and the Pacific Ocean. It
is one of the most picturesque stretches of highway along the
east coast of Australia.
Utility: apart from other meanings, is also the
Australian term for a pick-up truck or delivery van.
Ute: the abbreviated and somewhat endearing term
for Utility.
- Werner Schmidlin
Yorkeys Knob, Queensland, Australia.
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