I've been watching either the local news or CNN for the past 32 hours. It's possible for me to do this when they're covering a natural disaster as opposed to when they're covering politics. That just makes me ragey. If you've watched CNN this morning, I'm sure you saw the footage of the NICU nurse from the NYU hospital that was being evacuated, sitting on a stretcher and ventilating the tiny baby in her arms manually after having taken said baby down nine (or eleven?) flights of stairs lit only by flashlights. It made me cry. Just a little, yo. The NICU and Special Care nursery nurses I've known in my professional life have almost universally been very competent and very kind, adept both at inserting IVs into the tiniest veins you could possibly imagine and at comforting and educating new parents who are dealing with the scariest things a new parent could imagine. In short, they rock. So I guess I shouldn't be surprised that hand ventilating a tiny infant in dark and precarious stairwells is all in a day's work for them. It still made me tear up.
It also made me want to write this off topic post to say thank you to all those people who choose these careers that involve responding to disasters. The firefighters and cops and EMTs and Coast Guard and National Guard and medical personnel--y'all are unbelievable.
Thank you.
xoxo
Because Uncle's linux and blogger are once again not playing nicely together:
ReplyDeleteUncle has left a new comment on your post "off topic":
OK,missed the story but your account made me tear up a little.
Posted by Uncle to muscle milk is NOT a euphemism at October 31, 2012 8:49 PM
THough, clearly way after the incident to which you refer, I'm with you on the professions that place the practitioners in danger, in order to save the lives of others. Among MANY other reasons I appreciate them, my mom's life was saved by such professionals and I will never, ever, be able to show my gratitude (no, I don't think the donations will ever be enough).
ReplyDeleteWe also have a friend who suffered permanent injuries during Sept. 11 rescues and I treasure him. His personality reflects his profession. Always kind, always ready to help, empathic and aware. Now **I ** am tearing up.