I-N-T-E-N-S-O

Intenso.
That is the word to describe this past morning. So when I came to the ER today, Dr. Vaca put me in the trauma unit...which is basically where all the action happens. When I came in, the Red Cross (Cruz Roja) had just brought in a man who was found in the street naked and moaning with scartches and bruises everywhere. He was kicking and resisting when they tried to put the IV in (although his eyes were not open...he looked asleep, but was moving around as though he was having a nightmare) so they put restraints on him...using bandage tape. The doctors didn´t seem fazed so I tried not to seem fazed, but myself and the other 2 ecuatoriana estudiantes had to hold him down while they took blood samples and injected him with some type of tranquilizer.
Right after we did that, another gentleman (40 years old) came in with a gunshot to his face (the X-ray showed the bullet lodged in the back of his neck...thank goodness it did not hit his spinal cord). The gentleman was at work and was robbed/shot.
Two hours into the morning, someone screamed in the hallway...´¡Electrocutado, electrocutado!´ Initially I thought someone had gotten electrocuted, but one of the hospital workers (he must have been about 60 years old) was found collapsed in the hospital basement. They brought him up to the ER (about 2 minutes) and began shocking (that´s why they were screaming electrocutado) him. They were doing it in the hallway and it all seemed so confusing because there were so many doctors involved. But I assumed that´s how it is...doctors kept switching off giving compressions and shocking and it lasted for about 15 minutes. The other student in the cfhi program with me said that usually after one minute, the chance of survival is less than 50%. Unfortunately, the worker died and I was like...what...? Very confusing...
We went back to the trauma unit and it was as though we jumped from one patient to the other (there were about 7 patients in the unit). We helped move the ´resisting´gentlemen to another stretcher so he could be taken to get X-rays. Then two women came in because they were in a car accident (Side Note: The driving here is OUT OF CONTROL!)
Finally, another gentleman came in because someone had punched him in the face and he had a large wound over his left eye. He was one of the many shoe-shiner people of Ecuador. He needed stitches and despite getting some type of anesthetic for the pain, he kept kicking and screaming. I felt bad because I think he was mentally retarded and instead of describing his pain, he would moan and cry...he must have been about 22 years old. I was just watching, but the doc asked me to hold his arms down because he kept trying to stop her from stitching his eye. It was an interesting experience and after almost getting ´kneed,´Andy (the other cfhi student) held down his legs as well.

I know all these stories sound incomplete, which they are, but because we went from patient to patient...it doesn´t sound right but it was an amazing day.

I´m off folks...I need to write more about this in my cfhi journal...tata!

-gina-