Right Place at the Right Time

All my life, I believed in helping others. Be it spending time with an elderly neighbor, or helping my mom with things around the house. I had aspirations of being a teacher from a young age. The thought of molding young minds and filling them with information drew me.

My dreams of teaching were shortlived, however. The stress of the classroom was not for me. I gravitated toward a career as a hairdresser. This was another way of helping people. Similar to a bartender, I listened to their problems with rapt attention and endless empathy.

From being a stylist, it was an almost natural transition to nursing. The two are in the group of rare professions where you actually lay your hands upon someone. It was during my early years in college to become an RN that I happened to be in the right place at just the right time when someone was in need. Not just once but twice.

On my way to class one morning, I became stuck in a traffic jam. There had been an accident due to a slick roadway. We had been stuck sitting in traffic for a quite a while. Having gotten stiff, I decided to stretch my legs and got out of my car. I stayed but meandered in and out of the vehicles.

I walked beside the cab of a tractor-trailer that was next to my car. I looked up to the driver's window and notice the driver attempting to get my attention. I stopped telling him to open his door.

His speech was garbled causing me to have extreme difficulty deciphering what was wrong. After a few minutes, I was finally able to understand that his jaw had spontaneously dislocated. He was unable to contact anyone; EMS, his boss, his mother.

Seeing his obvious mental and physical distress, I got my own cell phone and called his mother first. She was concerned but told me that it was something that had happened before. She then told me to take care of him and she would contact his boss. I thanked her and assured her I would make sure he got medical attention.

Dialing 911, I explained where we were in the traffic jam which had resulted from the wreck. Due to our proximity to the accident, EMs was quick to arrive. He was instructed to pull his truck to the shoulder. Last I saw of him, he was being loaded into the back of the ambulance. Sadly, I never knew what became of him.

Another time, I was taking a side street through a neighborhood in the city I was living in returning from a local bookstore. Looking out my window, I saw an elderly couple. The gentleman appeared to be trying to help the lady up from the walkway in their back yard. I couldn't go on without at least offering to assist.

Pulling over to the side of the road, I lowered my window and asked if they needed help. The man said yes. When I approached, he explained that she had tripped and fallen on the walkway. He felt all he needed was to assist her back to her feet.

I did a quick uneducated assessment of her facial expression and the way she couldn't use one leg and guessed she had broken a hip. I told him to not try to move her and asked if I could use his phone. He took me into his house and showed me the phone. I told the 911 operator who I was, the address, and what had happened to the lady. She assured me help would be there soon.

When the EMS arrived, the technicians did not think she had broken her hip, but treated her as if she did. I waited with him until they had her loaded and left.

A few days later, I stopped and checked with the man. His wife had broken her hip and had required surgery. She was still in the hospital and would have been going to rehab after discharge from the hospital.

Being in the right place at the right time solidified my resolve to become a Registered Nurse. I am just glad I was there and was able to help when I was.