A Snake in the Grass: Part II

"Hello?"

"Yes, um Jenneee, can you come to lobby pleeze?"

"Sorry, what?"

"Can you come to lobby pleeze?"

"Ya, I'll be right down."

It was still dark outside.  I looked at my watch.  1:07am.  Shit.  Fuck.  Shit.  Breathe.  Get dressed.  Forget the bra.  Don't forget your sweat shirt.  Grab emergency book.  Grab wallet.  Grab phone.  Hotel room key?  Yes, at the door.  Shoes.  My flip flops slap echoes into the shadows of the hotel as I race down seven flights of stairs.  

The professor is there.  (Names have been changed).  Two girls.  Hand, blood.  Blood, hand.  She’s slumped out across the table and mumbling.  Breathe.  I don’t know what I had expected, a half naked boy and girl, individuals escorted back by cops for debauchery, maybe someone so drunk they were vomiting, but not this.  "What happened?"

"Her hand is bad; we have to get her to the hospital.  They're very intoxicated."

Amy:  "My fingers are falling off, there's blood everywhere.  Fuck.  They knocked me down and took Ashley's phone.  They at-TTTTACKED her!  Took her phone!  And broke my fingers off!"  What!?  Fingers off!?

Ashley:  "They knocked me down and took my phone and then Amy's hand was bleeding and we grabbed a taxi and they took my phone and we were at the backpackers and is she going to be okay?"

Me:  "Okay, does she still have her fingers? Yes?  We need to go to the hospital.  I will get a taxi."

Professor:  "They've called one."

Me:  "Ok, Amy, let's keep your hand elevated." She starts talking on an on about how her fingers are completely torn off and they stole Ashley's phone.  What?!

Professor:  "We need to call Jarod.  What do we do, how do we do that, what are the steps?"

Me:  Stay calm, and then everyone else will stay calm.  Breathe.  Think.  Breathe.  "We have to get her to the hospital first and then I will do that.  Okay, here's the taxi.  Do you want to come or stay here with the other students?  Someone should stay with Ashley, or what do you want to do?"

Professor:  "I'll come.  They're very intoxicated.  Amy’s been falling asleep."

Me:  "Okay, let's go.  No Ashley, it's best you stay here.  Please go back to your room and sleep.  We have to take Amy and you should go rest."  We get in the cab and take off.  "Amy, keep it elevated."

Amy and the professor both start talking a lot.  She starts going on and on about how they were attacked and she was knocked down and they took Ashley’s phone and she saw her fingers and knew it was bad.  The professor is asking specific questions about the group, what happened, etc.  We get to the hospital and they see her immediately.  The professor and I are escorted up stairs to start processing paperwork.  He keeps asking about getting ahold of Jarod, my boss.  I’m thinking to myself, yes, Jarod needs to know, but first I have to find Amy’s paperwork.  Get her proper attention first, then Jarod.  I’m silently scared to death that I will make the wrong move, won’t have the proper papers on hand, won’t be able to handle this.  After anxiously fumbling through my folders with the professor right over my shoulder, judging, I find the insurance documents, passport copies, and emergency information for such an event.  The professor starts filling out the admittance forms based off of Amy’s passport info and I call the emergency tree in the book.  No one answers.  Neither of the people’s numbers I report to are anywhere in the book.  I think to myself I should’ve checked that.  Stupid, stupid, stupid.  Call Omi.  I wake her, and ask her to call Jarod, that my phone won’t go through to the international number, removing blame from myself for not being prepared.  Shameful.  “Have him call me, it’s an emergency.”  We get the paperwork done.  He calls.  He will start the insurance process immediately and start to look at return flight options for the student.  I feel a little reassured.  The professor is asking me questions about what will happen, what are our options, how do we get her home, what will happen if she needs surgery here, etc?  I answer when and where I can, but we know nothing.  We need to return to Amy.

They are examining her X-rays when we get downstairs.  Her three middle fingers on her right hand are all broken at the base and in an unnatural angle.  We need to be transferred to another hospital to see a specialist.  All of a sudden she is out of the room and spread out on the waiting room chairs, her broken hand sandwiched between two barely-cold ice packs.  Dried blood has left trails down here forearm. 

“Amy, keep it elevated.”  I walk back and start arguing with them, that she needs to have it properly cleaned and bandaged.  The nurse tells me that a drunk with a slice on his face is more critical.  There is a passed out man on a gurney in the room were just occupying, Amy’s X-rays are still on the wall’s lighting board.  I look back at the professor, he just says:  “Triage.” 

Ashley comes bursting into the hospital in a panic.  She had followed us in her own taxi.  Damn.  I knew someone should have stayed with her.  She is very upset, and understandably so.  She is feeling guilt, remorse, and it’s obvious she is in shock, they both are.  It doesn’t help that they are intoxicated.  This seems to exacerbate Ashely’s tears and Amy is sitting holding her hand up, bouncing from aggressive, self-righteous narration of the night to closing her eyes and letting her head roll back in a wave of drunkenness. 

“Someone needs to go back to the hotel with Ashley, she can’t come with us.” I tell the professor after spending several minutes consoling the mugged, but otherwise unharmed Ashley. 

Ashley:  “I want to come with you guys.”

Me:  “No Ashley, you can’t.  You must go back to the hotel.”  I turn to the professor and ask him if he’d like to go with her or me?

Professor:  “We’ve got to get Irene involved.  Irene can take her.”  That’s genius!  I’m so glad he thought of that because I sure didn’t.  Irene is his partner faculty that has helped coordinate a lot of this trip, pushed much of the paperwork if you will.  I call the hotel, have them ring her room.  She wakes immediately.  I tell her there’s been an emergency, we are at the hospital, to come now and bring cash.  The front desk will give her the hospital address.  “See you soon,” and then I hang up.  I needed her to bring cash because I had none on me, nor my debit card.  Where did those items go?  I had taken them out of my wallet for my quick drive to the hostel earlier in the evening to give them my emergency contact info.  I didn’t replace them when I returned to the hotel.  Stupid.  Stupid.  Stupid.  I will never be caught unprepared in the middle of the night ever again.  Lesson learned.

I was taking thorough notes of all that was happening at the hospital and the entire tale that Amy and Ashley were recounting.  There was a lot of disconnect in their stories, but I will get to that later.  They were intoxicated, yes, and the professor seemed to be asking a ridiculous amount of abrasive questions about their intoxication level, who was responsible, what happened, the type of people they were with.  He kept interrupting their recounting.  I wished he would just shut up and let them talk, that’s the best way to get the truth out of someone.  When you ask specific questions people start to alter them to avoid responsibility or blame.  Shut up.  Ashley makes her way outside for a smoke.  I go sit with her and just ask her to tell me what happened from when we left them at the Snake Village Restaurant.  She begins and shares an honest recount, because I’m not prodding her. 

Irene shows up and we get her and Ashley headed back to the hotel.  The professor, Amy, and myself head to the new hospital.  He’s doing a thorough job of highlighting the role of alcohol in all of this, how it was exacerbated by the situation at dinner, and so on.  He’s doing a great job of making me feel terribly responsible.  But I’m not. 

We get to the new hospital.  It is French and operated by French doctors.  An orthopedic specialist is not on duty, all they can tell us is what we already know.  It is very broken.  She will likely need surgery.  However, we can wait until the morning to come back and have it checked by a specialist, it is not overly time sensitive.  They offer to let Amy sleep there until the early morning, but she wants to return to the hotel.  I made it clear to her and the professor earlier that ultimately, all medical decisions are hers unless the professor deems her too intoxicated to think properly, at which point the decision is his.  We returned to the hotel. 

The professor retired to his room.  Amy and I went to hers, I felt I needed to continue to monitor her as she was probably in shock still and not likely to make the best decisions.  I was right.  She has a hand specialist in the US that she very recently was seeing for carpel tunnel and a surgery.  We called her office and emailed her copies of Amy’s X-rays.  She told Amy that three of her fingers were definitely broken and would need surgery, however this could wait until Amy returned from Vietnam as previously scheduled, as long as her hand remained splinted for travel.  She would make and appointment for Monday.  This was certainly a relief for Amy and I, each for our own reasons.  However, I did not want any wrong decisions made leading to any legal blame for myself, the professor, or my office later on.  I had the doctor email us her professional opinion, permission for Amy to remain in Vietnam, and recommendations on how to treat while still in the country.  She sent us that, proof, we alerted Dr. Flores to the new information, confirmed the plan for the morning; I turned Amy into her hotel room, sent email updates to Jarod, and set my alarm for ninety minutes later.  The next day was going to be a long one.