They’re All Gone

Have you ever stopped to learn lessons from actions you chose to take in given situations that were unexpected? Given what you know now, would you have made a different decision? Did you ever wish you could have a “do-over?” That is what second chances in life are all about, however, they don’t always appear in an obvious way. Often, we must do some work to find them. We may not know when we are about to be pulled into an unexpected situation causing us to depend on someone else’s wisdom or go back to lessons we learned from our past. Sometimes we must make decisions about how to proceed in the moment with little warning.

That happened to a guy in the Bible named Saul who was just walking down the road when he was suddenly blinded by a bright light. He had to decide in the moment to trust others around him (and I don’t think he was a very trusting guy) and follow the instructions he was given in hopes of regaining his sight. We just never know what might be coming at us in the next hour, the next day, or even the next phone call.

For me, just such an event occurred one night while working in the emergency department. After completing two years of surgery residency my training was on hold. There was a wait before I would be able to start my planned anesthesiology residency. This interim “holding” period allowed me to work as an emergency department physician in a very busy inner-city hospital. It was only then when the realization truly hit me as to how much medical school didn’t prepare me for. There are just some lessons that are learned in the moment. As an ER physician, you are dealing with many types of patient “emergencies” from simple rashes that better belonged in a doctor’s office, a child with croup in the middle of the night, a gunshot victim or maybe major trauma. from a car accident. Some of the most challenging situations had to do with conversations. Conversations with rape victims, someone experiencing domestic abuse or having to tell a parent you were required to call child protective services because of what you observed while examining their child. Maybe it’s telling someone about a family member’s condition. Of the many conversations faced during my time in medicine, there was one conversation that has never left me and has never been forgotten.

It was a very rainy, stormy night and on the 7 pm to 7 am shift. We were getting “slammed” because of the treacherous weather. Fortunately, this night our shift team was highly experienced and composed of several emergency department nurses and support staff. About three hours into the twelve-hour shift we had already received several car accident victims among many other injuries and illnesses. Most of these patients had minor injuries and just needed to be “checked out.” Because we were a busy trauma center in a very large city we routinely received patients from the city ambulances operated by the fire department paramedics. On nights like this we expected to be busy. We were.

In the midst of all the chaos, there was a frightened and frantic man who had walked in. He’d been driving from hospital to hospital trying to find his family who had been in a car accident. The lead nurse came to make me aware of the situation. She needed me to speak with the upset man directly. We walked to the Chapel which allowed some privacy away from the mayhem that was the ER that night. He told me he suspected his wife and four daughters were in a car accident, but he had not been able to get any information as to their whereabouts or condition. He was understandably distressed. I asked my lead nurse to make calls to other city emergency departments and even the medical examiner’s office. Shortly after starting her calls she had successfully found them. The news was tragic. She shared with me that the wife and all four daughters were victims of a bad automobile accident during the storm. All had died shortly after arriving at the nearby hospital ER.

Now I was filled with many internal questions like what do I say? How do I tell him? What specifically do I tell him? This was a conversation you are never quite prepared for.

I knew I wasn’t.

Walking back to the chapel my mind was racing! What if I said the wrong thing and he abruptly left distraught and lost. What if I told him the truth and he raced to the other ER and had an accident himself? What if he took the words literally and decided to endanger his own life? This was probably not a right or wrong decision, rather a decision between what was the best choice when none were ideal. The moment was there, and he was waiting in the chapel. I walked in and immediately saw into his distressed face. He could probably see the distress in my face as well. Then it became clear that the best course of action was to not tell him all I knew.

Instead I would tell him where they were without further information. At least he could hopefully drive to the other location and be able to be given the news in a more controlled situation where support help could be available. This was opposed to telling him the devastating truth and making it very difficult for him to go forward to find them.

Often, when we are unsure of how to move forward in a challenging moment you just need to take a moment and think. Then act in a way that allows you to treat others how you would want to be treated given the same situation. There was never going to be an opportunity to know if it was the correct decision, in fact for me it was the only decision. Many lessons in life can be learned by taking the time to observe, after the fact, not only the actions we took but also those we could have taken but chose not to. In sports we call this reviewing the game film. Develop a practice of game filming your big decisions. This is often when second chances are created in our lives. Not because we can go back and change our actions, but by looking at the lessons learned that are contained in the decision choices and the actions taken. Even if the action we took still turns out to be the best sometime later, it’s always helpful to understand what might have happened if a different action was taken.

Are there decisions and or actions in your life that you should revisit and question to learn from? Going forward, how are you prepared to deal with unexpected events in your life?

We all need a foundation to stand on and good footing.

These are important questions.

I hope you will take time to think on what your foundation is built on.