It has been a difficult week in Grenada. As you recall, in last week’s blog, I shared the story of our neighbors from Trinidad (Stuart and Susie) that invited us over for their amazing soup. On Monday evening of this week, I was out on deck when Stuart announced that he needed to jump in the water to clean out their intake valve for their air conditioning. We are at the back of the marina so our area tends to collect all of the garbage that floats around and the marina workers have to clean it out daily. I teased Stuart that he was crazy to jump in the not so clean water and that I could not watch because it would make me gag. He laughed and then Susie bossed him around for a few minutes on how the task needed to be done and he jumped in the water. Once he cleaned out the valve, he climbed back onboard their boat and went into the engine room to fix the AC issue. In a few minutes, we heard Susie yelling for Bill’s help. Bill ran over to find Stuart unconscious in the engine room. Engine rooms on boats are notoriously tight spaces and it took Bill and another boater several minutes to get a plan and pull Stuart up on deck. At that point, they were able to begin CPR with the help of several other boaters. The ambulance was called but after thirty minutes of no ambulance, one of Stuart’s friends loaded him into his car and drove him to the hospital while one of the boaters continued CPR compressions. Stuart never regained consciousness. The ambulance arrived at the marina 90 minutes after the call.
From this experience, I realized what a luxury the 911 system in the USA is. While it may not be perfect all the time, 99.99% of the time when you call 911, someone is going to come to help. I also realized that the arrival of the 911 emergency teams is more for the helpers in the situation than the patient. The times I have needed 911 in the States, I always knew that if I could just hang on and follow the directions of the 911 dispatcher that my role in the always terrifying situation would soon be over and the professionals would take over the patient care so that I could fall apart. In this instance, when the professionals never arrived there was a sense of desperation and helplessness that took over. No matter how limited the Grenadian emergency help would have been, it would have been a relief to hear a siren. For the remainder of the week, there was a malaise over the marina but as usual, the boating community pulled together to give each other the support needed. Luckily, Susie and Stuart had many close friends in Grenada for support as well. We look forward to our next week that will hopefully be filled with successful projects and normal routine. I have had several requests for Stuart’s soup recipe and I have requested it. If I get it, I will definitely post the recipe for you all.
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AuthorSally Miller Archives
May 2024
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