It was 7 in the morning.
Although we did not start the guard until 7:30 a.m., we almost always arrived a little earlier.
My coworkers and I were in the cafeteria on the third floor of UBC Hospital, where its large windows allowed us to have a panoramic view of the entire city of Vancouver.
Suddenly, a loud noise almost broke our eardrums. The glass in the building trembled with such intensity that it seemed they were going to shatter. So a sepulchral silence was created in the room and almost nobody dared to breathe.
We approach the windows to be able to see.
In the background and not far away, it was the Stanley Park. It was there, where something had fallen from the sky. It had raised a thick cloud of dust and, spread so fast that it barely allowed us to see the Pacific.
The three of us, looked at each other, left the coffees on the table; went downstairs and jumped up to the ambulance. John, our nurse notified the coordination center about the walkie-talkie and, asked them for all the information they could gather about it.
Patrick, our ambulance technician, without a word went to Stanley Park. While we put on gloves, I was creating a possible image of what we could find. We were waiting for the station to see if it offered more information.
On arriving, Mary, the coordinator of the power station communicated to us that, apparently, something enormous had fallen, creating a gap in the area of Totem Poles. We still did not know what it was, but different theories were speculated, it could be an explosive, a meteorite, an airplane or who knows what. Given the great dust, they still could not perceive the depth of the hole, or if there were victims or if there could be something dangerous.
The firemen, had cordoned off the area with a perimeter higher than usual, given that they did not know what we would face.
The police tried to persuade the curious to leave the park, which they hardly managed.
When we arrived near the event, Patrick could not continue driving as there were huge boulders everywhere and the visibility was quite limited. So we decided to take the gear and approaching walking to the place of events. The thick cloud of dust was dissipating and we began to have a wider view of the area.
The firemen were preparing the equipment to be able to lower, but still it was not possible to be seen what there was in the bottom of the enormous hole.
After a while, the atmosphere cleared and we finally got a glimpse of a sinkhole about 5 meters deep and about 8 meters in diameter. In the center, a silhouette of a huddled and inert person was blurred and beside her, a kind of enormous suitcase. There was nothing else. We all looked surprised that there were no remains of some type of vehicle.
As the minutes passed the silhouette was taking shape and we could see a redhead woman with a long and wide dress of strong blue color.
Then one of the firemen approached me and asked me.
—Doctor dares to rappel with me? —said with a half-smile on his mouth.
—Yeah right —I answered automatically, because I was still clarifying the image that was before me and caught me by surprise. But I did not have many options, because rappel was not my best and I had to go down in any case.
We approach the lady and…
—Hello! Are you okay? —I asked the patient as I knelt beside her.
At first sight, I did not seem to have any major injuries, but when she did not answer, I hurried to take a pulse and look at her breathing. And yes, She’s alive!
—Hey! Miss! —Said my nurse, while he took her hand to put a intravenously where we would administer the medication.
When he punctured her, she withdrew her arm and let out a moan.
—You always get patients out of the coma —Patrick said with a sarcastic tone.
—Go, hold the arm, as it get the intravenously out, I’ll pass them to put another —John said busy.
—Are you okay? —I asked, as I removed the hair from her face.
The lady, well, the miss because she was not more than 25 years old, looked at me with almond eyes of a beautiful green emerald. But she seemed not to understand me
—Are you okay? —I repeated it again.
—Õ¥γψ⊗ Θ¬ℑ» —She tried to tell me something.
—Sorry, I do not understand —I thought, she was confused and could not articulate a word.
Suddenly her green eyes went to a cobalt blue. Look, I’ve seen strange things throughout my professional career! But apparently, I still have a lot to see.
—Where I am? what happened? —She asked with a very rare accent.
—We’re in Vancouver, Canada. What’s your name?
—Tara —her eyes became emeralds again.
—Does anything hurt Tara? —I asked while I was exploring and my coworkers taking the vital signs.
I guess she would feel invaded with so many people around doing things to her. But luckily for her and strangeness for us, she did not have a scratch and the constants were perfect.
—Yes, I have a headache.
—Calm down, now we will put an analgesic.
I went back to do another neurological exploration and no, I did not find anything special.
—No thanks, no analgesic, it will be soon.
—How do you know?
—I know —and a silence surrounded the answer.
—Tara, now we’ll take you to the ambulance and we’ll take you to the hospital.
—What hospital do you take me to? —Tara asked as if she had a special interest.
—To ours —answered Patrick—, the UBC Hospital.
—Ah! I have come to work there. And please, take my suitcase.
—You are a nurse? —John asked.
—No, I’m a doctor like you say around here. I spoke with the emergency manager, to spend a season in a medicalized ambulance and learn your protocols.
—Where are you from?
—Well —Tara was thoughtful and again the cobalt blue dyed her eyes —I do not know —and she returned to emit those rare words of before.
—Quiet, it is normal that after a fall you have amnesia —Patrick looked at me raising his eyebrows as if to say, are you aware of the hole she has made on the floor? And I smiled.
—Rest while we get to the hospital.
—Voucher.
Arriving at the UBC Hospital, Patrick had to perform more than one maneuver to avoid the journalists who were at the door.
Inside the hospital was waiting for us in full and evidently all the heads of service, because they believed that the patient would be poly-fractured, intubated, with a thousand pumps to pass the medication, etc. Etc.
And to see her intact, they remained of stone. The hospital manager approached me and asked
—Doctor, what happened?
—That I would like to know, because the patient has fallen from I do not know where, she has created a huge hole in the ground, but only complains of a simple headache, that apparently it has already disappeared —I said of run.
– Ah!
– By the way, Mr. Smith, Tara has told me that she is a doctor and that she had spoken with you to be in a medical ambulance for a while and to learn our protocols.
—Oh yeah? —he was thoughtful— Well I guess my secretary will have proof of this, I’ll ask her.
—Ok
—Well, if she wants to be in an ambulance, stay with you who already know her, what do you think?
—Perfect for me, I will ask my colleagues, but I do not think they have any problems.