That little voice

Saturday night we had a visit with our neighbor Jenny, across the alley. We go home and eat left over Chinese food ( which is just called food in China, in case you were wondering... But I digress.)

Through my open dining room window I hear someone gasp "I can't breath" several times, then hear a female say something about calling 911. I look at John an d ask if I should go check it out, only because it's dark now and we sometimes have unsavory folk and rowdy teens walking around at night. He says sure. I hesitate because I will have to go out alone while he stays inside with the girls, but after a few seconds I grab my cell and I go out to look around my block and ask my neighbor across the street if he had heard anything.

I explain to him what I heard, but don't see anyone. My neighbor points through the dark and across the alley at the neighbors yard, there is a dark form on the ground that I hadn't noticed before. We rush over and a teen with his eyes swollen shut is hyperventilating, and he has a very large bump on his head. I ask him what happened, he says he can't remember as I call 911. He is rocking back and forth from the pain in his head, and is having more difficulty breathing, we hear sirens and I tell him to hang on and try to take slower breaths and to calm down.

The fire trucks go down the wrong street, and the sirens fade... the teen is gasping and I frantically wonder to myself if after 6 years of not working as a nurse if I will remember how to do CPR correctly. After what seemed like an eternity, the fire truck and police car find us just as the young man slumps over and begins to gasp for breath and and gag, he is on his side which will help in keeping his air way clear if he vomits.

They arrive and start working on him... and I think knowing that they were there even though he couldn't open his eyes to see them, helped calm him a little. Oxygen, a cervical collar to his neck and a spine board... he still doesn't remember what happened and we only have what I heard to go on. That is until a very guilty teen aged girl shows up screaming and crying. It seems that they had a fight, he fell and said he couldn't breathe . She thought he was just messing with her and told him that she should call 911 but just left him there. All of this happened after they left a kegger at a graduation party.

I started to shake. I almost didn't go out. That little voice kept nagging me that I needed to go, in the dark and by myself, that it would be fine. I'm not patting myself on the back. What I'm saying is that I had a choice and faltered... what could have happened if I had waited any longer or not gone out at all?

The next day we went over across the alley again to my neighbor Jenny's house. She thanks me for coming out and finding that teen and saving him, but also saving a stressed and 8 weeks pregnant her from finding a dead teen on her lawn.

I don't know yet what happened to the kid, I wish I could find out.

I hope that one day, if my girls are ever in trouble that a kind neighbor will do the same for them. I hope though that my kids never find themselves in a situation like that... but I was a teen once too! *sigh* I guess you never stop worrying.

The joys of parenting teens... I can't wait. I hope that little voice sticks around for a very long time, and I hope that I always listen. Especially when it comes to my kids.