2008 Woodie Awards
In light of awareness week, a plea for conscientiousness
Issue date: 10/13/05 Section: Features
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There is an unforgettable bitterness that burns your eyes and throat when the smells of burnt rubber and blood combine. I can recall that acrid odor, and the surreal effects of red, white and blue lights on shattered glass. The immediate panic is tempered by a steely and dreamlike unknowing. Everything, for a moment, moves in slow motion, as if being dropped through water, and I watched as Kyle leaned over our beloved friend, screaming inaudible curses in between bouts of CPR. His tears would not come until much later, but something inside Kyle broke the day Jeremy found himself prostrate on the pavement, late one June evening in 1999.
They managed to airlift the 16-year-old to the nearest hospital. He was damaged, broken, and barely alive. For two weeks, he lay in a coma with two broken legs, a broken arm, several broken ribs, and severe head trauma. I was 15, and my first love and boyfriend, Jem, short for Jeremy, lay unconscious in a hospital room. When he woke from his coma, he had severe amnesia. Like some bad soap opera, his best friend Kyle and I watched our friend struggle daily with simple mental exercises. Jem's hospital room was covered with Post-It notes as he tried to recall who we were to him. The struggle he felt mimicked our own pain, an internal sense of loss which we hid from him, so as not to increase his own suffering.
In late September, things were looking up. Jem had regained much of his memory, and while he was still in multiple casts, the doctors were optimistic about his recovery. After all, he was a healthy teenager, and there was no reason to think he wouldn't come out of his hospital stay almost as good as new. Though his broken legs had resulted in blood clots, the doctors knew a simple operation would remove the blockages before serious injuries could occur. They day before this operation, however, one of the blood clots in Jem's left leg dislodged. As he slept, the clot travelled to his lungs, giving him a pulmonary embolism, it then caused a stroke as it settled in his brain. He was put on a respirator; he was again in a coma.
They managed to airlift the 16-year-old to the nearest hospital. He was damaged, broken, and barely alive. For two weeks, he lay in a coma with two broken legs, a broken arm, several broken ribs, and severe head trauma. I was 15, and my first love and boyfriend, Jem, short for Jeremy, lay unconscious in a hospital room. When he woke from his coma, he had severe amnesia. Like some bad soap opera, his best friend Kyle and I watched our friend struggle daily with simple mental exercises. Jem's hospital room was covered with Post-It notes as he tried to recall who we were to him. The struggle he felt mimicked our own pain, an internal sense of loss which we hid from him, so as not to increase his own suffering.
In late September, things were looking up. Jem had regained much of his memory, and while he was still in multiple casts, the doctors were optimistic about his recovery. After all, he was a healthy teenager, and there was no reason to think he wouldn't come out of his hospital stay almost as good as new. Though his broken legs had resulted in blood clots, the doctors knew a simple operation would remove the blockages before serious injuries could occur. They day before this operation, however, one of the blood clots in Jem's left leg dislodged. As he slept, the clot travelled to his lungs, giving him a pulmonary embolism, it then caused a stroke as it settled in his brain. He was put on a respirator; he was again in a coma.