We lived in Dubai some years ago. Our apartment was on the
shoulder of an arterial road where the air waves were punctured by ambulance
siren wails several times a day. Although we’d been there for over two years it
had been hard to create a network of friends. For some reason smiles froze on
lips, seldom reaching the eyes. So each time I heard the ambulance siren I wondered
how an expat would cope with a medical emergency in this land of aliens.
On a fateful day, I was to find out first hand. That day,
like many others, I was dropped off to my workplace by my husband. I was to go for
an after-work meeting that evening but
half way to the meeting venue I just felt compelled to head back home.
My cheery hello was greeted with uneasy looks from the kids.
There had been a phone call just a few minutes back from my husband’s office informing
us that he had been hospitalised after an accident and that a car was on its way
to take us to the hospital.
As we waited in the lobby for the car, a neighbour’s child, noticing
the sombre looks, asked us where we were going. We shared what details we knew
and left.
Along the way my husband’s colleague explained to us that my
husband had fractured his arm and was in the ICU. What kind of fracture
requires admission to the ICU, I asked him and his evasive reply was a sign of
things to follow.
As we entered the hospital we saw a bunch of my husband's colleagues
huddled in a group while his boss broke away to speak to us. He led me first to
the police kiosk inside the building to complete some “formalities” as this had
been a road accident. On the way to the ICU he shared chattily about how when
his wife was in the ICU during her pregnancy the sight of a Ventilator had
alarmed him but the contraption had actually saved her life. The significance
of a senior executive sharing personal details did not escape me as we entered
the ICU.
The Duty doctor explained that indeed the fracture needed surgery
and I needed to sign consent papers. The surgeon said that the elbow joint was in
pieces so tiny that they would need to insert titanium plates to hold it
together. And, they both said, what I really ought to concern myself about was
the head injury.
My husband’s head and left eye were covered with bandages
and there was the Ventilator, breathing for him while he was in a coma.
I went back to break the news to the kids and also to
arrange for them to get back home. I
spotted the neighbour whose child we had met.
He had just followed us to the hospital although we had barely exchanged
a few words up until then. He offered to make sure the kids had their dinner
and the company driver whose 240 watt smile had lit up our arrival in the city
offered to stay the night with the kids.
As I waited outside the Operation Theatre at 3 am a nurse walked
out of the OT, called out my name in surprise and said she was happy to meet me
although not in the right circumstances. She was the mother of a child whose talent
of photography I had written about. She said the surgery had gone off well. She
promised to speak to her colleagues to keep an eye on my husband.
People who had seen the car wreckage found it hard to
believe that the driver could have survived. The Dubai ambulance service had
created a miracle in getting him to the hospital early enough to be able to
staunch excessive loss of blood.
On the third day my husband opened his one good eye and
asked in typical Bollywood fashion “where am I?” You had to be there to believe
the collective roar of relief of his entire department who had kept vigil with
me the whole three days.
Every evening brought visitors. Some we already knew, others
we got to know better. There was never a dearth of visitors for the other
patients on the floor either. Our
neighbour, a hit-and-run victim, had co-parishioners praying with him almost
every day. A couple of labourers and taxi drivers, among the vast population of
single expats living in the city, were visited by their colleagues or friends
often. Some even turned up regularly to feed them every night. A group of good
Samaritans pitched in to feed another patient who apparently had no one to
support him.
The day before the discharge I chose to walk back home. It
was a chill February evening when yet another ambulance siren rent the air. I felt
deep gratitude for all the friends that this episode had sent me. And I knew that in every alien place each one of us would always find people who cared. Some of them known, others
strangers.
I looked up from my ruminations to notice a T-shirt clad person
walking ahead of me. It was no coincidence that printed on the back
of the T-shirt were the words: I am the friend you do not know.
