Thanks to the Government, the Kid Across the Street Might Live

[nolabear]

I hope that when I watch the news tonight I don't hear he died. Maybe it wouldn't even make the news in a city this size. But a little group of people and a whole bunch of government money just might have saved the life of the young man who OD'd across the street from my place tonight.

Our neighborhood is very mixed, from fairly upscale townhouses to older houses to apartment buildings. This evening I happened to look out the window toward an apartment I know is rented by a very young, rather Goth looking bunch of kids in their very early twenties. They hang out and smoke on the street, they clearly have little money, and though the mom in me worries a little about them, I like watching their interactions and imagining what it must be like to be a kid trying to get along in the city.

But tonight none of them was there. Instead I saw a kid who could have been 16, 18, 20, in the terrible staggering stance of someone who has OD'd to the point of nearly having a seizure. He was nodding out on his feet, mouth foaming, not three feet from a very busy street. I thought for just a minute, then called 911.

At about the same time a young couple, not much older than he but way in another realm in terms of lifestyle, jogged by. From the window I watched them find his phone and try to make several calls. After a few minutes I joined them, and the young woman also called 911. We tried to wake him, but he fell over the stoop and lay there while we tried to just be sure he was breathing.

In a fairly short time the first aid car showed up, and they set to work on him. They were great--professional, concerned, gave us the choice to hang out out of the way or not (at which time we all retired to let them work). As I watched from my window again, feeling oddly guilty I must admit about my glass of wine, police cars showed up to direct traffic, and to talk to and, it appeared from the hand on her shoulder, comfort the hysterical young woman who came from one of the apartments. Eventually I saw him loaded into the back of one of the cars with--thank goodness--the sheet NOT over his face.

This was, to me, a combination of the best of this country; the will and the system in place to help a very troubled kid at a time when he could have died from disinterest, lack of empathy, the judgmental attitude that he is somehow less, or lack of a system for calling for help, the trained professionals to answer, and an ER that won't turn him away. I don't often have much cause to imagine what it must be like to live somewhere where you can't call for help, or where there IS no help, even when you're young and you screw up and there are questions. They'll come later. Right now we all, every one of us, from the politicians long ago who put the system in place to the medics to the cops to the kids to me...to the father that the fellow who found the kid's phone called to tell him his son was lying on the sidewalk somewhere, want him to just live.

I don't know his name; I don't know what he took. I don't know who the young couple were, who the hysterical girl was, or the medics, or the cops, or the thousands upon thousands of people put this system together and continue to pay taxes to support it. But tonight I know why we are America, and I appreciate us all very, very much.

[auntAgonist]

1. I sure hope he will be ok.

I hope he has people around him who love him and can help him through whatever it is that caused this. Intentional or not, the potential for permanent damage is very real.


good thoughts go out to him and to you, for not being afraid to do what you had to do.

:hug:

aA
kesha

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. For his sake

After the ER... I hope he manages to get into a recovery program...

And good job there.

[SoCalDem]

3. About 5 years ago, (on Xmas afternoon), a guy from across the street knocked on my door

introduced himself as "Jeff", and asked for a glass of water. He said he lived across the street

(across the street was a group home for adults)

I asked him if he wanted me to walk him back , and he said "No..they are all celebrating Xmas, and I didn't want to".


I asked him to sit on the porch while I got him some water. As I went back inside, he said.."I took a bunch of pills & I'm so thirsty".

After that announcement, I was unsure of what I had on my hands, so I called 911. I took him his glass of water & sat with him until they showed up. He was pretty disoriented by the time they got here, but he went with them willingly.

About a week later I saw him in the yard & he waved at me.

Don't know what he took, but he could have just as easily gone to his room and then just died.

[hedgehog]

4. I noticed that in both stories, the person stepped up to take care of a stranger, then

stepped back to allow the stranger privacy. That says something good about the respect for the individual.