sv evi

On Wednesday before we left Savusavu we were walking home from Anjana’s house, when we stopped to get ice cream. Her brother Devan insisted on buying the kids ice cream cones. Luz dropped the ice cream off her cone almost immediately, and she started to cry. Tomu just handed her his cone, without saying anything. Luz was thrilled.

Later that evening, Margeaux and I were sitting on a picnic bench in the Copra Shed Marina while our kids played on the lawn. Tomu asked if he could climb a tree, and I said yes. Tomu has a lot of experience climbing trees from our willow tree back home. This tree looked like it was reasonably easy to climb, with many branches that were not spaced too far apart. I boosted Gretchen, Jade, and Luz into the tree to climb as well.

While Tomu was climbing down he was holding onto a branch with both hands when it broke. His feet slipped off the branch he was standing on, and he fell flat on his back onto the ground, from about 15-20 feet up. His head or neck or back must have hit the picnic table on the way down, because he landed with his head under the picnic table and the rest of his body sticking out. Margeaux and I saw him fall, and it was horrifying. It looked so bad, just blam, on the ground. Some of the workers from the Copra Shed hurried over with grave faces, and Margeaux ran to get Riki off the boat. I went to Tomu, and he started to cry. I asked if he knew his name, and where he was, and he did. Riki had him move his legs and arms a little bit. Tomu complained that his lower back was hurting. I decided we needed to get him to the hospital to check that there was no damage to his spine or neck before he could try sitting or walking. Kitty, the security guard helped us to find a table that we used as a back board. I got some cushions from the boat to put on top of the board, and we lifted Tomu up and slid the board underneath him. We then carried him to the parking lot and lifted the table and Tomu into the bed of a pick up truck. I sat in back with him, talking with him, telling him not to move his head. A cook at the Copra Shed, an Indo-Fijian named Himesh, got in the bed of the truck with us. He said he was coming to help translate for me, and to hold onto the table so it wouldn’t slide out as we went up the steep hill to the hospital.

As we hurtled along in the dark towards the hospital, I chanted Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, something I learned from my Buddhist mama a long time ago. I chanted that Tomu would be okay, that he wouldn’t have any broken bones or be paralyzed or anything. I was so scared.

We arrived at the hospital and carried Tomu on the table inside, onto a hospital bed. The doctor asked me some questions about his fall, and took his vitals, and tried to put a C-collar on, but the only size they had was for adults, and it was painful when they tried to tighten it. They left it on loosely. She then checked his reflexes on his legs, and asked if he could feel her touching his legs. Then it was time for X-rays — they wheeled him to the X-ray department.

They took 5 X-rays, of his whole back & neck. I had to help with the last two, holding up the black rectangular film. Then an ultrasound of Tomu’s vital organs. Then we had to wait to hear back from the radiologist in Labasa, though the X-ray tech told me he didn’t think there were any fractures or displaced discs.

While we were waiting to hear back, the doctor told me that if there was displacement or fractures, we would have to consult the surgery team. That’s when I started to get really scared — back surgery in Savusavu? Meanwhile, Tomu was being so brave the whole time. He got tears in his eyes a few times. He was reading to pass the time as we waiting for the results. Tomu also got so cold that he was shivering. Himesh was with me the whole time, checking in, telling me it was going to be okay, and that he had had a big fall as a young boy as well, and he had been okay. Sariana, the bartender from the Copra Shed who had seen Tomu fall stopped by to check on us at the hospital.

Finally we got the results — no fractures, no displacements! We were free to go home. The doctor said that she recommended we stay the night for neural monitoring because of the height of the fall, but it was up to us if we wanted to go. I knew Tomu would be much more comfortable in his own bunk on the boat, so Himesh called a taxi. I thanked the doctor, and asked how much I owed them. She seemed suprised, and said the office that processes payment was closed, and I could come back the next day if I wanted to. Apparently the hospital is free, because Himesh later asked me why I was asking about payment.

Tomu tried to stand for the first time since the fall — gingerly, slowly…we found a stick outside the hospital door that he could use. He complained that his left hip and left foot hurt. As we waited for the taxi, Tomu said, “Mama, can you give Himesh 5 dollars of my money?”. I teared up, and passed the message on to Himesh. He refused any payment.

When we got back to the Copra Shed at 11:30 pm Kitty the security guard met us in the parking lot. He gave Tomu a big, long hug, and he wiped tears from his eyes. Riki came to help Tomu walk to the boat. Kitty told me, “When I saw him fall from the tree, my first thought was: that child is dead. And yet he is okay. God is good.” “Yes, God is good”, I agreed.

We gave Tomu some ibuprofen and got him tucked into bed, and then I went to shower and just cried and cried.

What if he had died, just like that? How would we carry on with life? What if he had been paralyzed? How different would our lives be?

We are going to take a break from tree climbing for awhile.

During the whole incident, I just felt so grateful to the Fijians who helped us — to Himesh, to Kitty, to Sariana, to the hospital staff. The kindness of everyone around us, going out of their way to help us made appreciate the basic goodness of humanity.

Tomu is fine now — he swims and snorkels and walks just fine. He even tried to jog on the beach yesterday with some pain in his chest, but he is definitely on the mend. He is occasionally snarky with Jade — back to normal.