The SabonBlog

The craziest thing happened last Wednesday on my way home from work.  I was crawling along on the freeway when I saw a woman frantically gesturing to get my attention.  I rolled down my window, and she says, “I’m in labor and my cell phone is dead- will you help me????”  So I say “Of course!” and we pull off the next exit.  We get off the off ramp and she puts her flashers on.  I run over with my phone calling 911 – except I couldn’t get through.  It turns out that she had been on hold with 911 for 15 minutes until they hung up on her, and her battery was almost gone.  She was literally screaming with the pain from the contractions, and could hardly move.  After several minutes of me not being able to get through either, I decided that I should at least start driving her toward a hospital until I reach someone.  I went around the corner and parked my car, and then had to figure out how to help her into the passenger side of her SUV.  Once we accomplished that maneuver, I started battling rush hour traffic. 

In the meantime, I called Steven at work and had him call 911 while I called the woman’s husband (whose battery had died too so it went straight to voicemail).  She had just moved here from San Jose, and didn’t know her home phone number or anyone else to call.  She was insistent on going to Tarzana Hospital, which apparently has a NICU (her doctor was there and due to a previous difficult pregnancy she was determined to make it there).  Of course, I’m trying to tell her that the Sherman Oaks Hospital was only a mile away, versus Tarzana which would be another 2 or 3 miles.

After making it about a mile further Steven was able to get through to 911 from his work phone (NOTE: apparently in LA you can’t get through to 911 on a cell phone… yeah that makes a lot of sense).  I pulled over and we waited for the ambulance to meet us, while I’m trying to take her mind off of her ordeal (“So, what do you do?”) and convince her not to push (“You CAN’T PUSH!”).  The ambulance and fire truck came, blocking the 4 lane road.  They managed to get her onto the stretcher and into the ambulance as I called her husband (who had turned his phone on by this time) to tell him where they were taking her.  She was telling the EMT guys that she had to go to Tarzana, and they tried telling her that she should go to Sherman Oaks as it was so much closer.  They were trying to explain that she just needed to sign a form saying that she refused to go to the closest hospital and then they could take her wherever she wanted, but she was a little overwrought (as you can imagine).  In between contractions she managed to get off the stretcher and out of the ambulance, begging me to just drive her to Tarzana.  We finally convinced her to get back in the ambulance, and they whisked her away to the hospital.  

Afterwards, all I could do was laugh, it was all so bizarre.  Steven, thankfully, was thinking ahead and drove to get me and took me back to my car.  I got home and had an hour to pack before leaving for the airport for Jenn’s wedding.  I just hope that everyone’s ok, and that if I ever have a problem like that someone would be nice and try to help me out too!

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