Now in my last blog about California I alluded to an incident - well here is the gist of it.....
The night before we were to leave to come back to New Zealand on the Mariposa we had to stay in a motel in San Jose (just out of San Francisco) as the children of our friends had measles and I hadn't had them so they thought it best for us to stay overnight and then be collected in the morning and then be taken into San Francisco to the ship.
We arrived at this motel 'Ricky's Studio Inn' in Palo Alto and what a shambles ensued. We booked in and then took ourselves (mother and I) into the lift which was really cool a glass one on the outside of the motel going up to the 3rd floor to our room. The lift stuck between the lobby and the first floor and then the saga begins.....
It was July 1959 extremely hot and there was no air in the lift after about 10 minutes as the sun was shining and the air-conditioning didn't work unless the lift was working. We were stuck inside like fish in a bowl with another lady who started to hyperventilate and my mother got her to sit down and tried to calm her down...this didn't happen as she had a panic attack - so we are stuck inside the lift with no air, about 120 degrees and rising and with a woman who was flipping out.
On the outside in the Lobby people were trying the organize the opening of the lift doors but they were firmly stuck because of the lack of air inside and the vacuum it was causing. It was so hot in there I can still remember how awful it felt and every now and then (even 52 years later) can totally go into that space and flip out myself. Typically they called the police and a fire crew who endeavored to get us out. They didn't want us to sue them (we did this is another blog) so they were working very hard and very fast to organize an exit.
We were actually stuck inside for over 1 and a half hours and in the end we were almost comatose and starting to become very unwell. In the meantime outside in the lobby the service crews were trying to fix the lift and had gone down the service man hole and were working on the electrics. They were unable to break the windows of the lift as it was brand new and had very thick glass.......only been in two outside glass lifts in my life since...wonder why lollollol
Finally the doors were prized open and we were helped out by two firemen and one policeman. We were being assisted across the lobby and I was holding my mother's hand. We were half way to the seats and I disappeared down into the man hole. I fell down 16 feet into the service hole as the lid had not been put back properly by the crew and the lid also fell on top of me. On the way down I took off my nose on the metal steps (I can remember them as I fell) and landed in the bottom and then the lid fell on top of me. This lid was heavy and tiled as the lobby was black and white ceramic tiles which I had noticed was very pretty never going to have a black and white floor in any house of mine..hehehehe
My mother was at the top of the service hole screaming down at me and the policeman leapt down and pulled the lid off me. Now I can remember exactly what was inside this area to this day! I looked around it wasn't very big maybe 6ft by 8ft???? I didn't feel bad I just felt very heavy and the policeman lifted me out by taking me up with a fireman's lift. There was an absolute shambles at the top when he lifted me out and I must have looked absolutely awful my mother nearly fainted as my nose was missing (pushed up onto my forehead) and the was significant bleeding (blood everywhere not only on my face and head but also on my legs) I had broken my femur and it was protruding through the skin. This for me wasn't that traumatic, all I wanted to see was my face and no one would get a mirror. I had seen the horror on my mothers face and wanted to see what she was seeing. I remember asking many times for this over the next few hours but they wouldn't show me as the bone was protruding out and there was no skin over it. My leg had been up behind me and was badly broken. I have in my own home always had heaps of mirrors and I know there is a fundamental issue with them......
The policeman I wrote to for 15 years after this incident and he died in 1974 he retired from the force in 1961 Mick Fendonson I think, I will always be grateful to him for his help and his calm and amazing demeanor it was so bizarre he was so calm and everyone else was totally flipping out. By this stage the ambulance had arrived but they wouldn't take me as we didn't have insurance and according to the driver we were also aliens and therefore non transportable. Now I remember my mother walking up to this man and saying the following about 3 inches from his face...'if you don't take my daughter to the hospital NOW IMMEDIATELY I will put a Maori hoodoo on you that will kill you and yours for eternity' OMG this is etched in my brain and how she got it out I don't know. Trauma at this level is such an amazing thing....you have total control but no control at all.
The driver of the ambulance flinched and mumbled something - don't know what - but they put me in the back of the ambulance and we took off with the siren going full bore. Nowadays I don't flinch when I hear a similar siren but for a long time I would tremble when I heard one. Very pleased that sirens are also different sounding now.!!!!!!
The nearest hospital was the Palo Alto Medical Center attached to the Stamford University. It was their training hospital and a state of the art facility but reasonably old. They backed into the bay and just as the doors opened out walked two doctors who were going home from their shift. They overheard my mother talking and because of her accent walked over and asked if we needed help? Mother said that we were from New Zealand and that she needed help with me as I was at that point starting to lose so much blood that I was evidently at deaths door, this I was told some months later.
Doctors Mark Granis and William Fielder (their names are etched in my brain as well) took the gurney from the medic and ran me inside to the trauma center. At this point I think I was reasonably together and asking lots of questions the main one being I want a mirror.........now please?? I wanted to see what had happened.
Dr William Fielder had been in New Zealand during the war and he was a plastic surgeon and Mark Granis was a bone guru. Fancy out of all the world finding these two men in all this panic in America at the same time in the same place....there is a God!!!!
Now because of my injuries they were unable to give me any pain medication and from that point on in my life I have watched so many hospital dramas (and I wonder why?) with objectiveness and know so much about medical procedures I should have actually become a doctor myself. I was fully awake and they started to work on me with a nurse immediately cleaning off the blood and one doctor at my head and one at my waist they started their healing procedures and used all their consummate skills to get me right.
He stitched on my nose by bringing the skin down over the bone and he refashioned it on the spot. So I don't have the same nose as the family nose....hehehe I had over 350 stitches I think and have a photograph of me in the hospital about two weeks later and I look amazing with all these black sutures in my nose.....the leg was another story. He had to put the bone back under the skin stitch the skin together and drilled through from the right to the left of my leg at my knee (I still have two little scars) with an actual drill (hand driven) and he put in a metal pin. I was then put into traction for about 3 weeks.
During this time I was fully awake and can remember everything that they did and what they talked about vividly..... My mother wasn't told to leave she stood next to me for the 3 hours it took to get me right and during that time she and the doctors talked about the war, New Zealand and everything you can think of....while they diligently worked on my body.
I apologize to those of you who may be squeamish, for me it wasn't that bad but for my mother it must have been so bloody awful and so far out there......the next day she had a shower and because of the trauma caused all the color in her hair actually went and she went from blonde to white literally overnight.
Now I'm going to stop here as there is a plethora of other stuff to tell you guys and I know that finally after all these years writing this down hopefully will take it out of my brain sufficiently for me to move on.....
I have suffered from post traumatic stress syndrome ever since and I had a psychotic break at aged 47 when they diagnosed me as bi-polar....but this is another blog.
Night night all.......
Talk to you soon again
The night before we were to leave to come back to New Zealand on the Mariposa we had to stay in a motel in San Jose (just out of San Francisco) as the children of our friends had measles and I hadn't had them so they thought it best for us to stay overnight and then be collected in the morning and then be taken into San Francisco to the ship.
We arrived at this motel 'Ricky's Studio Inn' in Palo Alto and what a shambles ensued. We booked in and then took ourselves (mother and I) into the lift which was really cool a glass one on the outside of the motel going up to the 3rd floor to our room. The lift stuck between the lobby and the first floor and then the saga begins.....
It was July 1959 extremely hot and there was no air in the lift after about 10 minutes as the sun was shining and the air-conditioning didn't work unless the lift was working. We were stuck inside like fish in a bowl with another lady who started to hyperventilate and my mother got her to sit down and tried to calm her down...this didn't happen as she had a panic attack - so we are stuck inside the lift with no air, about 120 degrees and rising and with a woman who was flipping out.
On the outside in the Lobby people were trying the organize the opening of the lift doors but they were firmly stuck because of the lack of air inside and the vacuum it was causing. It was so hot in there I can still remember how awful it felt and every now and then (even 52 years later) can totally go into that space and flip out myself. Typically they called the police and a fire crew who endeavored to get us out. They didn't want us to sue them (we did this is another blog) so they were working very hard and very fast to organize an exit.
We were actually stuck inside for over 1 and a half hours and in the end we were almost comatose and starting to become very unwell. In the meantime outside in the lobby the service crews were trying to fix the lift and had gone down the service man hole and were working on the electrics. They were unable to break the windows of the lift as it was brand new and had very thick glass.......only been in two outside glass lifts in my life since...wonder why lollollol
Finally the doors were prized open and we were helped out by two firemen and one policeman. We were being assisted across the lobby and I was holding my mother's hand. We were half way to the seats and I disappeared down into the man hole. I fell down 16 feet into the service hole as the lid had not been put back properly by the crew and the lid also fell on top of me. On the way down I took off my nose on the metal steps (I can remember them as I fell) and landed in the bottom and then the lid fell on top of me. This lid was heavy and tiled as the lobby was black and white ceramic tiles which I had noticed was very pretty never going to have a black and white floor in any house of mine..hehehehe
My mother was at the top of the service hole screaming down at me and the policeman leapt down and pulled the lid off me. Now I can remember exactly what was inside this area to this day! I looked around it wasn't very big maybe 6ft by 8ft???? I didn't feel bad I just felt very heavy and the policeman lifted me out by taking me up with a fireman's lift. There was an absolute shambles at the top when he lifted me out and I must have looked absolutely awful my mother nearly fainted as my nose was missing (pushed up onto my forehead) and the was significant bleeding (blood everywhere not only on my face and head but also on my legs) I had broken my femur and it was protruding through the skin. This for me wasn't that traumatic, all I wanted to see was my face and no one would get a mirror. I had seen the horror on my mothers face and wanted to see what she was seeing. I remember asking many times for this over the next few hours but they wouldn't show me as the bone was protruding out and there was no skin over it. My leg had been up behind me and was badly broken. I have in my own home always had heaps of mirrors and I know there is a fundamental issue with them......
The policeman I wrote to for 15 years after this incident and he died in 1974 he retired from the force in 1961 Mick Fendonson I think, I will always be grateful to him for his help and his calm and amazing demeanor it was so bizarre he was so calm and everyone else was totally flipping out. By this stage the ambulance had arrived but they wouldn't take me as we didn't have insurance and according to the driver we were also aliens and therefore non transportable. Now I remember my mother walking up to this man and saying the following about 3 inches from his face...'if you don't take my daughter to the hospital NOW IMMEDIATELY I will put a Maori hoodoo on you that will kill you and yours for eternity' OMG this is etched in my brain and how she got it out I don't know. Trauma at this level is such an amazing thing....you have total control but no control at all.
The driver of the ambulance flinched and mumbled something - don't know what - but they put me in the back of the ambulance and we took off with the siren going full bore. Nowadays I don't flinch when I hear a similar siren but for a long time I would tremble when I heard one. Very pleased that sirens are also different sounding now.!!!!!!
The nearest hospital was the Palo Alto Medical Center attached to the Stamford University. It was their training hospital and a state of the art facility but reasonably old. They backed into the bay and just as the doors opened out walked two doctors who were going home from their shift. They overheard my mother talking and because of her accent walked over and asked if we needed help? Mother said that we were from New Zealand and that she needed help with me as I was at that point starting to lose so much blood that I was evidently at deaths door, this I was told some months later.
Doctors Mark Granis and William Fielder (their names are etched in my brain as well) took the gurney from the medic and ran me inside to the trauma center. At this point I think I was reasonably together and asking lots of questions the main one being I want a mirror.........now please?? I wanted to see what had happened.
Dr William Fielder had been in New Zealand during the war and he was a plastic surgeon and Mark Granis was a bone guru. Fancy out of all the world finding these two men in all this panic in America at the same time in the same place....there is a God!!!!
Now because of my injuries they were unable to give me any pain medication and from that point on in my life I have watched so many hospital dramas (and I wonder why?) with objectiveness and know so much about medical procedures I should have actually become a doctor myself. I was fully awake and they started to work on me with a nurse immediately cleaning off the blood and one doctor at my head and one at my waist they started their healing procedures and used all their consummate skills to get me right.
He stitched on my nose by bringing the skin down over the bone and he refashioned it on the spot. So I don't have the same nose as the family nose....hehehe I had over 350 stitches I think and have a photograph of me in the hospital about two weeks later and I look amazing with all these black sutures in my nose.....the leg was another story. He had to put the bone back under the skin stitch the skin together and drilled through from the right to the left of my leg at my knee (I still have two little scars) with an actual drill (hand driven) and he put in a metal pin. I was then put into traction for about 3 weeks.
During this time I was fully awake and can remember everything that they did and what they talked about vividly..... My mother wasn't told to leave she stood next to me for the 3 hours it took to get me right and during that time she and the doctors talked about the war, New Zealand and everything you can think of....while they diligently worked on my body.
I apologize to those of you who may be squeamish, for me it wasn't that bad but for my mother it must have been so bloody awful and so far out there......the next day she had a shower and because of the trauma caused all the color in her hair actually went and she went from blonde to white literally overnight.
Now I'm going to stop here as there is a plethora of other stuff to tell you guys and I know that finally after all these years writing this down hopefully will take it out of my brain sufficiently for me to move on.....
I have suffered from post traumatic stress syndrome ever since and I had a psychotic break at aged 47 when they diagnosed me as bi-polar....but this is another blog.
Night night all.......
Talk to you soon again
