Once again I turn the pen over to the author of an extraordinary story of Cruz Roja and the Mexican medical system in action. This is an edited version of Jay Raymond White's report on his heart attack in Ajijic just months ago. The second half on the Mexican medical system will appear next month. Jay, please forgive the editing but your prose was too long to fit my space.
I turned the corner onto Parroquia Street, clutching my heart with both hands. A sculptor I know, Estella Hidalgo, at work on the trunk of a dead tree over there, noticed my behavior and laid her mallet down. I was headed to get Doctor Polo's attention, intent upon making it, anticipating success, when a ten-ton wrecking ball with my name on it swooped down out of the sky and hit me squarely in the chest, dropping me to my knees. At that point, Estella Hidalgo arrived frowning with concern: "What's wrong, Jay?" Her voice wavered eerily and seemed out of sync with her lips."I'm having...a heart attack, Stel. Please get Polo."
Off she went at high port.
I moved to the curb and sat, head down, arms crossed, being observed cautiously in slow, careful movements and attitudes by spectators on both sides of the street...open mouths; worried eyes, intently curious. "What's the buzz...tell me what's a-happening?" I peered through a copse of legs toward the pharmacy and saw Polo come out and Estella right behind pointing toward me. He spotted me and hustled over. "Where does it hurt?"
"Chest...Heavy pain down...left arm."
"Clasico !" Polo muttered in alarm, widening his eyes...and then, "shit!" as if he hated the preventable kinds of things people inflict upon themselves through ignorance of their own bodies and how they work-and how they ought to be treated. I took it as an admonition. He turned back toward his shop and broke into a shuffling trot, headed for his trove of medicines. Polo returned with nitroglycerine tablets-two of them. "Under the tongue." I opened my mouth and he popped them in; then we all waited for the Cruz Roja ambulance to arrive, and in about ten-minutes, it did, "Fireball" Roberto at the wheel.
The two paramedics attached to the ambulance, both angelic in their stoic Latin beauty, swooped to my side and immediately applied oxygen, which virtuous gas shut down an insipient hallucinogenic state about to be brought on by its absence-but I correctly identified the compassion in the eyes of these Angels and the competence of their actions and I relaxed and went with them. I figured that was the only way I could help them. It seemed to work out.
Then we all went for an ambulance ride.
The driver eased us away from the curb and away from the plaza, turned left and headed for the highway with his alarma ! lights flashing red...red...red...red, while Angel One took my pulse and Angel Two set up a portable ekg machine and plugged me in. When Angel One saw what my blood pressure was doing, he leaned across the back of the front seat and said something I didn't catch to the driver, and that's when the driver earned his sobriquet: "Fireball" Roberto. He went to a lower gear and turned on his siren, which sound was a disappointment to me. I had wished-and the wish is recorded in heaven-I had wished never ever to have to hear that wail from inside the emergency vehicle it was announcing. Then Fireball kicked that old ambulance in the slats and off we went into the wacky, whirl away world of those attempting to outrace the Devil himself to the Cruz Roja Clinic of Chapala.
He did it, too....but The Damned Thing soon caught up: just as soon as we made it to the clinic and the two Angels and Fireball had got me inside, my heart stopped beating and I quit breathing and started hallucinating again....I assume. What I mean to say is that I saw the Other Side....I was on that side for two minutes and more (I'm told).... I can report It wasn't so bad.
My pal, Jim Tipton was waiting at the clinic when I was brought in, and he tells me that as soon as the line went flat on their pulse machine, the paramedics and the doctor at the clinic went into concerted, concentrated action to kick-start my heart and they got the job done. They injected me with atropine and adrenaline and got into their CPR technique and saved my life. I woke up smiling and then grinned at Jim, who was holding my hand. What a joy it was to be back.
Remember this could be you. "The life you save maybe your own." Cruz Roja needs your continued support.
