If you don’t know if you need an ambulance, I’m not sending one.

*Click.*

I’ll admit my description to the 911 operator that night was soft and meandering: “I know I hit my head on that metal slider between the front and back seats of the taxi. He ran a red light into us. I’m in front of a mirror but it’s hard to see with blood in my eyes. Maybe I need stitches? It’s hard to tell, you know how head wounds bleed.”

Just before that, I had heard my boyfriend yelling “stop the car- she’s not okay!” While feeling a rush of hot fluid fall into my hands as the taxi driver chased the drunk driver who hit us into an alley. When the car finally stopped, my job was to call 911, my boyfriend’s was to figure out exactly where we were. Chicago back alleys can be tortuous.

When Chris opened the taxi door to check on me, I looked at him from the backseat and said “oh good… you’re back…” and then I passed out.

No response to the paramedic boyfriend’s sternal rub, and he is not gentle with those.

I woke up about a minute later, and he asked me if the paramedics were on the way.

“No. The 911 operator hung up on me. I’m sure she had more serious things to deal with.”

I struggle with this experience, because in hindsight I know I was in shock. 17 stitches in my face and years of neck therapy followed, but the 911 operator hung up when I needed help. I got care that night, but it wasn’t without an access struggle.

I sometimes wonder about the pressures that must have been on the operator that night. It can’t be easy to field calls from all over a huge city and quickly know who needs help, or who just wants to hear another person’s voice. I’m sure staffing is a constant struggle too, and anything related to health access seems to ask empathic people to constantly do more with less.

While the (amazing!) intern at Northwestern sewed up my jagged eyebrow and my boyfriend talked shop with her while holding my hand, I remember thinking “gosh I hope this guy marries me- I’m never going to look the same again.”

Luckily, he did. :)

Post-car wreck, just before 3:30 am.