The Other Side of the Scare

When I was 16, my high school softball team played in a tournament and as usual I was playing third base. A rather large player came up to bat for the other team. She screemed one down the third base line right at me and had I not reacted by standing up and getting my head out of the way, then it would have hit me right in the face. I caught it using my forearm and stomach and just remember thinking, I had better not drop this because there is no way I am gonna be able to throw someone out right now. My teammates, to this day wish they had videoed it because I pretty much lost control of myself as I was knocked out and fell backwards. Aside from being very sore and pretty shaken up, I was fine. I freaked my coach out though. A few days later he told me that when I went down, he was so scared. He said, "You know, I love this game. I am all about winning and love watching you girls play, but when you went down on the field the other day, my heart dropped. At the end of the day, this is just a game and you girls are all that matters. Winning is not worth losing one of you girls. Y'all are what matter to me."

I've told that story before on my blog, but yesterday that scene came to life for me on the other side of things. This time I was the coach, but the player that went down was the opposing player. One of my players had a fantastic hit and it went the fence. The outfielder did a fantastic job of catching the ball but not such a fantastic job of knowing how far she was from the fence. She turned just in time to hit the fence and go limp as she fell to the ground. Her coaches ran to her and I watched from the first base line, waiting on her to stand up at any moment because the hit didn't look that bad. She didn't stand up. They called for water and someone ran it out. Pretty soon the coach looked up and made the cell phone symbol with his hands. She was going to need EMS. I figured we weren't going anywhere any time soon so I went over to see what was going on. As I got closer I realized she was in convulsions and hyperventilating really badly. She had a huge knot on her forehead and shoulder. She managed to get the words out, "I can't feel my body!" and I realized in that moment that no one was holding her neck in place to prevent more spinal cord damage. I spent all of last semester in a first aid/CPR course and this was a textbook procedure that no one moved to do. I was a little leary of getting involved since it wasn't my player but when I said something they let me help. I got on my knees and held her neck in place while we waited for EMS. She started breathing even faster so I started talking to her to calm her down. "Ok, I need you to take slow breaths. You are fine. Help is coming but I need you to take long slow breaths. There you go, easy." and it helped for a little bit until she started panicking about not being able to feel her body again. EMS was coming up at this point and I explained that I had been bracing her neck and they asked me to keep doing so while they examined her. She wasn't responding to them verbally but finally could wiggle her toes for them. She was going into shock and they decided she needed to be air lifted to San Antonio (we were in New Braunfels) Her arms were still rigid in front of her in a seizure like position. I kept encouraging her to breath but then she stopped breathing all together. It was like the little kid that has been crying so hard and can't get the air in. She was trying but couldn't for at least a minute or two. Finally she did but started gagging. We put the neck vise on and we all lifted her onto the backboard for them to load her into the Ambulance. At this point I was no longer needed and walked off the field. I felt the wave of emotions hit as soon as I took 5 steps away from her. I stepped into the dugout to gain composer but it didn't help and I choked back tears as I watched them load her into the helicopter with an oxygen mask on. I was embarrassed because my athletes were standing there and they didn't know what was going on since they couldn't see the girl with all the people around her. The coach I worked with just kept saying. "She'll be fine. Don't worry about it Taylor. She is just dehydrated." It was one of those things where it wouldn't have mattered what he said, I couldn't control how I felt, even if it was just scared for her. The helicopter lifted off the softball field and the tournament continued. I probably will not hear anything about how she is doing, but I wish I could.

I left yesterday with a greater appreciation for my healthy players, a greater understanding how much winning is not what it's all about, and a thankfulness for Coach Johnson who was my First Aid instructor and worked tirelessly to make sure we understood what to do. I will definitely never firget what it felt like to hold the girl's head in my hands and feel her fight for air.