Samuelle is rushed to the ER after bumping his head at the playground
I don’t know why this happened. I was a nice, calm person.
I was new to the area, and I had moved there not that long ago. I was nine years old and l loved going to the park, so I asked my aunt if I could go to the park across the street from East Side Middle School. The sun was shining bright like a spotlight, and the clouds looked like they were filled with happiness and joy. The birds were tweeting, and it was a good day to be outside, but I instantly got kind of bored because there were usually a lot more kids. All of the kids there were little. Then I saw a group of kids who were around my age or older, so I asked if I could possibly play and they all agreed. We were five to six kids playing hide-and-seek.
After playing for a while, I saw someone who went to my school, P.S. 198 Elementary School, and was in third grade. He was picked to be the seeker. I was afraid because I was a shy kid back then, so I ran with Casey and hid under a jungle gym bridge. The seeker was near, so I decided to get up and run, but I got up too fast and cracked my head on the jungle gym bridge. Casey screamed like she had just seen a ghost. Her mother came and saw me and yelled to her husband. “Honey, come help!” she called out. Her husband came running in a dash. My head was bleeding.
All these questions came rushing through my bloody head:
What happened?
What had I done wrong?
They brought me to a bench nearby, and I noticed the sky wasn’t blue anymore. It was gray. The birds weren’t tweeting anymore. I wasn’t smiling anymore, and everything looked like an upside-down happy face. Casey’s dad picked me up from the bench, put me in the backseat of their car, and drove us all the way to the nearest hospital called Mount Sinai.
When we got to Mount Sinai, Casey’s parents got me out of the car. I felt a weird tingle from my head, but not from the bleeding. It was something else. Then, something switched off in my head and I didn’t know where I was anymore, like a kid in a cornfield. When I looked around, I noticed that I was in a place that I didn’t like. I started having thoughts like:
Where am I?
Who are these people? Are they going to hurt me?
I panicked slightly and started to wiggle out of Casey’s dad’s grip. He started to tighten it. I said to myself, The only way out is to use all of my strength. So I bit his hand and ran toward the exit, but just then a doctor walked in. I bumped right into her.
I looked up sharply as she bent down slowly and stared me deep in the eyes. She noticed what was wrong with me and said, “I understand you are lost. Okay? Please, follow me.” So I got up and started to follow her down the hall on the left side of the exit.
I kept wondering where she was taking me, until we walked into the emergency room. When we walked in, it felt so familiar to me. I looked at the doctor’s name tag. It read “Uira.” Then it hit me. This was the same room where I was born, and that was one of the doctors who had helped my mom give birth to me.
At that moment, another doctor came in with some type of liquid and told me to drink it. I was confused and I thought there was no way I was drinking that. “Please?” said Dr. Uira.
“What is it?” I asked.
“It’s for your head,” she said.
Then the other doctor said, “Drink it and follow me.” I gulped it down as I jogged to catch up with her. We went to room G15.
I looked around the room and saw a small sink, an examination table, and doctor tools. I sat on the table and looked around. The doctor left and came back in with a purple drink and a metal tool. “Drink this,” she said.
“Okay,” I replied and drank it.
Dr. Uira brought me to another room where my aunt also was. Dr. Uira bent down to look at me and said, “I need you to be strong for this one. Try to stay still. This will hurt because we’re putting in stitches.”
At the time I didn’t know what stitches were, but I was still nervous because they sounded painful. Still, I trusted her. She opened a packet with a disinfectant wipe and began to clean the wound on my head. I felt a pressure on the wound and a light sting. Then she gathered the suture supplies and prepared to operate on my head. Before she began the procedure she said, “I’m going to count to three. At the end of three, you will feel three sharp pains, but try your best not to move.” She counted to three and began to stitch my head. I wanted to yell, but I felt like I couldn’t. As painful as it was, the doctor finished quickly. Before I knew it, she was done.
Dr. Uira stood up. “Okay, now follow me again,” she said. That time, I was unsure if I should, but I did, and I was greeted by Casey and her parents. My aunt, my friend Casey, and her parents, all asked if I was okay.
“I guess.” I shrugged. My aunt hugged me.
“Let’s go home,” she said.
