For in the day of trouble He will keep me safe in his dwelling;
He will hide me in the shelter of his sacred tent and set me high upon a rock.
Psalm 27:5
The Accident
The first Friday in May 2013, Kornelia was high-jumping in gym class at school. She missed the mat on the landing of her jump and came down very hard on her left knee. 15 year old teenage girls can be drama queens at times, and consequently it can be hard to discern how bad an injury is. Kornelia could not put weight on her leg or walk following this fall in the gym and so she called Ewa to come pick her up. Ewa had to drive to the gym door and help her into the truck.
Upon seeing how Kornelia was feeling, Ewa decided to take her to the Children's hospital here in the city to get the knee looked at. The nurse in triage looked at Kornelia in the wheel chair and had her wait... and wait. Finally, after a couple of hours(!), Kornelia was taken in for an x-ray and... Surprise! They found this:
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| Original x-ray |
The nurses apologized profusely for not taking Kornelia's pain concerns more seriously and making her wait so long. Kornelia ended up staying in the hospital over the weekend as an operation was required to put pins in the bone to stabilize it for healing. Here's the femur after that surgery with the pins in it.
It took a while for everything to settle after that eventful weekend. Kornelia ended up finishing school from home that year. There were many follow up appointments and physio sessions and she had a modified Physical Education class in school the following year. Eventually another surgery was required to 'shave' the pins as they were protruding from the bone and tearing her ligaments when she walked.
I went for a short hike recently with Kornelia and she casually mentioned how grateful she was that we had that second surgery done. Those protruding pins had made extended walking painful, and now with them shaved down she doesn't even think about it anymore!
God's Protection
During the recovery period, Ewa was sharing this whole story with some friends. One of them had previously served as a paramedic in the US military, and another currently serves as a paramedic with the local health system. When they heard what had transpired between the accident at school and the final diagnosis at the hospital they were amazed that nothing worse had happened. They told us that having sharp bone edges moving close to major leg arteries is a recipe for disaster - sever one of those arteries and one can quickly die of blood loss.
We were thankful for God's protection over Kornelia on her way to the hospital - getting from the gym into the vehicle without a stretcher, then out of the truck and into the hospital safely as well. We're also grateful for God's provision of good doctors, and good, free healthcare!
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| On the way home after surgery |
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