I woke up to the cry of my neighbor: “Yulia!” Rita fell out the window! For some reason, in extreme situations, I do not feel fear at first, but act clearly and surprisingly coolly. I went down a long marble staircase: in the summer we live in the city of Pechora, Pskov region, where we have an apartment on the second floor in an old house with high ceilings. The second floor here is about like the third in Khrushchev. Honestly, I didn’t even hope that my daughter Rita could survive a fall on the pavement from this height… but she was alive. Unconscious, wheezing, fighting in convulsions… There was no blood, which, however, does not say anything, since fractures are closed, and bleeding — internal. A neighbor had already called an ambulance, and suddenly a course of emergency first aid that took place in a driving school surfaced in my memory. (Let’s be honest, no one in our group looked at the study CD except me.) The rest, apparently, were fatalists. Very in vain.
It turned out that while everyone was asleep, Rita quietly opened the window (I don’t know how she managed to do it: the frames are new, and even I hardly open them), a familiar boy walked down the street, and Rita decided to wave his hand (why couldn’t she wave from behind the glass?) Unknown childish logic. As a result, she could not resist and fell out with a mosquito net.
Leaving my grandfather with Rita, I rushed to collect documents (without a policy, the provincial ambulance will not be lucky, at least die three times, with the question “Where is the policy?” the doctor began, and only then put a fixing collar on the child’s neck and made injections). Then began phantasmagoria called “Survive against the efforts of doctors”.
I had heard enough about medicine in the outback, particularly Pehor, to think: Rita won’t survive. The odds are almost zero.
To begin with, there are no resuscitation vehicles. There are “loafs” or “gazeli” in the city. In general, there is no resuscitation in the Pehor hospital. The nearest big city is Pskov. An hour by bus or half an hour by ambulance. But in Pskov, Rita was not immediately lucky, and about an hour did X-rays and watched something in Pechora. From the very first minutes, I realized that only a miracle can save me in this situation.
I called a few friends, friends other friends, and the chain started to build. Of all the saints, I first of all remembered St. Nicholas, because I sing in his church, and he helped our family many times in difficult situations. The most vivid memory of the Pehor hospital is that the doctor brings a pocket mirror to Rita’s mouth, I understand that it is checked whether she died or is still breathing. Then the doctor shines a flashlight in her eyes. Pupils don’t respond to light. Another ambulance arrived and finally took her to Pskov. On the way, it turned out that the ventilator does not work, because it has not been used for a long time, which means “pray that she breathes herself, however, there is still an enema and … now we will look …” Found a handheld ventilator, I think it’s called an Ambu bag.
I will keep silent about the fact that the ambulance route is not accepted. Even if it’s with a siren and flashing lights. So run, car, on the side of the road until you shake your whole soul. On the way, they stopped taking pressure. I don’t know why you can’t measure it while driving. Upon entering Pskov, it turned out that the neurosurgeon is one. The whole Pskov region alone. (Are the others on vacation? Or do they not exist at all? And he works in an adult hospital.
We come to an adult – and from there they are sent to the nursery “We do not have a license to treat children.” The neurosurgeon will come to you himself. In general, Rita was in intensive care two hours (!) after the injury. During this time, she lost more than half (if not 2/3) of blood (spleen rupture, internal bleeding, plus the ambulance decided to increase the pressure, and whip the beginning even more). I don’t know how she even got here alive. And at the reception room, meanwhile, there was a new pretty reanimobile, obviously, “only for Pskov residents.”
All the way I remembered the story of Father Fyodor Konyukhov, as in a nightmare storm, when he no longer hoped to survive and threw himself at the helm, this very helm was … St. Nicholas. “He can do it. Maybe! He can raise the dead! I thought, remembering all the saints I know. I didn’t really have to hope for a slimy, really!
Rita was in a coma for almost a week. Multiple skull fractures, hematomas, severe brain injury. One of the on-duty resuscitators told me: We are not nostradamus and we cannot predict anything. You realize the baby’s skull split like a watermelon?
(I am referring to watermelon and nostradamus verbatim). All this time, the baton of prayer was passed: Vasya gave Katya, Katya – Pete, Petya – Fede… in the end it turned out that tens of thousands of people pray for Rita, no less. From Moscow and St. Petersburg to Solovki, Jerusalem, Athos, Germany, Poland, Serbia, Estonia… it seems even to have reached Australia. I would never have thought that so many people would respond to a request to pray for a stranger. How many girls fly out of windows every year?
After about 10 days, Rita was transferred from intensive care to neurology. The first question she asked when she was in a regular room surprised me a little: “Where is this uncle?” Who gave me good things.” She repeated this persistently, several times:
Where was the uncle who sat with me all the time?
— Rita, you’re in another department, there are aunts working, and uncles are left where there are children who are not well.
I figured Rita meant yesterday’s emergency room doctor. (Although how could it taste good?) In intensive care, most of the time she was fed through the probe and did not give tasty things, and I was much upset that it is impossible to commune a patient who is unconscious, and through the probe it is also impossible. Here we go. Rita says, «No, the other uncle.» So she pestered me with that uncle that I even asked the doctor about the psyche. Turns out you don’t have to. Then I assumed that her uncle dreamed, but she suggested that he really was. Since Rita didn’t want to talk about anything else, she had to talk.
— Was he young or old?
— Old, like our grandfather.
ICU doctors fell out immediately, because they all look no more than forty. Only a radiologist and an obist remained. Then she says,
— Uncle had a beard.
— There’s no such thing.
— That uncle was standing on our window.
Well, I think it’s a glitch.
— Fortunately, there are no uncles in the window. Except for the icons, I grinned.
— Yes, the uncle is like an icon with God.
I stopped understanding anything at all. Rita says:
— He was wearing a hat, with different pebbles. He’s still in the temple. Well, Father.
— What father? Is it Father Sava? He’s in Moscow. (I remembered our superior.)
— No, the other one. In the temple in Moscow, we were there. Like an icon.
I suddenly got a little creepy. For suspicion fell on St. Nicholas. Directly opposite the entrance, a copy of an ancient miraculous icon hangs in our temple.
— What did your uncle say?
— My uncle said, “You’re going to fall asleep and then you’re going to be fine.” And he folded his hand like this.
Rita clearly folded her fingers with a bipedal episcopal blessing, which had not been observed before. She knew how to be baptized at that time only all five and forgot what hand it was done.
That’s the story. Who knows what people see between life and death?
Three weeks later, Rita was discharged. She could run, jump, talk and was no different from the old Rita. There were no consequences from the injury. Unless it’s a huge scar all over your stomach. When she was discharged, the neurologist said, “I don’t know, honestly, who helped your child—God, angels, or some kind of prayer.” For joy, we rolled a feast with a mountain, having a picnic with kebabs in the lap of nature. Polyana was decorated with paper cranes (probably by association with the Japanese girl Sadako Sasaki).
Then they came to Moscow, came to the clinic to see a neurologist for a check, brought an extract. The doctor looked for a long time at the discharge, then at Rita, who had already managed to steal some seal and stamped with ecstasy of a leaflet for notes …
Finally, the neurologist said, After that, is there any doubt that God exists? Who else could do that?
I have been working for more than a decade, and I can remember only one similar case in all my practice: the boy drowned, spent 15 minutes under water, but not only that he survived, there were practically no consequences. There’s no way to explain it. Just a miracle happened. A year and a half has passed. Rita, who was supposed to die or be disabled, is engaged in music, ballet and… even stands on her head! (Although I honestly do not allow it.)
Author: Julia Linde
The Holy Land Charitable Foundation
Soul investment!
Orthodox stories from life
