I have had probably close to the worst 24 hours of my entire life, and i thought i would share it with my fellow OER members and in some cases friends.
I was at work yesterday afternoon when i recieved a call from my best friend, i answered the phone and said to him "G'day, hows it going?" to which he replied "Not too good mate"
He was at my Mum's place and there had been a tragic event taken place. My Mum was minding a friend of the family's 5 month old baby girl. The mother of the baby had just started back on her first day at work, and had dropped her little baby off to Mum to mind. After a couple of hours the baby crew tied and my Mum placed her down for a nap, over the next hour or so my Mum and stuck her head to check on the little girl, after a little while longer my Mum thought that she had been asleep for a while and went in to find that the baby had stopped breathing and appeared dead.
She immediately called the ambulance who assisted her to try and give CPR to the baby, there was no response and the ambulance crews soon arrived. Unfortunately there was also nothing the ambulance crews could do and the baby was officially pronounced to be dead. As soon as my mate had called me i was straight into my car and off to see my Mum, it was only a 10 minute drive but seemed to take forever.
I pulled into my parents street to see 2 ambo's, a fire truck and a couple of police cars. My mum was sitting in the kitchen with a close neighbour and was pretty much beisde herself. Having 2 young children myself, i felt physically sick and as empty as i have ever felt. I contacted my Dad who was also soon on his way home to see my Mum, by that time people from all different police and corroners dept had come to scene. They done there investigative work and declared no suspicious circumstances, the most likely scenario was SIDS. It seemed to take a few hours but finally the time had come where the police had contacted the parents.
They arrived in the police car and immediately jumped out of the car to enter the house. One of the paramedics directed them towards the room and where their little baby girl was still laying. It was something i will never forget to the day i die, seeing the parents having their lives torn apart within such a short space of time. To see the father of the baby walk out of my parents house carrying his little girl into the ambulance.
Luckily enough for my Mum's point of view, the parents responded to her very well by letting her know that they didnt hold her responsible and that they felt sorry and a little guilty that this had happened to her. My Mum and Dad joined the parents as they travelled to the Childrens Hospital to recieve their initial counciling. The procedure they follow is to get the parents to bring the child in with them and they sit in a room with a councillor and have the baby with them for that time, i suppose that this is meant to help with the grieving process.
My Mum spoke with one of the councillors later and was told that she was still in shock. I spoke to Mum today and she was telling me so many things that happened throught the night and it is just absolutrly tragic and so unfair. I know that is not a one off and that many other people have had to face this. When it happens so close to you, it really does effect you and really puts things into context. Here we are most days talking crap about footy and calling this player soft or should we have picked this player etc etc
I dont know if this is making much sense but i am just typing whatever comes to my mind at the minute and hopefully this will help me cope and start to move forward from this terrible event.
I just hope that people may be able to take something from this. I know that this will probably change the way i look at life for the rest of my life, and it makes me feel good when i wake up every morning and see the smiling faces of my 2 beautiful little children.
Anyway, i thats enough from me for now.
Take care all.
Bull
