It was cold this winter. There was an exuberant mood in the Netherlands. It was one of those mornings out of the books where the sun rises and shines its light over a white world with a frozen waterland. Beautiful skating weather and the average Dutchman cannot say that twice. As the only half Belgian (who cannot skate) in our assistant group, I had volunteered for this Saturday service.
Even though you don’t see daylight there, the Emergency Department is the indicator for the weather, the season, the state of society. Likewise that day. At the end of the morning the first unlucky ones with a broken wrist. Not much later also some more serious cases of broken hips among the tour makers. With a waiting room full of hats and scarves, there was almost a cookie & zopie-like atmosphere. I was just putting the last stitch on an ice hockey wound when the trauma signal went off.
“Young woman fell through the ice. Take it out of the water after ten minutes. Decreased consciousness. Arrival time five minutes.” A little later we were on the floor with the whole team crash room. It is a room in the hospital that is most like the pit stop in Formula 1. Everything is aimed at checking and helping someone in danger as quickly as possible. You can take X-rays, check heart rate and oxygen level on a monitor and even open a chest.
The stretcher was wheeled in by two paramedics. They handed over the most important information and then we lifted her to the bed. We watched her. With a temperature of 32 degrees, she was severely hypothermic. One of the best ways to warm up someone else is to “donate” your own body heat through skin-to-skin contact. This is only somewhat inconvenient in a crash room and perhaps also somewhat awkward among complete strangers.
A wonderful and almost equally effective alternative to this treatment is the so-called Bai Hugger, a wordy brand name. The device was invented in 1987 by American anesthesiologist Scott D. Augustine to keep patients warm during surgery. It is a kind of inflatable air mattress with micro holes connected with a flexible tube to a heating element. You stick the air mattress on the patient and turn on the heating, which then inflates the bed with warm air. It is a wonderful way to warm up and keep the patient warm.
Under the watchful eye of her frightened skating friends, the victim gradually recovered. After a few hours she was almost back to normal in bed with a cup of tea and a hat. “Nice and warm, like that bear hugger.” And she pointed to the air mattress. “I can also use it at home on the couch.” I smiled and said she could probably go home later. When I closed the curtain again, I heard one of the guys say. “Perhaps you should have a drink with me sometime, I can bear hugger are.”
A version of this article also appeared in the July 4, 2023 newspaper.