After our first day in Tremblant, while heading out to dinner, I heard a lady screaming. At first, it sounded like she was having a fight with someone. Then, I thought she was drunk. As I walked closer to her, I realized that she was not angry but scared, completely panicked. It appeared that her senior mother had fallen and hit her head. “Mama! Help! Help! Mama, stay with me!” There was an insane amount of blood on the ground in front of her and the lady was struggling to hold her mother’s head up.
I looked at Robert, my oldest, who is trained with St. John Ambulance, as he grabbed the first aid kit from the front desk at the hotel. I asked the valet to call 911. It was obvious from the amount of blood surrounding her that she needed emergency care.
I watched Robert as he conversed with the daughter in French to get more information about her mother. She was hysterical, speaking a thousand miles a minute, screaming and crying – and this made it hard for us to figure out what had happened. In my broken French, I was able to calm her down enough for her to stop, look at me and ask ” Il est médecin?” My son is not a doctor but has EMS training so I answered “Oui.” Silence. A sigh. Then, she broke down in tears, relieved. She suddenly trusted us; she trusted Robert.
I took the woman and walked her away while Robert started took care of her mother. As we walked in the cold, I got more details. Her mother had not fallen but had vomited something awful; I still can’t figure out how she eliminated that much blood from her stomach. Her husband was in Room 307; I sent Dave, who was standing back with my youngest, to find him. Soon the police arrived but were hands-off as they saw that my 19 year old had full control of the situation. A fire truck also pulled into the parking lot, followed by the ambulance; the paramedics worked with Robert until they took her to the hospital. Robert went back into the hotel, washed his hands and we went out for dinner. For him, it was just another day.
As it turned out, the woman had some kind of GI distress. She remained in the hospital for the rest of the week, had MRI’s, imaging and other tests done, but the doctors could not isolate the cause of the distress. She and her family were able to return home to Montreal on the same day we left Tremblant.
Here I am, almost two weeks later, still thinking about that night and the days that followed, about the fear that they went through in the days before Christmas. What stands out the most in these thoughts, though, is the pride that I felt while watching my son take control. The hotel staff were glad that they didn’t have to do anything, the first responders seemed quite happy to let Robert deal with the situation and the family was grateful that he was there to help. And me, I was more than proud to call him my son.
