Today is the 1 year anniversary of the day when the woman shot herself on the Meijer parking lot. The following blog is copied from my old Live Journal blog which I wrote in the days following the incident. I've left the spelling as is, please understand that I was in no mood for spell check at the time. R.I.P. Deborah.
8/20/06 12:54 am
I can't believe what happened tonight...
I really don't want to have to think about it, but I guess I'll write it all down while it's still fresh in my mind. Mike and I went out to eat tonight, and afterwards we decided to go to Meijer for some supplies for his saltwater tanks. As we were leaving the store, we passed behind a car in the parking lot and heard a loud but muffled "pop". We turned to each other and said "what the hell was that?". I looked around, saw no one nearby, and couldn't see anybody in the car through the tinted windows. I assumed it was empty and the noice was nothing of importance, so we kept walking. Just a second or two later I hear the car door open so I turned around. Sitting in the pasanger seat was an elderly lady, and from the distance I was from her by this point I could tell something was wrong, but I couldn't tell what. I told Mike to wait a minute and started going twoards her. Still walking in her direction, I could see that she was kind of slumped over and I asked her if she was OK. All she could say was "no" and her eyes rolled back in her head. That's when I saw and heard the blood just pouring and gurgling from her chest, right over her heart. I don't think I will ever forget the sound the blood made and her heart will still pumping, it was like a small gyser, just coming out in spurts. I screamed at Mike to call 911, and tried to pull myself together to help her. At first I couldn't tell what had happened to her, at first I thought maybe something in the car had exploded and hit her in the chest, because there was a little bit of smoke, but I didn't see anything out of the ordinany. The next thought was that she had some kind of device in her heart that exploded. When it finally dawned on me that it was a gunshot wound I really started to panic. I was frantically looking around for the shooter, trying to duck behind the car door for cover, but there was no one around. I didn't see any bullet holes in the winshild, so I had to override my fear of being shot and try and help her. I screamed for help and was approached by a man whom I asked for a shirt or something to hold on her chest. He gave me the shirt off his back, and another man gave me a shirt that was lying in his car. I put these on the wound and put as much pressure on it as I could. I asked one of the men to go around to the drivers side and try and hold her head up to help maintain her airway. He did, but by this point her breathing was irregualr and infrequent, gasping for air really, what is called "aganol breaths". You mainly see this right before death, when it's really too late. I couldn't even feel a pulse in her wrist, and the one I got from her carotid artery in the neck was faint and slow. Mike saw a gun lying on the passanger side floorboard, and that's when it finally dawned on me that she had shot herself. A woman showed up and said that she had met her earlier in the store, and comformted her becuase she was really upset. She and her gentleman friend had a fight earlier that evening and was talking about killing herself. The other lady calmed her down and said she was going to run in the store real quick, and would check on her on her way out. So, during all this I am informed that this lady has a boyfriend who is inside the store shopping, and someone said they were going to try and find him. Not too much later an elderly gentleman appears across from me and I ask if he is this lady's boyfriend. He answers yes, and had a blank look on his face. I don't think he was able to comprehend what was going on at that point. Some one led him away so he didn't have to watch her dying. Finally the police arrive and starting putting up police tape around us, but the ambulance still hasn't arrive. The police had to make sure the scene was safe for them to enter, and once they confirmed she had inflicted the wound upon herself they allowed the medics in. I was soooo happy to see them. They pulled her out of the car and worked on her for awhile before putting her in the ambulance and driving off. I then had to stand around for 2 hours answering questions over and over. There were a few bystanders who thanked me for doing what I did. One lady kissed me on the cheek and brought Mike and I a pop. The news crew showed up and kept trying to get me on camera. Whenever I noticed a camera pointed at me I would just turn around with my back to them. I really didn't want to be on TV for this. Anyway, during all this standing around one of the Sherrif Deputy's pulled me and the other man who was holding her head up aside to tell us that she had died on the way to the ambulance, and they had found out she was HIV positive. I am so glad I didn't do mouth to mouth on her like I knew I should have been doinf, but I didn't have any barier mask to put between me and her, and I know from being an EMT that you really shouldn't do direct mouth contact. I check my hands for any cuts, and although I do have a hangnail, I actually managed not to get any blood on my hands. I was smart enough not to touch her until those guys gave me the shirts. The blood never soaked through them either, becuase she had been taking a blood thinner, so most of the bleeding was hemmoraging into her abdomen. Despite the fact my chances of contracting her HIV are slim, I am still probably going to get an HIV test to be sure. I just keep seeing the image of the blood coming out of her chest over and over in my head. It was at that moment I was the most scared. After that I knew I was doing as much as I could for her without having any equipment and just worked on adrenaline. I am trying not to think about her boyfriend. He is a retired police officer, and it was his gun that he kept in the car that she had used. From what I was told, they really only had each other in life. I'm sure he is feeling at fault for having the gun there. But, I really don't want to think about it. I'm already feeling my own pain, I don't think I can handle feeling pain for him as well. That sounds terrible doesn't it? I didn't saything to him afterwards, becuase if I did it would be opening myself to more emotional trauma that I don't think I could handle. But at the same time I feel guily for not even telling him how sorry I am that he is going trough this. Whoever reads this, can you put him in your thoughts and prayers for me so I don't have to? It's just to heavy a burden right now.
8/20/06 10:43pm
I keep replaying the images of what happend last night in my head over and over like a CD on repeat. The details are starting to get fuzzy though; I don't know if my brain stored them in a short-term memory file (for lack of a better term) becuase it all happened so fast, or if my mind is purposly blacking it out as a defense mechanism. Here is a link to the news coverage of the story. The stupid reporter got some details wrong, I was coming OUT of the store, not going in when I heard the noise, and I didn't approach the car becuase of the noise, I only went over becuase the woman herself opened the door. You can see me in the shot of the woman's boyfriend crying. I'm wearing a white shirt and jeans, with black hair. The were only able to get shots of my back, whenever I noticed them filming me from the front I would give them a dirty look so they wouldn't use the footage. God, hearing those sobs again breaks my heart. http://www.theindychannel.com/video/9705949/index.html
8/21/06 8:07pm
The world is a messed up place...
I have had such a frusterating and emotional day it's hard to even describe. Early this morning while I was at work, my friend Lisa (who happends to be a nurse for an HIV specialist at the hospital I used to work for) called to tell me she had spoken to Dr. J and relayed the following instructions.
1. I need to start on anti-HIV medicatoin TODAY.
2. I need to find out what the woman's viral load and Hepatitis status are.
3. I need to get tested as soon as possible, then do follow up tests 6, 12, and 26 weeks from now.
I need to do all this becuase even though my exposure was minimaal, I was still exposed. Tiny droplets of blood could have entered my eyes or nose when the blood was gushing out of her without me even knowing it.To try and find the woman's viral status (I know that she was HIV positive, but the amound of the virus makes a difference) I tried calling the Sherrif's department that handeled the case who then directed me to the detectives office, when then told me to call the coroner. I call the coroner who is out of the office but leave a message. I have yet to hear back from the.
I then try to find a place that can give me testing and medication (for free or a major discount, mind you, as I have no insurance). There are tons of resources for testing, but NONE FOR MEDS. Dr. J gave me the name of a doctor in Indianapolis who is an HIV speciaist but didn't have the number. I call information, who gives me a number for somewhere completely different. I call information again, to finally get the right place, but the wrong department. I get transfered again to the correct department, only to be told that that particular doc's office at in a different location. Once again, transferred. I finally get this guy's nurse, only to be told that becuase this doctor's office is in Marion Country, and I technically live in Hamilton Country (I literally live less than a 1/2 mile over the county line) that I didn't quailify for any assistance programs they had.
By this point I am getting very frusterated. I call the Hamilton County Public Health Department who says they do the testing, but weren't sure about the medications and would see what they could do. I am trying to impress upon then that time is running out, that I need these things TODAY. They take my number and say they will call me back.
I break down and call the Walgreens near me just to find out how much this treatment is going to cost and see if I can just pay for it out of pocket. The pharmasist's exact words to me are "are you sitting down?" I ask if I should be, and he says yes. He then informs me that the cost of this treatment is $1,500! Up until that point I had not cried about this whole woman-shooting-herself-me-possible-contrating-HIV-thing. But when I was told how much this treatment was going to cost, I started sobbing. I start blubbering to the guy about how all I was doing was shopping when I find myself thrust into this horrible situation and was only trying to help, and now I can't even afford the medication it takes to prevent me from getting this woman's disease. He stops me and says "call me back in half and hour. I'm going to look into something." I do what he says, and am given the name of a woman who works at a pharmacy in downtown Indianapolis. I call her and am told that they have the exact medication I need. Her store has medications that were donated by patients who have changed treaments and have donated unused meds they don't need anymore. I ask her how much it will cost me. I'm told it's FREE. So for the second time in one day, I sob, only this time it's out of happiness. Mike and I drive down there, get lost, finally find it, and am given the medication. The woman there was so nice and took me in a room for privacy and explained eveything to me, and asked me how I was doing. She said she was so worry that I had to go through all this. She even told me about a doctor she had spoken to about my situation who was so outradged that no one else would help me that he offered to help with testing and treatments, most likely for free as well. Dr. J back in Urbana also re-arranged his schedule on Friday for me to go and see him. Normally he is booked months ahead of time.
So now I have my meds and doctor appointments. The only problem is that the reason it worked out for me was by happening to know Dr.J, and by pure luck that I called that particuar Walgreens and spoke to that particular pharmisist who knew that other lady downtown with the donated meds. None of these things came from a resource freely assessable to any of the government agencies I spoke with today. That is just sad.
I'm going to go, I feel nausus from my meds as one of the side effects, but hey, it's better than HIV
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