My hero

Eileen Lucas

Toni Lucas

Eileen was a tiny, elfin woman with a will of iron.  I got to know her after she had already started her family.  She told me once about a hard time that she had with her twins.  It was in the 60s, and she lived in a small town outside of Calgary that didn't have a hospital.   She called her doctor in Calgary to tell him that the younger twin was ill.  After describing the symptoms, he told her that it seemed to be a cold, and that most new mothers tended to overreact.   With four children at home, two under two months old, she didn't tend to overreact to every simple sniffle.  He told her that if she wanted to bring in the baby in the next few days for a check up, she could.  If the weather permitted.  The snow was already deep, winds were high, and the weather was getting worse.

Within 2 hours the baby was worse, but the news announced that the roads were impassable.  Against the doctor's advice, she decided would take her sick baby to the hospital.  Her husband was gone out of town for a job, so she arranged for a neighbor to watch the two older children.

The next hurdle to overcome was that the car would not be able to make the trip.  Eileen called a neighbor, and asked to borrow their tractor.  It had an enclosed cab.  They agreed, and she put chains on the family car to make it to their place.  Leaving the two oldest children with the neighbors, she got into the tractor and away she went with two well wrapped packages to the hospital in Calgary.

When the police stopped her because she was driving farm equipment inside of the city,  She demanded that they either give her and her children a lift to the hospital or get out of her way, because she was going.  Most police officers that I have met can be reasoned with, and these were that sort.  They had her park the tractor and took her to the hospital, lights and sirens on all the way.

In the hospital, staff had been warned by the police that Eileen was being brought in with her sick child.  She didn't get to skip much of the emergency room hoopla, but a pair of hands took one of the babies as she tried to fill out the paperwork.

It turned out that the doctor on duty was her family doctor, the same one she had talked to earlier.  He was examining the baby that he had taken, and scolded Eileen because the baby was fine, she had risked everything over a cold.  She looked at him in disgust.  "Your looking at the wrong twin."  Perhaps he thought that the one that was crying must be the one that was in distress.

Eileen, holding the 'sleeping' bundle, flipped back the cloth.  The baby was pale, her lips were blue and she wasn't breathing.  The doctor turned pale as well, as all hell broke loose trying to save the life of the undersized infant.  How long has she not been breathing? asked the doctor.  Eileen told him that she had to stop the tractor to do mouth to mouth on the tiny infant every few minutes on the trip once she was halfway into Calgary, and continually in the back of the cruiser.

The doctor, after doing everything that he could do immediately for the baby, apologized for thinking that she had overreacted.  If she had stayed home, the child would not have made it.  That baby stayed in an incubator for the next three weeks.

Sometimes you have to go against the most professional advice, face the authorities, make things happen when you don't have the resources.  Sometimes you cant even allow an act of God to stand in your way.  You just do it if it is what you have to do for your kids.

Thanks mom. Without your efforts that day, I would not be here today.  You're my hero.