On July 14, 2011 at 7:30am, 2 men became our family’s heroes. From that moment on it seemed incredible to me that we had barely spoken to them, didn’t know their names and never had the chance to say thank you. How was it possible that there were people just out there that had played such a huge role in our lives and we knew nothing about them? This had been on my mind for quite some time and after going back and forth I reached out to Toronto Paramedic Services and asked if we could arrange to meet these men. I wasn’t sure what to expect; you see stories like this in the media and I always wondered how the paramedics really felt about these meetings. For someone who is not a paramedic, I had always imagined that the most difficult part of their job was the fact that they have to walk away without knowing the outcome of the call. Did meeting people just feel like another obligation of the job or does it actually help to bring some closure? The commander who responded to my request answered that question right away – both of the paramedics who worked on Lily remembered her call vividly and were excited at the chance to meet again.
To say that we were nervous would be a complete understatement. What do you say to the people who actually saved your child’s life, who literally kept her heart beating? We’ve had doctor’s do that, who have held Lily’s heart in their hands and we’ve been able to thank them, but this just felt different. Perhaps because there was no plan, no preparation on their part; they didn’t have scans or echo’s to look at, they just had the information that was coming up on their screen and with that little information, they created a miracle and saved us from a life of grieving. I didn’t know how we were going to get through saying hello without turning into a blubbering mess, let alone actually get out the words that I wanted them to hear.
It was incredible to sit in a room with these 2 men, to have them see Lily with their own eyes, to hear the story of that day from their point of view. They were able to give us information that we never could have known. They told us that, contradictory to what we had always thought, they were both in the back of the ambulance working on Lily and had actually thrown the keys to a police officer and had him drive. They were incredibly careful not to communicate with words so that my wife, who was in the front, would not panic because they were also worried that it wasn’t going to end well. We found out that one of them had made a special trip to Sick Kids after their shift ended that day to come and check up on her (under the guise of picking up a piece of equipment). We sat in silence, and tears, and listened to the 911 call and I have never been more proud of my wife. I can hear the fear in her voice, hear how terrified she was but she didn’t allow that fear to win – the recording could be used as an example of the perfect 911 call. She was so calm, communicating all of the information so quickly and clearly and she was one step ahead the entire time: she had already put our dog in the crate and opened our front door before the dispatch operator could suggest it. While I had known that arrangements had been made to give us a recording of the call, I didn’t know that we were going to listen to it that day and I started to panic when they queued it up: could listening to that call do anything good or would it just bring all of the painful memories screaming back? But something happened as we listened, listened and watched Lily sitting on the laps of the men who saved her: it felt like healing. Towards the end of the tape, you can hear the sirens wailing as the paramedics pulled up to our front door and even then, from the safety of time and distance, I could feel the relief again, knowing that help was so very close.
It was hard to be eloquent though. I had so many things that I wanted to say to them but struggled to put those thoughts into words. How do you say thank you? How can you possibly put into words what their actions meant to our lives? I stayed awake late the night before we met thinking about what to say, because I knew that I had to be ready; that if I left it to chance I would miss something important and regret what I didn’t say. In the end, I realized that the only way I could ensure that was to write it down and I’m so grateful that I did, because while I got through saying hello, when I did try and say thank you, I was left in tears and I became the blubbering mess that I had been trying to avoid. So while I won’t share the entire letter with you, I will share this:
“To think of a world where we lost Lily breaks my heart and we came so close to that being our reality. You not only saved her life that day, but you saved ours as well – you saved our entire world. So thank-you. Thank you for coming into our lives on the very darkest day and giving us back the sunshine. Thank you for giving Lily back to us. Without you, we would be nothing and so thank-you for giving us everything.”
