...and breathe!

As medical students who just completed priclinicals, the excitement of being a step closer to becoming actual doctors was all in the air, we had just rented an apartment which wasn't that far from the teaching hospital and were taking a tour in the university-cum-hospital premises.

As we walked down the main road leading to the Orientation Centre, one of my friends, Abel turned his neck around as if looking for something, the look on his face made me and the rest of my friend follow suit, and there we saw a well adorned horse, galloping with light speed towards so fast that I had little time to take in the details, shiny nose band, head latch and reins, must have had a height of about 15 hands. With the speed of light, the horse rode past us, I could even feel the brush of wind despite not being the one at the end at which the horse rode past. The next thing I saw was a seemingly lifeless body some inches before us. The body was that of a boy, not more than 13 years,gasping for breath with a bloodied face, the seriousness of his condition was such that his facial expressions changed with each inhale. The horse had knocked him over! The way he was gasping for breath could mean that he had his lung affected and could mean he was suffering from tension pneumothorax: a severe condition in which air is trapped in the chest making it difficult for him to breath. If that told me anything, it is something had to be done quick and fast. By the time I all these was going in my head, crowd of people have already started accumulating, attempting to take him to the which is still distance from where the accident happened. My friends suggested that we do something else the boy could die so we set to work . I happened to have been carrying the exact same needle used in thoracostomy and with the help of my friends, we succeeded in evacuating the air from the boy's chest. Although he became unconscious soon after that probably due to the pain, his breathing returned to normal. He was shortly after taken to the hospital by an ambulance which somebody probably called while we were at it. It was an exciting and motivating experience. I and my friends felt like heroes!

A day later we checked on the boy in the hospital, he was doing absolutely fine after another minor surgery. We were praised greatly by the doctors but also secretly mildy scolded because what we did had a huge risk as we were just done with preclinicals at the time, and it was all book knowledge applied. All I know is that what mattered most to us at that time was a young boy's life, and I was so happy we saved it! What still saddens me a little till date is that the rider was never caught!

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This is a fictional story!

Thanks for reading.

Yours Layly,

❤️❤️❤️

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