Read Crash for Free Online Page B

the right tone in an e-mail can be difficult. How would we convey the seriousness of the situation without throwing him into a total panic? We called the program director and explained our situation. Dan’s brother was in an accident. We needed to get word to him. She promised she would try.
    Since all we could do now was wait, Saul decided to book us a room in the hotel for hospital patients’ families across the street. We figured we could take turns getting some sleep. Shortly after Saul left to bed down, the Goucher College study abroad director called me on my cell phone. She told us she had left word with her Mexican counterpart at the language school. She also gave me the number of the family that was hosting my son. From Dan’s description of the area, it sounded pretty rural and quite indigent. So I was glad to learn they had a phone.
    My Spanish is limited and informal. I never took it in high school or college but have learned on the job from my patients over the years. Saul’s Spanish is nonexistent. So once again, I was on. I tried dialing the number from Neil’s room, but the nurse told me cell phones weren’t allowed in the ICU. She said they would interfere with patients’ monitors. I knew that with newer cell phones this just wasn’t true, an urban legend perpetuated, but I wasn’t going to argue with the woman who had control over when I got to see my kid. I went out to the waiting room to make the call. That’s when I learned that we don’t have international calling on our plan and it would take four days to get it. And no, she couldn’t connect the call, even if it was an emergency. I tried going through the hospital operator, but she couldn’t connect me either. I tried charging the call to my home phone, but there was no one physically there to accept the charges, so the operator said her hands were tied. I finally got a supervisor at the phone company to place the call for me. The line crackled and rang with an unfamiliar tone. A woman answered. I used my best Spanish to ask for my son. The woman replied with an energetic round of rapid-fire Spanish I did not understand. Then the line went dead. I didn’t know if I had been understood or not.
    I felt lost and alone. I thought if only Saul were in charge, everything would be better. He was the rock of the family, the decision maker, the doer. I was thrust into this position of family leader first because of my medical background, now because of my Spanish. But I felt anything but in charge. I slammed the dead receiver into its cradle several times in an unusual display of frustration. I was glad there were no other families in the waiting room to witness my outburst. I just sat there, my face wet with tears and snot, not knowing what to do.
    Then my cell phone rang.
    “Hello?”
    There was no sound. No reply.
    “Dan?”
    “Hey, Mom, what’s up?” He sounded so upbeat I knew he couldn’t have gotten the entire message from the language school or from his madre. His voice was crackly and time-delayed. It made me feel far away from him, but it was beautiful just the same. I hated giving Dan this news during what should have been the trip of a lifetime. I didn’t know how to begin.
    “Your brother’s been in an accident,” I said, quickly adding Dr. Chuck/Mitch’s reassuring words. “He’s gonna be just fine though. Don’t worry.”
    But I was worried, and Dan knew it. I filled him in as best I could. The broken leg, the crooked smile. I told him about Trista. I didn’t tell him yet that she had died, just that she was in worse shape than Neil. I didn’t know how much he could take in over the phone. I paused, waiting for his response. It came in three words.
    “Get me home.”

11
    A Nurse First
    When I was a little girl, I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to be when I grew up, but I knew I would be in one of the helping professions. I thought about becoming a social worker or a teacher of the deaf. In high school I finally