RACE WITH DEATH

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 351, 11 May 1928, Page 7

RACE WITH DEATH

AMBULANCE WORK IN NEW YORK WHEN THE “CROUP BUS” SPEEDS Science and human sympathy swing in harmony when children’s lives are at stake. A vivid picture of the race against death, which is an almost hourly incident in great cities, is given in the “New York Times.” The writer describes the grim moments when the “croup bus” speeds to save some frail being from the grips of diphtheria. When an unmarked ambulance with its white-clad interne and nurse plays swift tag with the traffic, or clangs ominously along midnight streets, almost everyone turns to look after it. To the public it is only another ambulance. But to those physicians who as internes have clung to the strap at the back of a swaying car, the dark streak that passes so swiftly is perhaps a “croup bus” racing to save the life of a dying child. The “croup bus” takes care of serious cases of diphtheretic croup. The ordinary case of croup is nothing to worry about. The child automatically comes out of it and recovers. But the croup that accompanies diphtheria kills.

When the hurry call for a croup case comes in at the hospital the in terne snatches up a case of instruments to fit the age of the child and dashes for the ambulance. The nurse gathers up a package of clothes, for the patient may have to be bundled from a stifling room to the waiting bus, and meets the doctor as the ambulance tears into the courtyard to pick them up. Traffic Stands Aside Out into the street they are rushed, the traffic standing to right and left to let them pass; through sleet and snow, perhaps, the bus dashes on its way. It draws up at the curb and the doctor’s flashlight guides him and the nurse up rickety tenement stairs to a close room, where everyone in the neighbourhood is gathered giving advice around a burning croup kettle. In the midst of the hysterical crowd and the stifling fumes the patient gasps and chokes. The interne knows that the only thing that will save an advanced case of diphtheria croup is the surgical introduction of a silver tube into the trachea of the child. If there is no time to reach the hospital, lie performs the difficult operation immediately, but, if possible, he tries to get the patient to the better equipment and skilled surgeons at the hospital. Frightened Mothers Sometimes a mother who cannot speak English is so frightened that she cannot understand what it is all about. The clanging ambulance terrifies her, and she clutches her baby, afraid to give it into the charge of the white-clad strangers. Someone explains to her, if there is time, and she is allowed to go with the doctor and the Burse as they wrap the child in the clo hes the nurse has brought and rush down the stairs to the bus, which hurries them to the best available surgical help. The danger is not over when the ambulance starts back to the hospital. Doctor and nurse watch the patient anxiously, hoping for the iuck that will enable them to reach the hospital before the time when the tube must be placed in the child's throat. But very often the moment comes when the doctor realises that the child is dying. He raps on the window of the car, and the driver knows that the operation must be per-, formed immediately. The bus glides to the curb under the nearest street light. The doctor and the nurse slide the cot out of the back of the ambulance, so that the light falls on the patient, and the operation that means the breath of life is performed in some crowded New York street.