Yesterday, me and Lee-Anne were coming back from a community barbecue and we walked by someone wrapped in sheets, lying with his face in a pool of viscous yellow fluid. His location seemed strategic, as it was beginning to rain and he was under a bus shelter, surrounded by bags filled presumably with his possessions. Kitchener has its share of homeless people, as I've explained in my posts about our two encampments. I generally don't like to draw attention to someone's struggles, but this guy seemed in an unusual state of disrepair. Lee-Anne asked if we should check in on him, and I agreed we should.
I asked him if he was okay. He said that he was cold and asked us to please help him. In my head, I inventoried what we were carrying to see if there was something we could give. We had leftover food from the barbecue, but no clothing or anything to help keep warm.
I asked him what his name was and he told me. I won't repeat it here. It was a common name, but in the off chance it could be identifying, I'll leave it out. I asked him if he needed to go to the emergency room. The bus shelter we were at was directly in front of a hospital. Seemed an opportune place to have a medical emergency.
He managed to say that he'd just come from there but they hadn't done much for him. He said he was thirsty and asked me to get a bottle of water from one of his bags. I took out the bottle and was going to hand it to him but he opened his mouth. So I unscrewed the cap and fed him the water by hand.
After several mouthfuls he vomited, the contents the same consistency as the fluid pooling around his head. He kept asking for help, for us not to leave him, and saying that he was cold. I told him that we didn't have anything that could warm him, and asked if he would be okay with one of us checking in at the emergency room. He agreed.
Lee-Anne went in while I stayed outside with him. When she returned, she said that they told her that he would have to either walk in or we would have to call 911. I remember this rule from when I went to the emergency room. Someone collapsed outside the door and a nurse told him he'd have to walk inside if he wanted help.
Seemed silly to call 911 directly outside the hospital but this guy was not going to be able to walk there himself, close as it was. Even with support, he seemed unable to endure it. We asked for his permission to call, and then we did. A paramedic showed up before we'd finished reporting his symptoms.
She questioned him a bit and we learned that he was suffering from withdrawal sympotms. This surprised me a bit, as I would have guessed that he was overdosing. After some persuading she was able to get him into a seated position and helped him put on a sweater. She also helped him drink some more water but he vomited it back up again.
Another paramedic showed up and gave some background. Apparently he had been admitted to the ER but had been discharged after he became violent. They'd called the police but they never arrived, and they contacted several shelters but apparently he'd been kicked out of each of them for similar behaviour.
Seeing the state he was in, it was difficult to imagine he'd been physically capable of violence earlier in the day, or of traveling to the emergency room in the first place. Eventually they agreed to send him to another hospital by ambulance.
That's it. That's the story. I don't really have deep insights or any kind of moral takeaway at the moment. We'll likely never know what his fate was, but I hope he doesn't get kicked out of that other hospital, because it sounded like the very last place willing to provide him care.
Occasionally it occurs to me that, living close to a hospital, we are in close proximity to a lot of human suffering and death. I remember seeing someone being wheeled out of an ambulance with paramedics applying chest compressions. Having my own First Aid training, I know that the chances of someone surviving after requiring that level of intervention are slim. Weird feeling to witness someone probably dying.
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