Human Fragility

On the 21st January my Uncle was the unfortunate victim in a hit-and-run road traffic accident in Croydon. He sustained some major injuries and was eventually airlifted to the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel (the only major trauma centre in London which currently has helicopter facilities) where he was immediately taken to Intensive Care. He’s making slow but steady progress, albeit with a couple of bad days when things weren’t looking so good, although his legs were very badly injured and it will be some time before he’s able to walk again, and even that may never be a full recovery.

The point of me writing this is not to gain a sympathy vote by any means. It’s just made me realise how fragile and vulnerable we are as human beings. That may seem like an obvious observation – thousands of people are involved in serious accidents around the world every day - but it doesn’t really register until something happens to somebody you know. My uncle is a great bloke. Part of him being a great bloke is that fact that he’s always been a very strong and dependable character; the sort of person who you could turn to if you were in trouble or had a problem. He was in the Metropolitan Police Force for over 30 years, and had reached the level of Area Commander before he retired in 1994. He’s also a big guy; well over 6 ft tall and very well-built, and this just adds to his overall persona of the all-round protector. In an irrational sense it seems almost impossible that this solid and dependable man could be physically hurt or injured, especially as a result of something totally unpremeditated, and I’m sure this feeling is magnified intensely within his own immediate family.

Thus, when I went to visit him in hospital a couple of days after the accident, it was rather strange to see this great hulk of a man lying helplessly on a bed in ITU. In fact he’s such a big bloke that they had to transfer him soon after to an air-cushioned bed rather than the foam mattress he’d originally been put on for fear of him developing bed sores. His new bed also had the clever facility of being able to slowly tip from side to side to ensure that he didn’t spend too long in one position. (I remarked to my mum that he almost looked as if he were roasting on a spit.) I say he was helpless; there was nothing he could do as he was heavily under sedation, but he was connected up to various monitors and drips, as well as half a dozen tubes protruding from his mouth including one to and from the ventilator to take over his breathing. It’s not an unknown image – I’m sure a similar scene is played out in every episode of Casualty – but again it just didn’t look right that this strong and dependable man was at the mercy of all these artificial aids just to make sure he was ticking over. My Mum, who’s an ITU nurse herself, spent most of the afternoon explaining to me how everything worked and what it was doing, which I suppose instilled some confidence as the mass of equipment can look very frightening and daunting to the uninitiated.

It’s funny (though again obvious, I suppose) how incidents such as these can put people into unusual situations. For instance, my Mum lives with her husband in the Midlands and has done so on and off for several years (with a stint in France in between for good measure), so it was strange for me to be spending my Saturday afternoon with her, a time for me which is usually taken up with household chores or DIY. It also prompted some nostalgic memories about my uncle from both my Mum and I. This particular Uncle is my Mum’s sister’s husband, but although not a blood relation he and my Mum have still known each other for 40-odd years. In fact, my Dad and Brian trained together at Hendon Police Training College in the early 1960’s, and it was my Dad meeting my Mum that led to Brian meeting my Mum’s sister, who eventually became his wife. My Mum told me that Brian had been an amateur athlete when he was younger, specialising in acrobatics, something which I had no idea about. She also told me that he’d fallen into a bonfire when he was a kid and had his legs badly burnt which resulted in him having to wear callipers for years. This was apparently the reason that he’d had a hip replacement a few years ago, as the prolonged use of the callipers had put a gradual but great strain on the offending leg and joint.

These thoughts then prompted my own memories of Brian from when I was a kid. My parents divorcing in the late 1970’s prompted my Aunt and Uncle to help my mum out by taking my sister and I out some weekends, and I remember Brian often coming over to our flat on a Sunday morning with my cousins and taking us all to the swimming baths. My cousins were very much the outgoing boys that they should have been; they both loved playing sports and were very good swimmers. However, I was slightly younger than them and very shy as a kid; I hated any sort of sport and wasn’t very good at swimming, and thus in the changing rooms after our swim my cousins would share a cubicle (my sister being in her own cubicle in the ladies changing room) and I would go in another with Brian where he would make sure I towelled myself dry properly. I can see myself standing in front of him in the cubicle with my eyes closed as he vigorously dried my hair with a towel; an amusing extra thought being that I must have had my face in his genetalia at this point. This also made me recall one occasion when I’d stayed with my Aunt and Uncle overnight one weekend and my youngest cousin and I were running upstairs early on Sunday morning, only to run straight into Brian’s dangly bits once again as he was standing at the top of the stairs putting his dressing gown on. Many other nice memories came to mind, one of which although quite recent I had forgotten all about, and that was that my Brian and Roma had very kindly lent me some money a few years ago as I was knee-deep in debt at the time. It was only a few hundred pounds but it was a real lifeline for me, and I felt rather guilty that I’d forgotten about it, especially considering the circumstances which had prompted me to remember.

The most alarming thing that my Mum told me that afternoon was the exact whereabouts of the road accident. I’d assumed at the time that because he was at the Royal London Hospital, the incident had occurred somewhere in Central London, but my Mum then explained to me that it had in fact been in Waddon near Croydon, and he’d been airlifted by helicopter to the RLH for the reason I’ve already stated. I then realised that the road in question where Brian was hit is actually on my route home from work. She then told me that it had occurred at about 3.30pm, but he was only airlifted away at about 4.30pm as there were several precautions they had to take before they could risk moving him from the scene. As she was saying this, I cast my mind back to the day in question, and I remembered that there had been horrendous traffic on the way home that evening which had only cleared once I got past the very spot where he’d been knocked down. The section of road in question was sealed off with ‘POLICE –DO NOT CROSS’ tape and there was lots of police vehicles and police men and women milling around. I could see that it had been something serious, but I’d assumed that it was a murder or something; Waddon, and in fact Croydon in general not being the most salubrious of areas. Little did I know that Brian had been mown down a couple of hours previous and had only just left the scene.

As I type this it’s become apparent that my initial reason for writing this piece has developed somewhat; what had initially been an opportunity to express my thoughts on human fragility has now grown to encompass the innumerable events that transpire within a close-knit family as a result of an accident of this nature. Again, this may seem an obvious statement, as everything that occurs at any point in time has an infinite knock-on effect, but again, for me, it’s only something like this that brings it to light over and above the usual natural course of events in everyday life. A very sad side effect of Brian’s accident is that a very close and longstanding friend of his who is dying of cancer was due to spend what would probably have been his last evening with them a couple of days after the accident occurred. Obviously this never happened, and it’s now highly unlikely that Brian will see him again.

There are other indirect consequences resulting from the accident. Family members who rarely see each other have been thrust into each other’s company for long periods of time. Historical conflicts or disagreements between people are all but forgotten in light of the crisis, and a combination of these two consequences has resulted in an opportunity for re-acquaintance, reflection and a chance for two sisters to put a lot of history behind them and go forward with renewed kinship. Here then is yet another thread to evolve within this article; no matter how insignificant or far removed it may seem, there is always something positive to come out of a tragic event. Our friend the Doctor once went to great lengths to impart this to his companions, and it’s a reminder of how complex and seemingly unorthodox life can be.

10th February 2004