Читать книгу Operative Medicine and Responsibility - Helmut Lauschke - Страница 8

In the night from Saturday to Sunday of the second week of February there was a downpour, the severity of which is remembered. The thunderstorms struck down with unheard-of staccatos of rocky hardness and rushed in quick succession, interspersed with tremolos of the most powerful drumbeats, and made the marrow and leg tremble. Downpours formed floods in an instant, filling the furrows and holes with mud. The lightning flashed at angles over the sponge floor, severed thick branches from the trunks with violent blows, ripped through the claws, shocked and killed herds of cattle and goats. The thunderbolts hit the anvil like mighty hammers, so that the floor shook and trembled until the blows rolled onto the spongy carpet of the night.

The claps of thunder had torn the sky open. Flashing weather stretched behind the banks of clouds and illuminated the heaviness in the zigzag of the furthest stretch. Whether the glow was a message of peace that was announced in pink-light yellow colors, or, through the blood-red mixture, was the infernal fire sign, this question was expressed with irrepressible force when looking out the window. Then it was quiet as the answer to the question of existence gained weight, that the light spectacles could not be explained in one way or the other.

It was three in the morning when the phone rang. The night nurse said that a girl who was struck by lightning had been brought in. I put on my shirt and shorts and set off on the seven hundred meter walk, sandals in hand. The hospital vehicle was not available to those on duty. It was pitch black. The feet trudged in the mud and through large ankle-deep puddles. I tried to stay in the middle of the street. The checkpoint at the exit of the village was lit with a weak light bulb. I showed the “permit” and passed. A vehicle did not come towards me to illuminate the path in the puddle landscape. Dirty I passed the hospital entrance. I left the right entrance wing with the bent frame open and trudged through the lakes on the sodden forecourt. I washed the mud off my feet, legs and arms under the tap next to the entrance to the Outpatient department. I put on my sandals and stepped dripping into the waiting hall.

The night nurses widened their eyes when they saw the doctor coming with wet legs on wet sandals with mud splattered on his shirt and pants. But they didn't say a word about the unreasonableness of walking the path in the pitch darkness. A young girl, about 14 years old, was lying on the stretcher covered with a sheet and moaning in pain. I looked into the pale face of the girl who expressed the severity of being struck by lightning in a terrifying and stronger way than words can say. I carefully pulled the sheet from top to bottom and winced when I saw the charred right shin, over which half the length of the anterior and outer soft tissue layers had burned away. Further burns were found on the face, on the other leg, and on the left upper arm and forearm. The girl was already on the high-speed drip to fight shock.

The signs of death were already on her face, which overtook her two hours later, when she was in the intensive care unit almost painlessly. It was good that the girl was spared the amputation and a life with only one leg. It was a whole new experience for me that a person survived the lightning strike. So far it was the dead bodies on the sectional tables that were struck by lightning as people. On the way back through mud and puddles in the pitch darkness, the thought of pain and agony, and that the girl had the last bit of life over, writhed in me had to walk the bridge alone without getting a kiss goodbye from her mother. On the way I remembered the lines from the 5th Psalm in the German translation by Martin Buber:

“Listen to my sayings, YOU, / pay attention to my sighs, / note the voice of my groans, / O my King and my God, / for to you I pray. / YOU, / in the morning you hear my voice, / in the morning I equip you, / and I peek. // Because you are not a deity / you have a lust for sacrilege / an evil one is not allowed to dine with you / braggers do not stand before your eyes / you hate all those who suspect / you let the talkers of deceit disappear. - / The man of bloodshed and deceit is an abomination to YOU.”

Kristofina and the fate of her childhood were "engraved" in my memory.