husband in trouble- help in so many ways

Dear friends,
I want to say thanks to a lot of people in Qatar today.
Last weekend, my husband and I were doing our regular exercises at the Local sports club. After about an hour of jogging and walking, we decided to do our stretches. At this time, my husband felt dizzy and he just buckled over and fell on my shoulder. I was able to make out that he probably had low BP and required fluids urgently. It was around 9:30 at night. There were only a few people exercising at that time. I looked around for help. A football match was going on between two local clubs in the field and I saw a Red Crescent ambulance parked there. I found a fellow walker, resting after his exercises and asked him to sit with my husband , while I went to look for the Red crescent nurses. A friendly sports club employee obligingly pointed them out to me and also came with me to talk with them in Arabic, explaining the situation to them. One of them immediately ran to my husband with his first aid box and took his BP- 80/60mm Hg. My husband who hates being sick or being labelled sick, jumped up and tried to prove that nothing was wrong, when he fell over again. By God's grace, he didn't injure his head or spine and fell once more on me. The Red Crescent nurse immediately dialled for the HMC EMS ambulance and after that told us that we had to go to HMC ED as he didn't have IV fluids with him. Meanwhile my husband started feeling dizzy even while lying down and I ran to get some water for him to drink again handing him over to the friendly walker. The Red crescent nurse had to go back to the game.
About 15 minutes later, the HMC EMS ambulance came to the sports club, the Red crescent nurse came twice in the meanwhile to check on my husband and finally handed him over to the EMS nurse. I am so grateful to him for having come so promptly to look at my husband and calling EMS for us.
The EMS nurses - one was filipino and the other Moroccan, very friendly and cheerful. They quietly took over, put my husband on a stretcher, started an IV , all on the sports club grounds itself. They then forced my husband to go with them to the ED, all the time keeping up a cheerful banter and asking him about his work and what procedures he does. This nurse with his cheerful demeanour and jokes , smiling face and constant effort to boost our spirits, I will never forget. He told us abotu Casablanca from where he was from. When my husband told him that he had visited Casablanca last year , he was thrilled. The way health care personnel talk to their patients can work wonders and make the patients who are already feeling so down, is amazing. We experienced it first hand. Both of these people were like angels to us. None of them cribbed about having been brought down at that time of the night and things like that. I am eternally grateful to these miracle workers.
Similarly when we went into the ED, a lot of the ED physicians went out of their way to help us, reassure us and do all investigations in a matter of seconds. I was further reassured when an Iraqi doctor with whom I had just met with the day before came forward and examined my husband myself. Another angel in disguise.
After he was discharged from hospital, I had to call a Karwa taxi to take us back to the sports club where our car was. I was wondering how I would get a taxi at that time of the night- it is difficult enough to get one in the day time. Imagine my surprise, when I saw a taxi just cruising into the entrance of the ED, with no passengers inside. There were many nurses waiting to go home ,after their shift. But none of them hailed the taxi, probably seeing my distress. I asked the driver if he could wait for a few minutes while I went inside to call my husband and he said he would and he did wait till I got my husband from inside the ED. I am thankful to all those nurses , who were waiting before me in line for the taxi and very obligingly allowed me to call the first taxi for myself and also to the taxi driver who drove us to the club safe and sound.
I thank all these people- angels to my husband and my eyes,- people from different cultures and nationalities, who joined together like a network in helping us through those difficult hours.
It enriched my faith in the human nature and especially of the Qatari population, with its many faces, colours, nationalities , religions, cultures and so on, but united when it comes to helping some one in distress. Hats off to Qatar, its Red crescent nurses, the EMS services and the ordinary man on the street and its taxi drivers who help people selflessly.
AP