The wheels on this bus...

Do you ever feel the world is much smaller than you could possibly imagine? Maybe it is really just small enough for us all to be in reach
let me explain...

Today I was taking care of a frum boy, admitted for an asthma exacerbation (fancy word for attack too bad to be handled at home) this is routine here:
we give nebulized meds every 2 three or four hours, maybe a steroid, listen carefully to those lungs and dole out some good education to prevent future attacks.
This one was different,
this 13 year old boy was acting more like three!
The nurses in turn each complained to me that this boy cried at the smallest thing! Even getting breathing treatments which are annoying, but don't "hurt",would set the floodwaters drowning the nursing staff.
Weird, I thought, but filed this one away in the back of my head, there were things far more important to tackle today, a crying bar mitzvah boy was the last thing on my mind!

The end of the day was nearing ( though being that I am on call tonight, the day was only 16 hours short of completion!) and it was time to discharge my bar mitzvah bachur. I entered the room and gave my shpiel to the father. The boy, however, didn't once look at me, not even when I cracked my stupid asthma jokes ( tell you later, I promise you will regret you asked!) something seemed off...
I asked the dad to step out of the room and sat down to a shmooze
like sports?
NO
friends at school?
YEAH
like hospitals?
FLOODWATERS
hmm... I thought to myself,
The history and physical form filled in by my fellow residents yesterday said nothing of prior admissions, no past history, his physical exams had no appendix scars, no signs of overt long term illness....

I explored the wound a little:
So you ever been to a hospital as a patient? I mean just in and out quickly not overnight?
ugh... crying... YEAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!

Hmm, the trusty H and P, failed again!!!!

when?
last June
where?
"..... Memorial hospital"
ER? I ask?
YES!
He starts to make eye contact, I am on to something...

did you have an accident?
( not such a lucky guess, this is the number one reason for ER visits in the summer)
YEAH!!!

and in moments we have connected by a twist of fate:

Last June before I was a resident, I was on my way to a shabbos dinner in my neighborhood when I stumbled upon an accident scene just two blocks from my house. A city bus had jumped the curb and struck a Jewish boy on his way home from shul. I saw the ambulance, but heard BH that he was OK and was taken to ----memorial Hospital for observation only.

this was that SAME boy in front of me!!!

I shared this with the boy, that I knew his story and was there with him, and I believe it helped him open up to me.
It turns out he has been haunted by the memories of the accident, even though his body was unscathed. We talked things through for a while ....

When I first came upon the scene last year I thought to myself, how horrible to witness such an event and how I felt so bad to not yet be able to jump in there and help. Who knew that as the wheels of the world turn, that I actually would!

There is a reason, and to everything a purpose.