Kapiolani Community College
Diamond Journal 2004

The Heart Beat
Anthony Matchen

I awoke at 5:00 a.m., the same way I have been doing for some time now. So often my body clock pulled my eye lids open before the alarm clock even went off. I lay there in bed, fighting the urge to close my eyes again. Then I kicked the covers off and jerked my body up to a sitting position in an effort to throw off the last grip of sleep.

After a quick shower, I opened the closet and fanned through the rack of unironed, wrinkled shirts. For a second, I pondered why I hang wrinkled shirts.
  I got to my uniforms, all three hanging next to each other, neatly pressed still in the clear plastic bags from the cleaner. I had always realized the responsibility and the symbolism I placed on myself by wearing my uniform and badge. I felt it was like putting on a suit of armor. It re-enforced my duty to serve help and protect those who needed it. Each piece of equipment on your belt takes months of training to acquire the discipline demanded of you by training instructors. At graduation the final piece is bestowed upon you, the badge, commonly referred to as your shield. Webster defines a shield as “A broad plate of defensive armor; Anything that protects.” I learned that by Webster’s standards my shield and armor would prove useless for the attack on my heart that I would soon endure.

It was a day like any other, some laughs with my beat partners and with the rookie I had been assigned to train. Yes, I would say a pretty good day up till then. As the rookie and I sat in the blue and white outside the station, I began explaining to him the process of doing a field line up and what his specific responsibilities in this procedure would be.

The rookie was listening intently as I pulled the blue and white away from the curb into traffic. I did not really notice the white van as it passed our vehicle on the left side. I observed the van driving along normally about thirty yards in front of us a few moments later.

Then suddenly, without warning the van radically jerked to the right, almost tipping itself over from the violent motion of the maneuver. As I watched in disbelief the van rammed up onto the sidewalk. Like a juggernaut the van barreled along forcing its way between several parked cars and a concrete wall. The van continued on until the concrete wall ended. It temporarily vanished in a cloud of dust as it careened through a hedge and a chain link fence. The van came to rest upright,from my position I could see no major external damage.

Having seen many car accidents before, my instinct told me that the passengers although shaken were most likely not seriously injured. I was setting myself up big time for what happened next. My first thought was, “What the *!@!* is this guy thinking?” Then training took over and I reached for the radio mike to report the situation.

AM: “2 Bravo 559” (My call sign)

Dispatch: “Standing by 2 Bravo 559”

AM: “I have a on beat code-1,(Car accident) on Kam IV Road, a white van has crashed into someone’s front yard. I’ll let you know”.

Dispatch : “10-4” (Understood)

I got out of the car and started for the van. The rookie was hot on my heels. With the dust still settling, I began to approach the crash site. I tried to mentally prepared for anything. I had no idea what had caused this crash or if the driver and occupants of the van would be combative. My hand moved up to the butt of my weapon, still in the holster, as I prepared to fight or help.  That is when something caught my eye. In the driveway of the yard on the sidewalk I saw something. It took my attention away from the van. It was a little girl! What was she doing on the sidewalk? I moved towards her. Her body lay in an awkward position.
My heart began to pound as the adrenaline began to pump into me. My eyes darted back to the van. OH MY GOD! She flew out of the van! That was the only logical explanation my brain could come up with.

AM: “2 Bravo 559, send me a 10-10 (Ambulance). I have a child ejected from the vehicle!”

Dispatch: “10-4, 559”

I stood over her for a second. Her long black hair was strewn across the white concrete side walk. She could not be more than ten, so young, I thought. I bent down to take her vital signs. I would need all my training and discipline now. I had to stay calm. I was the only help on scene. The rookie was speechless. I put my ear just above her mouth in an effort to hear or feel for her breath, there was none. I pulled back to look in her eyes.

She had the beautiful eyes of a child, deep and dark. I could also see them looking past me in haunting way straight into the noon day sky, unblinking. I wanted so much to help her but my heart sank as I realized she could not see me. I knelt down by her side. Maybe I missed something. A sound. A heart beat. A movement. Maybe I could start C.P.R. I tilted my head to get closer to her face. My mind was racing trying to fight off the grip of fear and panic as it placed its fingers around my heart.

My blank gaze was broken by what I saw in front of me next. Off the sidewalk in the yard where the van had come to rest, I saw something. There, partially obscured by hedges, was another pair of legs! As I stumbled towards what I thought I saw, a knot was building in my stomach. There, just a few feet away, was the body of another little girl. Her body lay limp, her legs were sticking out of the bushes. I could not see the rest of her until I got closer.
The torso of her body hung down over the side of a small rock wall contained within the yard that the van had crashed into. Although in my mind I made a conscious effort to sound composed on the radio, I failed.

AM: “559” I need a second 10-10, I have a second ejection. It’s another child!”

Dispatch: “Oh no! Ok! Ok!”

Now adrenaline was all I had. I was oblivious to anything around me as I leaned over the wall to get near her face. Her body was lying at a strange angle. I feared moving her so I bent over the wall next to her. As both of us lay next to the van, I looked at her face, another young face. I saw fluid in her mouth, a pinkish red color, and a faint gurgling sound caused the fluid to bubble.

What should I do? The child’s body looked contorted in an unnatural position. If I moved he, she could die! If I didn’t, she could die! But she was breathing. Was this her last gasp for life? Should I move her to help her breath? I languished in the agony of trying to make a decision that I was not prepared to make. I shut my eyes for a second and opened them, looking past the child.

At that moment I passed into what can only be explained as going from the real world of five senses to the surreal world were reality is an uncertainty and disbelief and denial are lord and master. There in front of me lying under the van was the motionless body of a third little girl. I would never even have seen her had the second girl’s body not been draped over the wall forcing me to place my head down there.

I swear I became two entities at that moment. The one in the uniform got up and moved around to the side of the van, got down and crawled under the van to the little girls side. The other, stricken with panic and gripped by fear, simply followed along.

AM: “559 I need three 10-10’s ! That’s three! I have a third child ejected! Expedite, please!”

Dispatch: “Ok. Three, yeah. I got it, three!”

As the words left my mouth, I wondered, “How did she get ejected and end up under the van?” In this moment of utter chaos, my brain needed to explain to my heart that there was a logical explanation for it all. The front of the van had come to rest on the rock wall lifting it about a foot. There was just enough room for me to slide under without my back touching the heated exhaust pipe.

The child lay on her back towards the front of the van. Her eyes were closed as if asleep. As I slid up to her I saw her chest rise and fall in a rapid manner. There was only enough room for me to lie next to her. I placed my hand on her chest and felt her heart beat. I never knew a heart could beat so fast. It felt like it would pound right out of her body.

I knew her heart was doing its job, diligently fighting to keep her alive. The beat of her heart also did something else. The second I felt its force against the palm of my hand, it gave me the first ray of hope. The intangible force of her heart beat went throughmy hand into me and lifted my own heart out of the hopeless black pit it lay in.

I began to whisper in her ear. “Hey, hang on. I’m here. Help is coming. You’re going to be okay.” I whispered words of comfort in her ear as we lay there for what seemed an eternity. I had to communicate to her someway, anyway to hold onto to life. I looked down at her right leg. It had been broken at the shin and was bent almost into a “V” shape. The bone had forced its way through the flesh and was exposed. I was relieved to see that the blood flow was coming very slowly from the wound.

A colony of red ants whose home had been in the wall were all over her shin biting her. I could not reach them to brush them off. I was enraged that they would bite this injured child. I wanted to pull my nine millimeter pistol from it’s holster and blast those little !@#!’s.

I surveyed the van’s front under carriage to see what was holding it up. If it came down now, I was in no position to do anything about it. It seemed to be resting on top of what was left of the rock wall it had struck. It looked secure; the smell of burning oil, and hot evaporating water was all around. The pungent smell of burning rubber was just above me but I could not see where it was coming from. I dismissed the thought of fire to stifle my fear.

The next sound I heard were footsteps and police radios. Finally, back up had arrived. The only thing I could count on, the only thing I was absolutely certain of was that my brothers and sisters would come. I realized I never called for them. But they had heard the alarm in my voice from the second I let dispatch know what had happened. I grew stronger as did my hope for the last little girl. I could hear them talking about supporting the van so it wouldn’t come down on her and me.

Then, two firemen slid under the van. I saw the look of disappear on their faces. I passed on the hope that the little girl had given me. “Her heart beat is strong,” I said. Their faces changed from despair to determination.

For the first and only time since I had placed it there, my hand slid away from her chest. The sensation of her heart beat was still there on my hand. I crawled out from under the van as I backed away from the scene and let the emergency rescue people move in the mystery that had perplexed from the beginning began to materialize.

I kept telling the dispatcher that the children had been ejected from the vehicle. But even as I said that I remembered that both doors on the van had been closed. The windshield was intact there was no way for anyone to have been thrown from the vehicle.

But as I looked at the whole scene, now disengaged from it, the answer was painfully clear. A lone shoe on the sidewalk, schoolbooks scattered in the yard, a backpack under the van. These children had not come from the van.They had been on the sidewalk! The irony stank so bad I wanted to throw up! These three little girls had been on the sidewalk just where we adults tell them to walk to be safe. They had not been running across the street irresponsibly or crossing against the light. They had been following the rules like good kid’s walking on the goddamn sidewalk! That explained why I had not figured out at first where they had come from. My view of them had been blocked by the van as it barrelled up onto the sidewalk and then down on them.

All my emotions had been pushed to the limits, anger, fear, denial, sadness. Taken individually they could each be dealt with. The one that lingers is always the most difficult, “acceptance.” There was no way to accept this obscene situation, no justice for this event. The driver later explained he had simply reached down for a bottle of water and lost control of the van. Stupid, yes, but even he was a victim.  I did not sleep for weeks after that event. I was burdened with guilt about not being to help or protect those children. My shield and armor failed to protect them or myself.

And so it happens that way from time to time as I recall that day. Still, the one little girl under the van did survive, and from time to time, when I think back to that day, I recall the feel of her heart beat on my hand.