Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis
Isabella: I had to call 911 when I was a senior in high school. It’s one of those things where you’ve been taught your entire life to call 911 during an emergency, but the second you do, it’s like, ‘Excuse me?’
I was with my boyfriend at the time and one of his close friends. I’m from Wentzville, so coming down to the City was a fun weekend activity. Shake Shack had just opened, so we were gonna check it out and then go to the Record Exchange and a couple of other random spots.
We were ordering our food after waiting 45 minutes in line and I saw our friend next to me put both hands on the counter and lean on it. I was like, ‘What the hell is he doing?’ I turned to look at him and was about to say something when he fainted and fell in the other direction. The line was out the door, so they had these dividers everywhere. And he hit his head on the big metal base of one of them so hard that he had a mini seizure. I saw the whole thing happen in slow motion. I can’t believe his head didn’t crack open.
I’d been around people who had seizures before, so I kind of knew what to do. I made sure he didn’t choke on his tongue and all that stuff. Once it passed, I asked about 50 people to move out of the way and got our friend to a seated position. My boyfriend asked, ‘What do we do now?’ I said, ‘I’m going to call 911. You make sure he doesn’t move.’
As I called 911 and told them what happened, our friend was out of it and kept saying, ‘I have to go to the bathroom.’ We didn’t want him to go by himself, so my ex started to help him. They got maybe three steps when he passed out again. Luckily, my ex was there to catch him. So we were like, ‘Let’s wait until the ambulance gets here.’
When they came, they took him to the hospital to give him fluids for dehydration since he had been hungover from drinking the night before. Turns out, he had a concussion and the seizure was probably stress-induced from how hard he hit his head.
Isabella: I was like, ‘Man, we were supposed to go downtown and have a nice little day. Then we spent all day in the St. Louis Children’s Hospital ER.’ After he got his fluids and went home, I’m pretty sure he was at school the next day. He and his friend group were all skaters, so he was like, ‘Whatever. I’ve had a concussion before.’
The second it was all over and I got in the car with my boyfriend afterward, I started bawling. It was so overwhelming. I was so concerned at the moment, but once I knew everything was fine, it was like, ‘I’m 17. That was A LOT!’ Luckily, I had a good dispatcher. She didn’t ask me any questions at first. I just said a million things and she said, ‘Okay, thank you for all the information.’
Lindy: If you didn’t call 911, what do you think would have happened?
Isabella: Lord knows because he passed out twice. Once the EMTs came, they put him on a stretcher. I hadn’t known him that long, so what if he had a history of seizures? That could have been really bad. In the moment, I was thinking, ‘Help needs to get here right now because I know how serious seizures can be.’
Lindy: Did you ever get your Shake Shack?
Isabella: The [most unbelievable] part is, we never did! After we left the hospital, it was all kind of traumatizing, and my boyfriend asked, ‘Do you want to go to Shake Shack now?’ About a month later, we ended up going when we came back to the City. But when we were standing in line again, I was like, ‘This makes me feel weird now.’
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Isabella Rainey is a Soulard resident.
Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis contributed to this photo story.
This story is a collaboration between Humans of St. Louis and Forward Through Ferguson for #Transforming911, an accountability and advocacy tool that examines St. Louis’ 911 system and serves as a call to reimagine public safety.
Learn more and get involved at transforming911.org.