Men are born into the world, they say.
About fifteen years ago, in the dead of night, a nurse from the admissions ward rushed into our oncall room.
Critical patient in Theatre Two! she shouted.
I was already there; the team had gathered, and on the operating table lay a little girl, perhaps six. While I was scrubbing in and donning my gown, the details unfolded.
A car had smashed into a family of four: a father, a mother, and twin childrena boy and a girl. The girl had taken the worst of it; the impact struck the right rear door of the car, the very spot where she was seated. The parents and her twin brother emerged with only scratches and bruises, treated on the scene.
The girl suffered broken bones, blunt trauma, jagged lacerations, and a great loss of blood. Minutes later the lab sent back a blood report, accompanied by a grim note: we had no thirdpositive blood type in the bank. The situation was criticalher odds were counted in minutes. We swiftly tested the parents. The father was secondpositive, the mother fourthpositive. Then we remembered the twin brother; his type was, of course, thirdpositive.
They were huddled on a bench in the admissions lounge. The mother wept openly, the fathers face was pallid, and the boy stared at the floor, his clothes stained with his sisters blood. I knelt beside him until our eyes met at the same level.
If you carry that blood type, youre practically immortal, I whispered.
Your sisters badly hurt, I said.
Yes, I know, the boy choked, squeezing his eyes shut with his fist. When we crashed, she hit the steering hard. I held her on my knees; she cried, then stopped and fell asleep.
You want to save her, dont you? Then we need to take some of your blood for her.
He stopped sobbing, glanced around, breathed heavily, and nodded. I gestured for a nurse.
This is Auntie Sue. Shell take you to the procedure room and draw the blood. Auntie Sue is an expert; it wont hurt at all.
Alright, the boy sighed, reaching for his mother. I love you, Mum! Youre the best! He turned to his father. And you, Dad, I love you. Thanks for the bike.
Auntie Sue led him away, and I raced to Theatre Two. After the operation, when the girl was being wheeled to intensive care, I returned to the oncall room. I found our small hero lying on a cot in the procedure room, tucked under a blanket. Sue had let him rest after the draw. I approached him.
Wheres Blythe? he asked.
Shes sleeping. Shell be fine. You saved her.
And when will I die?
Not anytime soonmaybe when youre very, very old.
At first her question seemed absurd, but then it clicked. The boy had believed that his own life would end the moment his blood was taken. He had said goodbye to his parents, certain he would perish. He had truly sacrificed himself for his sister. Do you grasp the magnitude of that act? It was the purest bravery.
Years have slipped by, and every time the memory drifts up, a shiver runs down my spine, as if the dream were still lingering in the corridors of the hospital.
