Honour

There is no honour in a so-called "honour killing." 

These horrendous pieces of news reach our eyes and ears all too often, streaming in from media the world over, yet for as many of these horrendous news items that make it to the front pages, there are so many others stories that never see the light of day. The trauma affects only those closely connected to the victim and the world can't share the pain, even if only for a brief, fleeting moment of reading a hastily clicked-away internet screen. 

I know these cases exist. I have seen them, or at least their results. A woman lies dead in the street. A man she chose to live her life with was found not far away. Their families, disapproving of their relationship, made an unholy union in order to sever theirs. Calm is restored. At least until the next victim in the cycle finds themselves at the wrong end of a knife or gun or blunt instrument; harbingers of doom; revokers of life; restorers of so-called honour. 

The cycle continued. One death led to another, each family seeking the upper hand, the glory. There would be news of a shooting, or a stabbing, or an inexplicable car accident. Then there would be quiet. Sometimes days, sometimes weeks or longer, but still the air was filled with the constant threat of the next retaliation. 

We were traveling through one of the tougher parts of town. The roads have more holes and fewer rules, housing is a mish-mash of prefabricated buildings and run-down apartment blocks, street signs and street lights are almost non-existent and the numbering system no better than guesswork. 

Only a few days had passed since the last honour killing. The latest in the neverending cycle of deaths that proved nothing except that yet another gun had tried to restore its owner's pride, yet at the same time now made him, or those closest to him, the next likely target. In the darkness, we could see the hazard lights of a car parked a few hundred metres ahead. The driver's door and the rear door directly behind it were both open, and all we could see was a pair of legs sticking out. As he heard us approach, he jumped out. 

He was wearing nothing but a pair of boxer shorts. No shoes, no trousers, no shirt, nothing. As we pulled up behind the car, the first thing we noticed was that he was covered in blood. 

"She's in here! I don't know if she's breathing!" It seemed as though the latest victim of honour was in the back of an almost-naked man's car. 

We jumped out of the ambulance, grabbed the bed so that we could at least move her into the ambulance and be able to see to start treating whatever gruesome injury was about to reveal itself to us. The man who greeted us jumped over the clots of blood that were lying on the floor by the passenger door and looked as though he was about to faint. He sat back down in the driver's seat with his head between his knees and his hands on his face. 

"Just help her. Please. Just help her." 

Two steps later, we could see that our victim was no victim at all, sitting as she was, cradling the baby boy that she had just delivered. 

Sandy Hook

Rivers of ink have raged, almost as the rivers of blood that flowed all too freely have now stilled. I don't know when is, or even if there is, a right time to wade in to a discussion on a tragedy as raw as that of Sandy Hook School, where those killed are only now being buried, where their families have not even begun to really grieve. Parents of children are being forced to come to terms with a reality that none of us should ever have to face. Families of adults who died protecting the innocent battle with conflicting emotions; pride in the bravery displayed by their loved ones fighting for space in amongst the utter sadness at their deaths. 

And in the midst of it all, the all-too-familiar rhetoric begins. Pro-gun versus anti-gun is too simplistic. It's like saying that there are those who wish to live in a constant state of war against an enemy and those who want peace with the very same. In reality, everyone wants peace. It's just a question of how to get to that state. Rhetoric alone will not answer the questions that will race around the minds of a nation, particularly a nation in mourning. 

I have only questions, no answers, but feel the need to raise them here, if only as an outlet. I struggle to understand why this happens. Why it happens in America. Why is it that I live in a country where guns are a part of the daily view, yet we have mercifully been spared the awful scenes that have now been shown all over the world. 

I am torn. Torn between believing that weapons should be available so that it is not only the criminals and terrorists who possess them, and believing that they should be almost impossible to come by. Several times in the past, terrorist incidents in Israel have been halted by a passer-by who happened to be there and happened to be armed. Right place, right time. On the other hand, the readily available weapons allow for easier access to those who would use them to harm the innocent. 

However, one cannot walk into a gun shop here and buy an assault rifle "off-the-rack." The number of civilians carrying weapons is actually surprisingly low. Assault rifles are seen in the streets, but they are carried either by members of the armed forces or by members of response teams in the more volatile parts of the land. They can't just be stored at home as yet another item on a list of fixtures and fittings. Licenses are hard to come by and are enforced by strict regulation.

Arguments will appear on every media outlet, on social media, in conversations between neighbours and friends. Both sides will voice their opinion, all too often based on that cyclical rhetoric, bandied about by populace and politician alike. Slogans don't solve the problem, they just accentuate and polarise it. They certainly do not reunite grieving families with those that they have lost. Falling back on rights is as helpful as quoting often irrelevant statistics. It is, however, clear that something has to change, probably on both sides of the great gun divide. 

I don't have the answers. I may not even be in a position to ask the questions. I do know one thing for sure. I never want to see these scenes again. Not as a parent, not as a news reader, and not as a paramedic. Not on my own doorstep, nor on anybody else's. 

Yet another community will have to rebuild itself, brick-by-brick, one family at a time, united in grief for now, but hopefully in strength in the future. And all the while, the answers must be found to prevent anyone else from facing yet another unspeakable tragedy. 

Traffic Stop

Knowing that police are on scene and knowing that the scene is safe are two very different things. Once we know that the latter is true, we approach at speed. 

A bystander runs up to us and practically pushes me off my feet. 

"What the hell took you so long? The police have been here for ages." 

I push him off, lift the police tape that marks the outer cordon, and head into the neutralised area.

One of the officers signals to us to head towards the idling car, the headlights of a police van on full beam illuminating our approach. Sitting in the front passenger seat of the car is yet another officer, looking pale and wearing a blood-soaked shirt. A crowd stand around the cordon, some hurling abuse at the police, some at us, some at each other. The atmosphere is on a knife-edge, teetering on the brink of an all-out riot. In the driver's seat, unconscious and bloodied, sits London's latest gun-crime statistic. 

Two holes through the windscreen, almost perfect circles, the rest of the glass undisturbed. 

To the police, he's a victim; to us, a patient. The work we do could mean the difference between attempted and actual murder, between a life-threatening injury and a fatal one, between life and death. We move him out of the car, looking for injuries, and finding them too. 

Two holes in his chest, almost perfect circles, the rest of his body untouched. 

Entry wounds only, leading to only one conclusion: the bullets are still lodged within him. The visible damage is only a small part of the story. It's impossible to know what damage was caused after those tiny projectiles entered the body, where they veered off to, what organs they hit, what arteries they missed, how much blood has been lost. 

"Are you gonna just sit there looking at him all day?" 

The call comes from one of the irate crowd, someone who doesn't understand that just moving the patient could be the wrong thing to do. We need to have an idea of what we're dealing with, whether his lungs will hold out for long enough, whether we think his heart's been hit, whether there's anything we could possibly do to give him a better chance. 

There's no one else to send to help us out so we package him up into the ambulance, give a report over the radio and head to the trauma unit. Luckily, for a change, we're not too far away. On route to the hospital his breathing becomes more noisy, more erratic, and then silent. His heart changes from a rapid beat to a slow beat, to no beat at all.

The officer in the bloodied shirt meets us at the hospital and asks how the victim is doing. We tell him. 

"Damn. I only pulled him over because he had no headlights on, I had no idea that anyone else was watching him too." He shakes his head. "Can I go and see him?" 

We walk with him in the direction of the resuscitation room, and he knocks gently on the door. A nurse peeks through to see who's disturbing their work, sees the blood on his shirt and lets him in immediately. It takes a minute for him to convince her that he's not injured, that he just wants to see the victim. 

The third cubicle along has the curtains drawn. Monitors all around ping with electronic bells, whine with wavering warnings, but the monitor in cubicle three is silent. The officer steps in, the nurse follows and we stand by the curtains. The victim's face is already covered, and the nurse slowly, gently, mournfully pulls the cover back. The officer takes one final look, shakes his head again and turns to leave. 

"A traffic stop. Just a simple, damned traffic stop."