What If?
Six women are killed every hour by men around the world, most by men in their own family or their partners.
You were laying naked in your bathtub. You could hear voices but couldn’t respond. You’d lost enough blood over the past twelve, or twenty-four, or forty-eight hours — nobody really knows, that your organs were beginning to shut down for want of the oxygen that blood once carried.
You heard your boyfriend say:
“Uh, my friend. She’s laying in the tub. She won’t wake up. I think she fell last night. I’m not sure. There’s blood coming from her nose so I can’t get her to wake up,”
You wanted to scream, but you couldn’t make a sound.
Moments later you heard the sirens, then heavy boots on the steps leading to your front door. Firemen carefully removed you from the tub and lay your unclothed body on your bathroom floor. All you knew then was pain. Tears welled in the corners of your eyes as the EMTs began to work on you.
“I’ve got a pulse, can you get a clear shot at her airway,” said one voice.
“I can’t get past her teeth,” said another. “Her jaw won’t move, can’t get the blade far enough — “
You felt something cold and metallic bump the back of your throat and you gagged.
“Gag reflex. Attempting nasal route,” he continued. “Nasal is a negative, going with BVM.”
The voices grew faint as rescue workers placed a mask over your mouth. For the moment it wasn’t so hard to breathe again.
“Alright, we need to get this woman ready for transport asap. Is the board ready?” asked a faceless voice.
You moaned out loudly as workers from the fire department rolled you slightly to your side to slide a board under.
“She’s in pain. Definitely responsive to that,” one of them said. “Evaluate for possible head and neck trauma. Keith, get the C collar.”
One of the men on the scene fitted you with a cervical neck brace and they secured you to a wooden board.
Pain spiked again as you were jostled by first responders moving you from the ambulance to the medevac chopper. Your heart pounded. You wondered what was happening and how you got there, oblivious to the last few hours now.
“Sinus tach- you got that?” screamed a voice over the deafening prop wash.
“Copy. Maintain BVM,” said another new voice. “Oxygen falling, may need to attempt ETI again.”
As you were taken skyward, copious amounts of blood began to pour from your nose and mouth. You were drowning, paralyzed.
“Suction! We need suction now! Just hang on, girl,” a voice told you. “We need to do a ‘crike’ now! Oxygen is dropping…” come on, she urged. “Stay with us, you’re almost there.”
Your eyes again filled with tears as you suffocated. You felt the scalpel’s blade on your throat as you heard:
“Stop! She can feel this. Administer 75 micrograms Fentanyl.”
As you drifted into a narcotic-induced haze, technicians made a small incision below your tiny Adam’s apple. Then they cut another one across that and inserted a plastic tube into the hole. Finally, they connected you to a breathing machine as they continued to suction whatever flowed from inside you.
This did not happen to you. But what if it had? And what if the cops who visited your home never entered on the day you were flown to lifesaving care. What if your boyfriend told the EMTs that he would notify your mother, your kids, and then did not?
What if upon finally learning of your condition, your uncle had to call his friend, the local police chief, and ask him very colorfully why nothing had been done to investigate the circumstances which led to your injuries? What if that chief sent three officers to your house, two days after your medevac, who located blood-soaked bedding as your mother looked on?
What if those three cops looked around your house, and in lieu of their own evidence bags, found a roll of Hefty bags, collected, and took your bloody bedding away and left your mother asking:
“That’s it? Where’s your luminol? Where’s your yellow tape? Why aren’t you sealing off the area?”
And then, what if those cops, that police chief, and that entire department did nothing else to investigate your injuries for another forty-eight days? The truth is, it doesn’t matter what if now. You died the day after the cops carted away the pillows and sheets soaked with your blood.
To add insult to injury, or malfeasance to misconduct, what if that chief, his district attorney boss man, and his lead detective met with the private investigators your family hired.
What if they slandered your memory? What if they talked about your dad, or your brother? What if they talked about the past thirty years of your family’s legal history when the detectives asked them about your case?
What if they conspired, the cops and the DA, to cover up their mistakes by sweeping your death under the rug? What if they painted you as lifetime white trash — those sworn to protect and serve you, and those elected to prosecute your murderer?
And for the coup de grâce: What if the same people who slandered your memory, who repulsed and repelled private investigators, and conspired to avoid investigating your death altogether were put in charge of prosecuting your accused murderer?
This didn’t happen to you, but what if it had? What if it happened to your mom, or your sister?
What if someone beat your daughter to death and the 911 operator refused to answer?
How would you feel? What would you do? Who would you turn to for compassion, for empathy?
Where, my friend, would you turn for Justice when the whole system was seemingly turned against you?
-Asking for a friend.
Six women are killed every hour by men around the world, most by men in their own family or their partners.
#PGR
