That was pretty much a big suck

So said one of the ambulance crew members to me after everything had slowed down.

I got a call from home as I was getting ready for the monthly fire department meeting. "You need to get up to the hospital -- there's been an accident."

I swung by home, picked up a shirt & collar and headed to the hospital.

One of my parishioners and her husband were in an accident. A deer jumped out in front of their motorcycle.

Yeah . . . it was as bad as it sounds.

He was doa -- she was life flighted to the big city.

One of the dynamics you don't learn about as a chaplain at the big hospitals is that in a community this size, everyone is related to everyone in some way. There is no such thing as a nameless patient. The people we work on here -- from the First Responders ambulance crew to the volunteer firefighters to the nurses, PA's, doctors, clergy and cops -- all know each other. And the line that says, "Only family members allowed," becomes very blurry, if not non-existent.

Yeah . . . that was pretty much a big suck.