Snow Boy

Woke up early to shovel two inches of thick wet snow from the driveway. I thought today was going to be heart atatck from shoveling snow today, but instead it was MVA day. Did four MVAs and a nursing home fall. Nothing major.

The last call we did was a minor neck and back pain and the guy wanted to go to General Hospital, which was a lot farther than City. He was up and walking around when we got there. Simple call. Reared ended. he said he had neck and back pain. We board and collared him, put him in the ambulance, and took him to the hospital.

Most of the time I converse with my patients, but tonight, I just kept it brief, wrote my run form, then sat in the Captain's Chair and made notes in my notebook during the ride. He didn't mind. He was talking on his cell phone the whole way anyway.

***

Earlier we did another MVA, where the patient was an old Jamician woman. We had a nice guy named Winston working with us. He is a tech at one of the hospitals and decided to go to EMT class and rides with us occosionally. He has a very thick Jamaican accent as well. I initially started out talking to the lady. I always ask Jamaician women if they are country or city girls. Most are country and very proud of it. Country means they grew up in the Jamaician countryside rather than in the cities like Kingston before migrating to the US. They are all very proud of their heritage.

Sometimes they ask me how I knew they were Jamaican. Well, maybe its your accent. But I always say because Jamaican women are the most beautiful charming women in the world. They eat it up.

Anyway, the accident occured between crew changes so Winston showed up to switch,climbs in the back, and now she can't believe there is a Jamaican talking with her, and because I had already told her how I had gone to Jamaica and how much I loved it, she said, "What'd you do? Go down dere and bring'im back with you?"

"Yeah," I said, "I promised him the weather was great up here. No snow. Sun shinning every day."

They laughed, and then the two of them got talking about their roots and who they knew and then Winston told a very interesting story. In 1961 when he was 12, he hung out with the fisherman because they made a good living and always had some change for him. Many of his relatives were fisherman and they brought fish back for his mother to cook for them. On this day, his mother was cooking a big fish meal for them, when a man came in and whispered something about "the bay of pigs." They immediately finished their meal and ran down to the docks and got on their boat -- "The Snow Boy."

They never returned. All that was found was the captain's table floating in the water and from the burn marks on it, they could tell the boat had exploded. There had been no distress signal.

Winston lost 17 relatives on the boat. He said if not for the boat going down, his life would have been different. He would probably have become a fisherman.

Now he is working in an ER in the city.

***

Here's an interesting link on the Snow Boy.

www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20040124/letters/letters1.html

And I found this passage from a news article:

"There was an unfortunate accident at sea that took place near the Pedro Cays when the boat 'Snow Boy' disappeared, and until this day no one really knows what happened to those unfortunate fishermen who were heading back to Kingston on that fateful day, and how many lives were lost. Don Drummond even recorded a song on the Beverley's Label about that incident."

I couldn't find anything else.

I'll have to try to find that song.

****

Did another MVA and a woman with the flu before finally getting out of here last night.