‘He Never Got The Chance To Marry’

Letters home

Staff Sgt. Paul Child, 35, is a registered nurse at the Jesuit infirmary at Gonzaga. He oversees supplies, maintenance and scheduling for the emergency room in Bosnia.

Working as a nurse I have developed a pretty thick shell when dealing with death and dying. But once in a while someone will get to me.

One day in the emergency room we received a call that we had a incoming ambulance carrying someone with suspected pneumonia. An hour and half later, in comes a 22-year-old man who is having trouble breathing.

I helped transfer him from the stretcher to the exam table, gave him oxygen and did vital signs. The doctor ordered some tests and we gave him medications to help his breathing.

The doctor diagnosed him with right lower lobe pneumonia - a fluid buildup in the base of his right lung. I told this kid that he had pneumonia, that it was serious and that he would be admitted to the hospital, given some antibiotics and would be going back to his base camp in a few days. He was given a bed in the intensive care unit ward.

In a three hours, his an entire lung filled with fluid.

He was placed on a ventilator, a machine that breathed for him. He continued to go downhill and five days later it was decided to send him to Landstuhl Hospital at Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany. He died two days later, one week after I first saw him.

The death of this young man got to me. I don’t know if it was because the last thing I told him was that he would be going home after a few days, or the fact that he was only 22 years old.

He never got the chance to marry, never got the chance to have children. He will never experience the everyday things we take for granted.

For his parents, this will be their first Christmas without a son.

How lucky we are - even those of us in Bosnia - that we will spend next Christmas with our families.