LETTERS: CAPE WARMLY CARES FOR CANADIANS

To the editor:

On the morning of Dec. 8, our parents were traveling through Missouri en route from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, to their winter home in Florida, a trip they had made the previous 10 years. Later that afternoon we learned that our parents had been involved in a serious car accident and had been admitted to Southeast Missouri Hospital in a place called Cape Girardeau, Mo. My father had suffered relatively minor injuries, but my mother was in critical condition, fighting for her life. Emergency physician Dr. Nancy Webber assured us that my father would be all right before passing us to the neurosurgeon, Dr. Scott Gibbs, who detailed the extensive injuries my mother had sustained. We were shocked to learn that she had fractures to her neck, pelvis, both forearms, her wrist and lower leg. In addition, she had suffered serious head trauma, a brain injury, and was in a coma. Then my father spoke to us to say that in spite of the gravity of the injuries that our mother's vital signs were good and that she appeared to have movement in all her extremities. He also said that the people who were attending our mother were very special and had been wonderful to both of them. We found this an odd statement given that my parents had arrived so unexpectedly in Cape Girardeau only hours earlier. It was something that the rest of our family would come to fully appreciate in the days that followed. We arrived the following morning in St. Louis and took the BART south to the Cape. We were immediately struck by the kindness and thoughtfulness of the people we encountered. Our driver, Gene, a part-time pastor, offered to come in to pray for our mother while the only other passenger assured us that if there was anything at all that we needed that he would be happy to lend us a hand and provided us with his phone number. Upon arrival at Southeast Missouri Hospital, we were relieved to see our father looking relatively well, all things considered. All of his possessions were in the car, which had been towed away, and Dr. Webber had bought him a sweat shirt and laundered his jacket which had been covered in blood. Other staff members offered articles of clothing. We had our first visit with our mother, and after the initial shock and the tears were spent we settled in for whatever the future held for us. The nursing staff took great lengths to explain the room full of medical equipment that was keeping our mother alive. They assured us that we could call anytime of day or night to get an update on her condition. We had our first meeting with Dr. Gibbs, who spent the better part of an hour setting our expectations and educating us on the extent of our mother's injuries and on head trauma. We did not have any transportation, and the head of hospital security, Mr. Boyd ( Butch), offered the services of his staff to ferry us back and forth from our hotel. We were beginning to understand that in spite of this tragedy we had the good fortune of being surrounded by fine people; people with strong faith, people with a sense of community, people who were willing to reach out to strangers, people who were willing to go out of their way to assist us in our time of need.

Our mother was hospitalized a total of 10 days at Southeast Missouri Hospital, and there were too many acts of kindness to go into detail here. We are simply writing to the people of Cape Girardeau to tell them the profound gratitude we feel for the manner in which are parents were cared for and the support that we as family were extended. From the bottom of our hearts we thank Dr. Scott Gibbs and Dr. Nancy Webber, nurses Paul, Susan, Karen, Annette, Gerri, Lauri, Dawn, Diane and our Newfoundland friend, Andrea, respiratory technician Doug as well as Butch and Mark. In addition we would like to thank all those people that we met that offered their support and prayers to our family. The uncommon caring, compassion and humanity that you displayed is truly extraordinary. Our mother has returned to Canada and is responding well to verbal stimulation. On Dec. 31, we received the best New Year's present we could hope for when she opened her eyes twice during the day. The recovery will be slow, but we are optimistic of getting our mother back.

Our sincerest thanks, love and gratitude to all. The Show Me State really showed us.

JANIS BAIGRIE and REID BAIGRIE

Oakville, Ontario

JEFF BAIGRE

Winnipeg, Manitoba