Monday, May 4, 2009

The One Where the USO Volunteer Saves a Life

Thought you might be interested in these recent e-mails from Amy Abramson, the Volunteer Coordinator for the Bob Hope Hollywood USO at LAX (and my wonderful and very supportive friend).

From e-mail, April 22, 2009:
I worked yesterday (Tuesday) at the USO and had the wildest night yet. We had around 250 Marines which is about normal for us. But we had a young Marine who had a REALLY BAD staph infection on his leg. I talked to him about it, but he didn't seem too concerned. But luckily, one of our volunteers saw it later on and realized how bad it was (the Marine finally admitted to being hot and cold). We called the paramedics and they took him to the hospital. I saw his upper thigh and there were red lines radiating up his thigh and I heard him say his urine has been really dark all day. GEESH - don't these guys recognize symptoms!!

Then we had the normal Tuesday night drunken Marine who was in the main room talking trash to some of the other Marines. One of our male volunteers talked to him, but it didn't help. He got into a fight a little while later and had a bleeding lip. I had one of the cops check it out, but he was ok.

Then we had the normal Marine whose garment bag was missing. He and his buddies looked all over and couldn't find it so I put all his contact info in our lost and found log. About 10 minutes later he walks in with his garment bag. One of his buddies found it lying on the sidewalk on the way to the terminals. Obviously whoever took it figured out it wasn't his and instead of bringing it back to the USO just threw it on the ground and walked away. GEESH!!! At least it was a happy ending.


From e-mail, April 25, 2009:
An update on our Marine with the staph infection. He is getting better. His mom came out on Thursday so I am sure that made him feel better. I don't remember if I told you, but the doc told him that if he had gotten on the airplane, he probably would have developed a blood clot. He was very lucky.

From e-mail, May 1, 2009:
[The Marine] is back at Pendleton until he is fully healed and they are launching an investigation about why he was allowed to leave. It turned out to be a bug or spider bite that started the staph infection.

2 comments:

  1. Great to finally be able to read your blogs. About a month ago, I tried the address were were given both as a website and an e-mail address and had no luck with either. I love the blogs and will check them often. How are you doing Bonnie? We think of you often and miss you.....Talk to you soon..... Terri Frazier :o}

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  2. doing great and delighted to hear from you. Yeah, I put the wrong reference on my "Out of Office Assistant." I don't know how to change it or correct it. Please keep in touch.
    xxxooo
    bon

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