I’ll save you the suspense and say up front that no, it’s not. Supposedly we have an emergency number, but no one really knows what it is. Sometimes it’s listed as 108, other times 102. And what does calling it really do anyway? From what I can tell, there really aren’t any emergency protocols or procedures here in Bangalore. At all. Whatsoever. Some of you may recall the 2 electrical fires at Villa 12 back at the beginning of our Bangalore tour. I had no idea what to do. I didn’t know the emergency number to call for the fire department or even if there was a fire department. My elementary school fire training taught me to get all the kids out of the house, but in terms of getting help, I didn’t have a clue. And over 1.5 years later, when Evie had a bloody pool accident last week I had the same helpless feeling.

What happened was this: Last week when the gals were with their sitter at the clubhouse I was reveling in the alone time afforded by my weekly massage, as you do when they cost $15 US. Just when the relaxation was settling in I received 3 calls from my neighbor, Urvi and 2 from my sitter. Because I don’t get reception in my bedroom I wasn’t able to hear what they were saying, and being that I was in deep in a massage coma, I didn’t get up to go to the hallway where I do get reception until through WhatsApp Urvi conveyed that there was an emergency and Evie was hurt at the pool. I leaped up and threw on clothing. The clubhouse is 10 minutes away by foot, we no longer have a driver or car, and I don’t have a bike, so Suma, the masseuse sped me there on her 2-wheeler AKA moped, ignoring all security whistle warnings to adhere to the speed limit. I ran into the pool area where there were no less than 20 people standing around Evie whose chin was bleeding. She had some orange medicine on the wound, which I am assuming was some kind of iodine, so I guess there actually was a first aid kit available. Instead of holding pressure on the gaping wound, Thamil, who is actually a trained nurse but makes more money working for us (we are working on finding her a proper nursing job) was trying to explain to me what happened. I kept asking her to put pressure on the wound and she kept talking. So I grabbed the cotton swap and held pressure on the wound myself, helping Evie to her feet and making our way through the gathered crowd. Meanwhile, Urvi was busy asking the clubhouse managers to call a car to take us to the hospital, but apparently, the 2 cars which they have at the clubhouse leave for the day at 6pm, when all the kids’ classes start. At that point Urvi, who had called a neighbor to ask if we could borrow her car said that there was so much rush hour traffic on the office park road leading to the main road that it would take us over 45 minutes to go the 2 km to get to Columbia Asia Hospital, and that she herself was stuck in traffic. At that point Dan showed up at the clubhouse, and Urvi convinced a woman in her workout gear heading to the gym to loan us her driver and car to take us to the small clinic at EcoWorld, Dan’s office park.

We arrived at the clinic, and were immediately taken back to see the one doctor on duty. My New Yorker self asked if there was a plastic surgeon on duty since this is not my first kid face wound, and we don’t want to mess with Evie’s money maker. Of course there wasn’t one. The doctor told us that he could give Evie a tetanus shot, but that if we wanted stitches we needed to take her to anther hospital. (Not sure why she needed tetanus when she injured herself on the side of the pool and she is up to date with her shots, but I’m trying to not question every little thing). Realizing that we didn’t have a car to take us to another hospital, and the rush hour traffic was ridiculous my brilliant husband remembered that he had seen an ambulance in the clinic garage, and for 3,000 rupees (about $50), it could be ours complete with siren and EMT. Dan sat in the front seat with a seatbelt and Evie and I sat on the small seat in the very back without them, and I held onto her for dear life while we flew up in the air with every bump and pothole on the road, and I could see clearly out the back at all of the near misses with auto rickshaws, mopeds and cars. In case you haven’t been in an ambulance in India before, it looks like this—a van with a cot, blanket and pillow, and no medial equipment or medicine in site. When I asked the EMT where the emergency response stuff was he pointed under the cot. I can’t imagine how much time it would take to get it all out and set up in the case of a real emergency, but he may have had a plan.

Once we arrived at Columbia Asia we were seen by the ER doctor. I again asked for a plastic surgeon, and they actually had one! He was called at home to come in. Okay, good start. The ER doctor told us that the plastic surgeon would want to put Evie to sleep with general anesthesia to do the stitches because she is six and might wiggle during the procedure. I questioned this, but Dan piped in to say, “Whatever you think is fine, Doctor.” So we were going to go forward with the overkill of general anesthesia for stitches, until we spoke with the anesthesiologist and were told that we could begin the procedure at 11pm that night since Evie had a small snack before swimming, would have to spend the night, and would be discharged in the morning, the same day as the ‘bandh’ AKA strike in Bangalore over water where no vehicles are permitted to be on the road for fear of getting set on fire or having tires slashed. So that wasn’t going to work. We quickly changed plans, and convinced Evie that if she didn’t want to get a painful IV in her hand, and wanted to get out of the hospital and eat Krsipy Kreme donuts that night, she needed to stay very, very still during the procedure. That proved to be no problem for my amazing girl, except for the first part when the numbing medicine was injected directly into the most vulnerable part of the wound, and Evie screamed like there was a zombie eating her face. I was rubbing her head and Dan was rubbing her feet and legs, but at one point, the doctor showed us how deep Evie’s wound was by revealing the bone, and I went to sit down in the hallway to avoid passing out. But otherwise, all went well, and Evie was so incredibly brave, and earned an entire box of donuts.

What this incident taught us is that we need to create our own emergency protocol as a family. My current plan is to get a Vespa so that I can get all 3 kids to the hospital myself if I need to.