dinsdag 16 juni 2009

The Hero of Heiloo


My brother-in-law Jan works as a security guard at the GGZ, the hospital for the mentally challenged. Holland does not have lock-ups and asyla. Patients are integrated into the community as far as possible. Which is fine, but there are some fiercely strange people cruising the hospital and the streets around it. Jan is big and strong and his appearance alone is enough to ensure peace on his watch. He is in fact the supreme gentle giant who could not possibly hurt anyone, even in the line of duty. Most of the patients are harmless, except to themselves. In front of the hospital is an enormous pond which, at this time of the year is green with algae and writhing with insect larvae. And very smelly. It also has no fence or railing around it which may seem to be an oversight where mentally ill people may be walking about, perhaps depressed and contemplating suicide. Even more remarkable when some of them may be in wheelchairs because they have no legs, enough to depress anyone. And some of the mentally disturbed, legless people in wheelchairs may be alcoholics or drug addicts.

The grounds are covered by cameras which allow Jan to see everywhere that trouble may be lurking. Except not by the pond. Who could possibly think that a pond without a fence could be of any danger to a woman who may have been drunk, stoned, legless, depressed and in charge of a wheelchair that she could not possibly control, even if she could see where she was going. Life is full of such rare, million-to-one chances such as led this poor woman, mentally and physically handicapped, to stray from the perimeter path and tumble into an unguarded pond the size of a football field. We'll never know how it happened.
Someone strolled into the office and informed Jan that there was a wheelchair upside down in the pond, but it was probably nothing suspicious. Boisterous antics and horseplay probably. Jan rushed to the scene and jumped into the pond. Making his way through the slime and weed he eventually found the body and got the woman out. She had apparently been in the water for 20 minutes and was quite blue. Jan told the nurse that they should attempt to revive her, though getting so close to someone who was probably dead, if not dead drunk, full of slimy pond water and vomit seemed a most unpleasant prospect. It seemed to be too late, there was little to be done. But cold and wet as he was, and the poor woman even colder and wetter, Jan applied mouth to mouth (that's why he is the real hero, not just for jumping into the pond!) for half an hour or so until the helicopter arrived. The woman was in coma for a while, but is now on the mend. For this, Jan was rewarded by his employers. With the appropriate sum of 50 euros. A reward fit for a hero? It's what he's paid for, isn't it?
Well, you are my hero, Jan.

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