The Shock: Divine Revival

Sadie’s Story

Whenever I tell this story, my first instinct is to laugh. For a while after it happened, this confused me — there’s really nothing funny about having nearly died. However, I now realize that it’s a reaction to the magnitude of the situation, and my inability to fully wrap my head around it. 

August 10th was my last day as a camper at Camp Vega. Other than the fact that we were leaving, it was a normal morning. My friend and I vlogged all over camp and, later, some others joined us as we sat in the tennis pagoda talking — just like we had all summer. That night, our last night, all of us gathered around a campfire for our final sendoff. Afterwards, we wandered around the camp and spent our final hours reminiscing, one last time. 

Even though we had an early flight, we stayed up the entire night, unwilling to give up even a moment of our dwindling together time to sleep. It was a long ride on the bus that next morning, and for the first hour we cried our eyes out. Then, like tired puppies, we passed out in our tears and slept the rest of the way. We dragged ourselves through the airport and to the plane. It was supposed to be a short flight — forty-five minutes. But then, about ten minutes before our supposed landing time, there was this loud noise and a jarring thud. It felt like we’d hit something, but that didn’t seem possible. The flight attendant told my friend that it was a bird. We were skeptical. A bird, at thirty-thousand feet? After another twenty minutes, I started to text with my mom. I was nervous and scared, and couldn’t understand why we hadn’t landed yet. Then, the pilot made an announcement that we were being diverted to Connecticut because of mechanical issues. We were told that our parents had been notified of the diversion, and that we’d be landing in ten minutes.

When the plane finally hit the runway I felt a palpable sense of relief; the danger was over. I called my parents to tell them that we’d landed and were okay. They’d devised a new plan with the rest of the families and were headed to Hartford to pick us up. The airport hadn’t been expecting us, and so we had to sit on the runway for what felt like forever. After a while I started to get overheated, and I felt nauseous. After a few more minutes, I felt like I was going to pass out. I asked the flight attendant if there was any way I could get some fresh air. But we were in the middle of nowhere on the tarmac with no gate assigned to us. I felt myself getting fainter, and after half an hour of convincing the flight attendant, she finally was able to get a set of stairs attached to the plane where my friend and I could sit. I felt a little better; but I still felt like I was going to pass out. We assumed we were just dehydrated. We had, after all, pulled an all-nighter and then skipped breakfast. After fifteen more minutes my friend threw up, and I did the same, five minutes after her. 

Soon after, we were bused off the tarmac to an area where our parents could pick us up. They let my friend and me go first because we’d been sick. My friend was feeling better, but somehow I only felt worse. There were chairs set up for us inside of a hangar on the tarmac. My body gave out and I collapsed onto one of the chairs. My counselor shook me awake and ran to get me water. Then I started throwing up uncontrollably, like I never had in my whole life. I finally got some water, but I couldn’t keep even a sip down. At one point I tried to get up, but it felt like my body couldn’t function. The counselors asked me if I wanted to see an EMT; they were there, in the hangar, because our diversion was considered an emergency landing. But I was so weak I couldn’t even answer them. I could barely keep my eyes open. At first, the emergency responders figured it was dehydration, just like my friend and I had thought. Then, I was suddenly unresponsive. It felt like my life kept flickering before my eyes each time I blinked. I was carried onto a stretcher, and I was rolled past everyone who had been on the plane. They loaded me into the ambulance and brought me to Connecticut Children's Hospital. I spent that whole ride going in and out of consciousness. I’d wake up and have to vomit, and then my blood pressure would drop and I would nod out again. I remember asking, over and over, whether I was going to be okay. But all I could hear was a long beeping noise that wouldn’t go away and someone saying, “We’re going to try our best.”

At the hospital it was just me, my friend's mother, and the paramedics. My grandparents were driving from Westchester and my parents were coming from the Hamptons. I sat in the hospital room waiting for everyone to arrive, and I remember thinking, again and again, that maybe this was just a dream and that I’d soon wake up. But then, I passed out again.

When I opened my eyes I was in a different room. It was just me, my grandparents, and a doctor. I felt a bit better, miraculously. Again, I thought maybe it’s just dehydration and I’m going to be okay. My parents arrived about an hour later, and I told them all about my crazy day and what had just happened. But then my eyes rolled back in my head and the doctors came rushing over to me. I blacked out. I had gone into septic shock and then, soon after that, I technically died. 

Friends like to ask me whether I saw “the light,” or if it “all went black.” Honestly, I don’t know, and that’s what scares me most. I just don’t remember. What I do remember is waking up with four IVs jabbed into my arms and hands, oxygen tubes shoved up my nose, and feeling the weakest I had ever felt, before or since — like my body was barely there. I looked around the room and saw my parents and grandparents crying but I didn’t know why. I remember thinking how weird it was to see my grandpa cry. I’d never seen that before, and so I knew something must be really wrong. At this point I wasn’t aware I’d gone into shock, and still thought I had just passed out from dehydration. I didn’t know I’d died and been resuscitated. The IVs were flowing with epinephrine and three other medications that had just saved my life. After things calmed down and my blood pressure had stabilized, I was moved to the PICU. After running a series of tests the doctors determined that my sepsis was caused by toxic shock syndrome. At first I thought this was stupid, because I’d always been cautious with tampons. The doctors told me, then, that there are other ways to get TSS. After five nights in the PICU I was transferred to a regular hospital room where I spent one more night — just to be safe. 

I wasn’t sure that I wanted to write this story. There’s something personal and sensitive about it — about having nearly died, and about seeing the looks in my parents and grandparents’ eyes when they realized how close they’d come to losing me. But I decided to write it, if only to show how thankful we should be for each day we have, even the ones that feel not so good. Because, well, you just never know. Who’s to say what would have happened if we hadn’t been diverted, and if that ambulance hadn’t been waiting there in the hangar as a technicality. In the end, everything that I went through — the terror, the sadness, the loneliness — has made me appreciate my friends, my family, and the doctors and EMS who saved my life even more.