Dari: "Agung Eko Hartanto" <agungeka@yahoo.com>
Mukjijat
Menjelang Natal kemarin tepatnya tanggal 7 Desember
2007 saya berjalan kekantor dari stasiun kereta.
Udaranya cerah dan sejuk, saya jalan kaki dengan
ceria.
Sekitar jam 10.20 pagi, saya membelok 66th street,
route yang saya sukai karena banyak kedai kopi
dan nonik nonik cantik. Ah ... sebentar lagi sampai
di kantor, dan pikiran itu terpotong oleh raungan
sirene pemadam kebakaran dan ambulans dan polisi,
belasan jumlahnya. Ini mengingatkan kejadian
September 11, udara cerah dan sejuk dan bunyi sirene.
Ada apa saya pikir? Ternyata ada satu bangunan
tinggi yang diblokir. Bangunan tinggi ini letaknya
berseberangan sedikit kekiri dari tempat saya olahrasa
dan kurang lebih 125 meter dari kantor saya.
Lima menit sebelum aku datang, ada dua
orang kakak adik, yang bekerja sebagai pembersih
kaca jendela pencakar langit, jatuh di pelataran
beton! Yang satu mati (adik), dan yang lainnya
badannya
hancur berantakan dan diharapkan tidak hidup, karena
mereka jatuh dari ketinggian lantai 47!!! Sang
kakak langsung dibawa kerumah sakit (kompleks
tempat saya bekerja merupakan konsentrasi hospital
hospital terkenal).
Hari ini setelah sekian kali dioperasi, sang kakak
bangun dari komanya dan bisa bicara, dan semua
dokter mengatakan bahwa dia akan sembuh dan bisa
jalan lagi. Meskipun demikian SEMUA dokter tidak
bisa menerangkan orang bisa selamat setelah badannya
hancur terbanting dipelataran beton dari lantai
47 ... suatu miracle telah terjadi dimuka saya.
Saya mensyukuri dengan genangan air mata, karena
doa saja tidak cukup.
salam
********************
Window washer talking after 47-story fall
'If you are a believer in miracles, this would be
one,' says doctor
The Associated Press
updated 8:46 a.m. ET, Fri., Jan. 4, 2008
NEW YORK - Doctors say they have never seen anything
like it: A window washer who fell 47 stories from the
roof of a Manhattan skyscraper is now awake, talking
to his family and expected to walk again. Alcides
Moreno, 37, plummeted almost 500 feet in a Dec. 7
scaffolding collapse that killed his brother.
Somehow, Moreno lived, and doctors at New
York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical
Center announced Thursday that his recovery has been
astonishing. He is scheduled to undergo his 10th
surgery Friday.
He has movement in all his limbs. He is breathing on
his own. And on Christmas Day, he opened his mouth and
spoke for the first time since the accident.
His wife, Rosario Moreno, cried as she thanked the
doctors and nurses who kept him alive.
"Thank God for the miracle that we had," she said. "He
keeps telling me that it just wasn't his time."
Dr. Herbert Pardes, the hospital's president,
described Moreno's condition when he arrived for
treatment as "a complete disaster."
Both legs and his right arm and wrist were broken in
several places. He had severe injuries to his chest,
his abdomen and his spinal column. His brain was
bleeding. Everything was bleeding, it seemed.
Miraculous recovery
In those first critical hours, doctors pumped 24 units
of donated blood into his body — about twice his
entire blood volume.
They gave him plasma and platelets and a drug to
stimulate clotting and stop the hemorrhaging. They
inserted a catheter into his brain to reduce swelling
and cut open his abdomen to relieve pressure on his
organs.
Moreno was at the edge of consciousness when he was
brought in. Doctors sedated him, performed a
tracheotomy and put him on a ventilator.
His condition was so unstable, doctors worried that
even a mild jostle might kill him, so they performed
his first surgery without moving him to an operating
room.
Nine orthopedic operations followed to piece together
his broken body.
Yet, even when things were at their worst, the
hospital's staff marveled at his luck.
Incredibly, Moreno's head injuries were relatively
minor, for a fall victim. Neurosurgeon John Boockvar
said the window washer also managed to avoid a
paralyzing spinal cord injury, even though he suffered
a shattered vertebra.
"If you are a believer in miracles, this would be
one," said the hospital's chief of surgery, Dr. Philip
Barie.
New York-Presbyterian has treated people who have
tumbled from great heights before, including a patient
who survived a 19-story fall, but most of those tales
end sadly.
The death rate from even a three-story fall is about
50 percent, Barie said. People who fall more than 10
stories almost never survive.
"Forty-seven floors is virtually beyond belief,"
Pardes said.
Science may never be able to explain what protected
Moreno when the platform he and his brother were using
atop an Upper East Side apartment tower broke free and
fell to the ground.
Edgar Moreno, 30, of Linden N.J., died instantly. He
was buried in Ecuador, where the brothers were from.
'I didn't know he could speak'
Alcides Moreno, whom his wife described as strong and
athletic, may have clung to his scaffolding platform
as it dropped. It is possible that the metal platform
offered him some protection, although doctors said
they were unsure how.
An investigation into the cause of the accident is
ongoing.
Rosario Moreno said her husband was conscious during
the fall but remembers little. She said he didn't need
to be told that his brother had died.
The injured window washer spent about three weeks on a
ventilator, unable to speak, and initially his only
means of communicating with his family was by touch.
"He wanted to touch my face, touch my hair," Rosario
Moreno said.
She would take his hand and hold it to her skin. Then,
one day, he reached out and touched one of the nurses.
Rosario Moreno said that when she heard about it, she
jokingly lectured her husband to keep his hands to
himself. He answered in English, "What did I do?"
"It stunned me," she said, "because I didn't know he
could speak."
There is still a rough road ahead for the tough New
Jersey man, a father of three children, ages 14, 8 and
6.
He was scheduled to undergo another spinal surgery on
Friday, and he will need another operation to
reconstruct his abdominal wall. There is a chance he
will develop complications, even life-threatening
ones, during the months ahead.
Lifelong injuries
Moreno will remain in the hospital for at least a few
more weeks, doctors said. After that, he will need
extensive physical rehabilitation. It may be another
year before doctors know how much he will improve.
The medical staff was guarded Thursday about his
prospects for returning to a normal life. Doctors said
they believe he will walk, but they also suggested
that some of his injuries are likely to be lifelong.
"We're optimistic for a very substantial recovery,
eventually," Barie said
Rosario Moreno said she knows this much for sure: His
days as a window washer are over.
"I told him," she said, "you're not going back to work
there."
*******************
