Close Call...

So, many of you know what happened to our Family on Feb. 11-12th. Here is the whole story that I wrote the day that we got back from the hospital...I just couldn't sleep.


The whole story…



We decided to cook some Tongan food in the turkey fryer which we borrowed from a friend for the party last Saturday. So we brought it into the garage since it was cold outside. The fryer runs on Propane. We steamed the food, which was Meat wrapped in Taro Leaves, for about 2 hours in the Garage, the side door was opened for part of the time. The door to the house was also open since Hauati was out there most of the time. We were both in and out of the garage, but kept the kids out of the Garage. We started cooking at around 7pm. I put the kids to bed, they had eaten earlier, at about 7:30pm. They gave me the usual trouble, they didn’t complain about feeling sick or a headache at all. I had woken up with a headache that morning (not related to the poisoning) and it wasn’t getting any better, by 9pm I felt so sick. I took Tylenol but it was basically a migraine headache, I was planning on calling the doctor in the morning. I managed to stay up until 10, after American Idol, but was feeling nauseous and dizzy every time I got up. I finally went to bed after checking on the kids. Hauati went to bed right after me.

I little while later, maybe 10 minutes, Keleni started to cry. I ignored her hoping she would just go back to sleep, she cried again a little later and again I ignored her and she went back to sleep. Then at about 11pm I woke up to Sam screaming, I was so sick I didn’t want to get up but it was seriously a blood-curdling scream so I got up and went to his bed. I remember shaking him and asking him “what’s wrong, what’s wrong” I felt really sick and dizzy and thought I was going to throw-up, I meant to go to the bathroom but I don’t even remember leaving his bed. The next thing I remember was being on the floor in the hall and hearing Hauati calling my name and shaking me, I heard him dial “911” and I could hear his whole conversation with the lady on the other end. I finally started to move and wake up, Hauati says I was out for like 2 minutes. He had told the dispatch that I wasn’t breathing so the first ones to arrive were Police officers, it was really fast. They actually got mad at Hauati saying “why did we get a report that someone wasn’t breathing?” Hauati felt bad by that time thinking that they didn’t even need to come.

Then the Fire Dept. came in and I think everyone was a little bit more relaxed, they kept asking me questions; “what’s your name, how old are you, where do you live?” they had me hooked up to a monitor. This was in a matter of 1-2 minutes. Then Nima woke up and came out into the hallway, he had to go to the bathroom. When he came out his legs buckeled from underneath him and he started to go down. Hauati and one of the guys caught him and the fire guys started to say, “he’s probably just tired, is this normal?” and Hauati said “No, it’s not he’s usually wide awake, he’s never fallen, there’s something wrong.” That’s when I said, “is there a Carbon Monoxide leak or something?” then they all said that’s probably it, get everyone out, unhooked me from the machines. We had to direct them to where all the kids were. I walked out with help and they put me on a gurney, then I started to cry hysterically (I’ve never cried that hard before). I just wanted to make sure they got everyone, and I just was scared and overcome.

At that point the neighbors had come over to help (two young adult boys) the fire guys had one of them hold Nima up so he wouldn’t fall over. I didn’t really know where anyone else was, I saw one guy carry Keleni out in her blanket. I could hear Emily crying in the ambulance and I think Sam was in there too. They put me in the ambulance after a little while and then when I saw the kids I turned into happy mom so they wouldn’t be scared. I just kept smiling at them and saying “isn’t this cool, we’re inside an ambulance?” We were in there for a long time answering questions; birthdates, allergies, what happened, etc. Both fire depts were there (El Cajon & Santee) so they were trying to figure out what was protocol and where they were going to take us. At first we were all in one ambulance but then they put Hauati, Keleni, and Nima in another one. We still didn’t know where we were going when we left, I kept listening to the radio and they were debating over UCSD and Balboa, but UCSD is the only hospital with the Hyperbaric Chamber so they took us all there. I had heard over the radio that 3 guys were feeling sick too, I felt so bad!

We got to the hospital and it was crazy! I think there were at least 15 people in the room I had to answer the same questions over and over again; birthdates, allergies, what happened, etc. So many different Doctors came to talk to us, they had us get up and walk and touch our noses (think sobriety test). They took all of our blood from the artery in our wrists to get our oxygen levels, that was horrible for the kids. I think they poked Keleni 3 different times until they finally just took it from her vein. We all had oxygen masks on (Keleni would not keep her mask on) they did EKG on Hauati, Nima and I. I think we had the highest levels. Blood Pressure on everyone, the kids though it was funny when their arm would get squeezed. I think this was all for about an hour. Then finally, probably at like 1am things died down. Keleni was still feeling a little sick, she had thrown up in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. She threw up again at the hospital so they gave her some anti-nausea medicine. When that kicked in she was back to normal, being silly. The kids loved it, they got juice and teddy bears and got to watch Disney movies.

At about 2am is when they started to talk to us about going down to the basement to do the Hyperbaric Treatment, they explained a little about what it would be like and what we needed to do and what to expect. Here is a link to the hospital website and a picture of the actual chamber. http://health.ucsd.edu/specialties/hyperbaric/phases.htm

We were in there a lot longer than expected because it took a long time to do the compression phase because Sam’s ears hurt really bad. We had to stop a lot to help him calm down and the help him pop his ears, we learned afterwards that he had (still has) a foreign object in his ear. It’s green, we think it’s a piece of a toy or something. We have to go to Kaiser and get it removed since they couldn’t get it out in the E.R. They will probably have to put him out since it is pretty deep, that’s a whole other story! Anyways, we finally got to where we needed to be and then we were supposed to do four 20 minute treatments with 5 minutes in between each treatment. The first two were HORRIBLE, Keleni screamed the entire time with this thing over her head. She was tired and scared and wanted to lay on me but she couldn’t since there was this huge plastic hood in the way. I cried, she cried, it was horrible. During the second treatment she actually started to hyperventilate and Hauati and I took the thing off her really fast. After that the doctor said that she would be fine with just 2 treatments since she had the lowest levels and her crying had helped get the oxygen into her system too. So I just held her and she fell asleep pretty quickly. We got through 2 more treatments with the help of a movie and an awesome doctor who let the kids wear his earphones and talk to the doctors outside and asked them silly questions. The 3 older kids did wonderful, they didn’t complain at all. The only problem was a little sickness at the end, I actually felt sick after each treatment, but that is normal.

We got out of the chamber at 5:40am. They took us all back upstairs to the E.R. where we sat on beds in the hallway waiting to be re-checked. They tested our oxygen levels again just by using the thing they put on your finger. Everyone was normal so that is when I called my mom and told her everything. She picked us up and took us straight to her house and we’ve been here ever since! It’s just so weird, the whole time at the hospital Hauati and I just kept looking at each other with wide eyes like “this is so weird”. So, the moral of the story is always cook in a well ventilated area. We learned from SDG&E that there were some issues in our garage, the previous owners had covered up the vents with drywall and our water heater didn’t have the proper ventilation through the roof. We would never had known any of that, although it still wouldn’t have prevented what happened. We have already fixed the problems in the garage and Hauati bought a Carbon Monoxide detector and installed it today.

We just are happy to be alive and know that we are so blessed. If one of the events didn’t happen the outcome would have been fatal. We actually keep joking that it’s a good thing that Hauati is a Tongan and so resilient otherwise he wouldn’t have woken up and called 911. Also that scream of Sam’s which has irritated me EVERYDAY was what saved our lives. We are so grateful to our Heavenly Father for his hand in this. We also are gracious to everyone’s outpouring of concern and prayers. We will not forget this day and we hope that it brings awareness to everyone we know to get a detector and to keep it up and running. Don’t worry, I will be sending out email reminders of when it’s time to check your batteries. Love you all.

The Fa’anunu Family.