Going to see the bees

One minute I'm (Steven) walking down the road to visit my honeybees and the next I'm in the hospital cutting the cloths off a patient. What a curious turn of events - especially since I'm not a medical person . As I walked the rocky dirt road between the hospital and the beehives I came upon an emaciated man lying on the side of the road. As I approached I realized his pants were down and he was soaking wet from the heavy rains we had received all morning. I came around to his front and saw an open gash on his forehead about 2 or 3 inches in length. A sense of dread came over me as I realized he was not moving and that he may not be alive. I looked closer and breathed a sigh of relief when I saw his chest move up and down ever so slightly. I began asking the frequent passers by if they knew him or knew what had happened or if anyone had called for help. A security guard said he had most likely been dumped there at about 7:30 that morning - it was now 9:30. Fortunately I live with 4 medical people and had all there numbers in my phone because the idea of 911 emergency response is laughable here. As I was calling them a police truck drove by that I flagged down. I pointed to the man laying in the road and they slowly got out of their truck and sauntered over to the man. They somewhat reluctantly agreed to help me pick him up and put him in the back of the truck and take him to the hospital. As we moved him he began to wake up and groan in pain, although he was not coherent at this point. We got him to the hospital, lifted him onto a stretcher and took him inside. The man was so tense that we could not get his shirt off for an exam. As the medical staff struggled to remove the shirt he moaned in pain so I decided to cut it off of him rather than cause him such pain.

I wish I could say the hospital nursed him back to health and now he's fine, but unfortunately the man turned out to be a schizophrenic which in this country means he's doomed to wander the streets and will never get better. All we can do is focus on the ones whose lives we can change.