[Lifestyle] Firefighters make kids breakfast after mother is rushed to hospital

[Teacher™]

When Karen Garcia awoke suddenly at 4 a.m. last week, the room was spinning. Garcia, a mother of three who lives in Los Banos, Calif., was 35 weeks pregnant, and throughout her pregnancy, she has had vertigo. “The further along I get, the more I experience it,” said Garcia, 33, noting that she is on medication to help her symptoms — which usually works well. On the morning of Oct. 19, though, it did not. “Everything was turning. It was terrible,” she recalled. “It was a very strong vertigo episode that I hadn’t experienced in a long time.” Her husband, who commutes roughly three hours each way daily to the San Francisco area, had already left for his construction job. Garcia was home alone with her three children, ages 11, 9 and 8 — all of whom were asleep. Although she took her vertigo medication, she said, she couldn’t keep it down and was vomiting for several hours. “It was nonstop,” she said. By the time her children woke up around 7 a.m., “I had no strength in my body left,” Garcia said. “I was on my bathroom floor.”

Her three children sprang to action. Garcia called 911, and — since she had no energy to talk — her children gave the dispatcher the details. “They were so amazing,” she said. “I could hear them frantically trying to help me.” Before long, a crew of emergency responders arrived at the scene, including Brian Thompson, a captain with the Los Banos Fire Department. Thompson and his colleagues quickly saw that Garcia was in medical distress. They called an ambulance, which took her to the Memorial Hospital Los Banos Emergency Department. Then, they turned their attention to the children, who were scared and upset. “They were definitely worried about mom,” Thompson said. “They were distraught.” Garcia and her family moved last year to Los Banos from Gilroy, Calif., which is about 48 miles away, and all of her relatives still live there. Garcia’s brother immediately headed over to the house to look after the children — but it would take him at least an hour to get there. In the meantime, Thompsons’s crew — which included two other firefighters — decided to wait with the three kids. They were on the phone with Garcia’s husband, who was “very concerned,” Thompson said, “and I reassured him we will be here until somebody gets here; we’ll treat them like they’re ours.” “I would hope that somebody would do that for my children and for my wife,” said Thompson, 54, a father of six. “It really does take a village. We all have to look out for one another.” Thompson decided his best option was to distract the children. “I asked the kids what their morning ritual was,” Thompson said. He started by serving them orange juice. After that, it was on to breakfast. “I got them involved to take out the toaster, the sugar and the cinnamon,” he said. “They helped me make them cinnamon sugar toast.” In a matter of minutes, the kids’ moods shifted, he said. “They were all over the house playing and showing us their toys and artwork,” Thompson said. “They were excited that the firemen were there making them breakfast.” “It took their mom off their minds,” he added. As the oldest member of the fire department, Thompson said, he tries to set an example for younger crew members. “I’m really trying to instill this belief that you should always be compassionate when doing your job,” he said. Once the children finished eating breakfast, the firefighters checked that their backpacks were packed and ready for school. About 30 minutes into being there, the firefighters got an emergency call, and a Los Banos Police Department officer arrived to continue looking after the children until their uncle came a short time later to take them to school. The officer watched cartoons with the kids. Garcia, who was released from the hospital around 6 p.m. that day, has recovered from the episode.

“You can’t ask for anything more when you’re going through something like that than for someone to step in and distract your kids from what’s going on,” she said. “It was really a team effort on their part.” She said she is now feeling fine and the baby is healthy. But she’s going to be sure this doesn’t happen again. “We have a plan in place,” she said. “My family is not leaving me alone.” A family member now stays with her at all times in the event she has another severe vertigo episode. When Garcia was reunited with her children that evening, they were as chatty as ever. “They were so excited to tell me about their morning,” she said. “They had totally forgotten that I was sick.” She credits the emergency personnel for making that possible. The Los Banos Fire Department later shared a Facebook post with a photo of Thompson making the children breakfast, and praise poured in. The story was first reported by Eyewitness News 3. Although the ordeal was traumatic, Garcia said, she feels fortunate that her children were in good hands while she was not there. “I couldn’t have asked for a better crew to show up,” she said. “I’m so grateful."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2023/10/28/firefighters-breakfast-children-ambulance-thompson/