10 Seconds

It can only take 10 seconds to alter a person’s view on life…. just 10 seconds

1 Mississippi

Sinead lingers by her bedside, near the clinical room, where she knows that when Barry, a staff nurse, pots the next persons medication, he will open the door wide and let it close with a bang. She has timed it and has come to realise that the door takes 3 seconds to lock from the time he walks away. She watches him with the expectation that it will give her those precious 3 seconds to gain access to the open trolley. She knows exactly what medication to take from the trolley and as she sees him stir away from it, she stands up pretending to walk across the way to the bathroom.

2 Mississippi

Barry opens the wooden door with a window down its middle and, as expected, leaves it swing shut. Sinead has her chance. She waits 1 second…. just enough time to let Barry walk away a tiny bit and as a kaleidoscope of butterflies envelope her, she gets ready to catch the door before it locks as she knows that only a key fob will open it otherwise. To access a key fob is beyond Sinead’s capabilities so she sees this as the only way.

3 Mississippi

Sinead makes her move. She lunges across the hall and catches the door, taking her chance as she sees it with speed.

4 Mississippi

Sinead hears a scream in the background, but she pays no heed. She has gained access to the prestigious room with white washed walls. The open trolley in sight, she can already see the large grey tub with a white lid lit up like its her only way out of this hell called life. The nurses in the background are now fully aware of where she is so she will have to move with haste.

5 Mississippi

Sinead reaches for the grey tub and with her left hand grabs it. She feels a sweaty hand grab her shoulder. Unable, or unwilling, to give up on what she sees to be her only chance to end her life, she shakes the tub. To her delight its almost full. She pulls her right arm towards the white top and just as she reaches it another hand grabs her from behind.

6 Mississippi

Using her only free hand, she pops the lid of the chlorpromazine 100mg tablet lid with her thumb. As she is being tugged at, some of the large round white tablets fly into the air. Sinead doesn’t mind though as there are plenty more where they came from. She starts to lift the tub to her mouth as she feels yet another hand grabs her free arm making it hard to drink down the tablets.

7 Mississippi

The hands that are slowly building up, restraining Sinead, are coming hard and fast. She tries with all her might to lift the vessel to her mouth but she is pushed into one of the few grey tub chairs that surround the medication trolley. Her face makes contact with the back of the chair with force and she feels a hand encompass her own. She hears a female voice with a Donegal accent shout, ‘I’ve got the bottle, I’ve got the bottle!’ Unable to give in to the fact that her escape route is blocked, Sinead holds on to the grey cylinder with all her might.

8 Mississippi

Unable to let go, Sinead feels the force of someone keeping her head strongly situated on the top of the chair and the grip of the nurse with the Donegal accent tightens around her own. There must be five nurses in the small room at this stage all telling her that its over and that she should give up because they have taken all of the control.

9 Mississippi

The room is filled with an unmerciful ‘crack’, followed by a scream that ploughs through Sinead’s head with such force that she has no option but to let go of the tub of tablets as she tries to cover her ears. She had only heard a crack like it once more in her life…the day she broke her own arm on the football field when she was young.

10 Mississippi

With hands on all of Sinead’s extremities, she finally gives in to the fact that this is not how she is going to die. She sees the nurse who had her hand over Sinead’s and the bottle of tablets flail on the ground, her arm obviously broken. The floor now littered with 100mgs of chlorpromazine tablets. Sinead isn’t the type who would intentionally hurt a fly, so when she sees the nurse, whose name was Orla, crying on the floor, she couldn’t help but feel guilty, yet was still unwilling to cooperate.

As she is physically restrained and placed on her bed roughly, she is held down and administered a sedative through a syringe in her arm. She immediately feels the effects and finds her eyes beginning to close. As they are doing so, her gaze is fixed on the window in the door to the clinical room where three nurses are trying to help poor Orla. She bows her head in shame as her eyes close for a couple of hours.

It only lasted 10 seconds, but the damage that was done in those 10 seconds was irreparable to Sinead. She sent get well soon cards, and gift baskets to poor unfortunate Orla. Sinead spent the next three weeks in bed as she was wrapped with guilt. She couldn’t comprehend the fact that she had physically hurt another human being.

It’s funny how 10 seconds of Sinead’s life impacted so many people. As Orla was out of work, the ward was left short staffed compromising the level of care for the other eleven patients. However, slowly but surely, Sinead made headway in her recovery.

Seven weeks passed before Sinead was moved onto the main ward, one step away from the high dependency unit. One of the first faces she saw was Orla’s. She wept uncontrollably as the severe guilt of that fateful day encompassed her. She crouched down onto her honkers and buried her face in her hands. She felt a hand on her shoulder. She looked up….it was Orla. She was brought into one of the side rooms once she calmed down a small bit and, still crying, Orla made her look her in the eye.

‘I’m ssso sssorry!’ Sinead quivered. Orla smiled and handed her a tissue from the box on the coffee table beside the chair. She held up her arm and showed Sinead that it had healed. ‘I dddint mea….’ Sinead buried her face in her hands again. ‘Don’t you worry!’ smiled Orla. ‘It was an accident. I know you didn’t mean to hurt anyone, but you need to know that you have come on leaps and bounds since then. I mean look at where you are and how much more freedom you have on this side!’ Sinead looked at Orla with doe eyes. She took another tissue and blew the mucus from her nose all the while Orla was smiling reassuringly at her.

Orla followed Sinead’s gaze which was focused on her arm. Orla took Sinead’s right hand and placed it on the healed bone. ‘See, its all better!’ Orla showed the shook-up young girl in front of her. Sinead didn’t feel as though she was being pitied, she felt as though she was being supported. For the first time in seven weeks she was able to breathe a sigh of relief, a sigh that relaxed her whole body, one that came from her toes. ‘That’s it!’ Orla encouraged. The more Sinead breathed the calmer she became.

Its hard to think that 10 seconds can affect your future…. seconds you’d rather take back…. seconds you wish never happened. Its important to own your actions and even more important to own your reactions, learn from your mistakes and move on. Sinead will never forget those 10 fateful seconds…but then again, would you?