After major injury or trauma every single minute counts. DANGER! DANGER screech the neurons, bursting into a flurry of urgent activity, sending a stream of electrical impulses to the brain, a rapid Morse code, dot- dot- dot-, dash, dash, dash.
The human body’s fast response mechanism is galvanised into action, a primitive fight or flight response sending a barrage of lifesaving adrenaline racing around the bloodstream faster than a speeding fire engine. Adrenaline is on a mission to the key organs, changing settings, shutting down non essential actions and concentrating resources where they are most needed for survival.
Faster than a siren warning of an imminent nuclear attack, the response is activated within the first minute, even the most modern technologically efficient nuclear bunker cannot hope to function as well as the smoothly efficient system inbuilt by Creator God in every human being.
The initial hour following major trauma is known as ‘The Golden Hour’, Sixty precious life giving minutes. Statistics show that if an injured person can get to a well equipped hospital before the sand in the hour glass slips away, they will have a vastly increased chance of long term recovery.
In reality there is no time to waste, if the patient is lucky, unbearable searing PAIN only kicks in once the golden hour is over and the higher brain processes are let in on the drama.
People who experience a major trauma sometimes say they feel no pain, time seems to slow down and life flashes before them like a slow motion film. Sounds and sensations can become enhanced and they may see a blinding light or experience sense of extreme peace and well being. This is because, in the vital seconds after an injury, blood is diverted away from the frontal lobes of the brain, to more urgent life saving activities. The temporary reduction to the areas where complex conscious thought takes place, results in the mind numbing shock of “nature’s anaesthetic”.
Be it a heart attack, a stabbing, a road traffic accident or a major fall the golden hour is the same, a small window of opportunity in the passage that leads to death or the long winding torturous road to recovery.
The traditional centre of a person is the heart, a strong muscular four chambered organ, a feat of design and engineering. If it shudders or flutters to a stop, the golden hour is concertinaed into just three tiny life sapping minutes because, life giving blood containing precious oxygen molecules is no longer being pumped along the great arterial roadway to far flung parts of the system. This is major systems failure worse than a
computer crash, and immediate external measures to get the system started n is literally life or death.
If the heart can be shocked back into action or artificial respiration can be started to pump the heart and blow air into the lungs then those three minutes can precariously stretch again.
The heart is a wonderfully intricate, amazingly created work of art. Who has not wondered at the sight on an ultrasound scan of the tiny heart seen beating in a 8-10 week foetus? The baby’s heart does not merely follow the mother’s rhythm but has a tune and a rate of its own, faster and more variable that the mothers a little high pictured soprano tune singing with joy and expectation and if all goes to plan, that little heart will continue to beat without ceasing for years and years. Fearfully and wonderfully made indeed!
The moment of birth, as the moment of death are golden minutes. While still in the womb there is no need for the baby’s tiny lungs to be working, as the precious oxygen comes from the mother through the placenta, as do nutrients and other life sustaining elements. As the babe moves down the birth canal, the fluid within the lungs is squeezed out like wringing out a wet sponge. This prepares the tiny lungs for the moment they need to expand. The first cry brings fresh air flooding into the newborn baby’s body and inflating the lung sacs like a birthday balloon.
From that first golden breath to life’s final hour God is the creator, the sustainers, and the author of our destiny.
'For in him we live and move and have our being.' NIV Acts 17 v28
The opinions expressed by authors may not necessarily reflect the opinion of FaithWriters.com.
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