On the afternoon of April 7, 1989, our youngest daughter, who was fourteen at the time, was having basketball practice at school. At about 3:45 p.m. she fell and hit her forehead against the edge of a wall in the gymnasium, and fell to the floor unconscious. Her classmates ran to the gym teacher, who happened to be busy with some other students.
As her classmates told me later, the teacher did not immediately take the call for help very seriously. He took his time in making his way over to Tamara. But then he started to panic when he realized that all his efforts to revive her were to no avail, and he could no longer detect a pulse. He ran as fast as he could to call the emergency first-aid service.
That help did not come very quickly either, because they misunderstood what he said on the telephone; they thought a foot injury was involved, and they took their time also. When they finally arrived, they were shocked to find that Tamara had lost a large quantity of blood. Their efforts to revive her were also fruitless, nor could they find any pulse.
