PAULA:  Things, you know, some of the funny things happened.  Even around here one time, my girlfriend and I went to bingo, and while we were at the bingo, I heard somebody -- somebody fall on the floor, and I looked back and I was thinking of maybe somebody's under the influence, I looked back and then turned around, and then I looked back again because that lady doesn't drink.  She was laying on the floor. 

And of course, I just run -- run over to her naturally, you know.  And the only person that was helping me was a person who's an alcoholic that he's always going, you can say that he's always going. 

So he got me taxi and we brought -- we brought the patient down to -- the taxi driver and him brought the patient out.  And I sit in the front with her laying down with my knee for -- for her pillow, she was out.  She was unconscious. 

And while we were going up, she was -- her breathing was getting shallow, and when -- when I got scared, I -- I squeezed her little finger and she -- and she start moving and start breathing good. 

When we got there at the hospital, I run into the -- I opened the door for them and I run into the hospital and go to the emergency room and get the gurney, and I put the gurney by the door.  And those taxi driver and the one that's -- who's still, you know, going, had taken the lady, one was holding her like this, the other one was holding her like that, you know, so they were holding the lady. 

KAREN:  They were carrying her under her legs? 

PAULA:  Well, their arms were like holding, one was on this side holding this leg, and his arm back there.  And the one that was on this side was holding this one and holding her on the back, you know, bringing her in, and they kind of raise her and they were going to put her on the gurney, but her butt hit the gurney -- and the gurney took off. 

KAREN:  Wait.  You're attached. 

PAULA:  Oh, yeah. 

KAREN:  Oops.  Nope.  Now we're back. 

So on that one, what happened after you said you found out later about that case? 

PAULA:  Yeah.  The doctor came and the nurse came and went through her chart and find out that they had given too much of one kind of medicine, like sort of -- sort of overdosed because the bowels just went down, too, while she was out -- while she was out.  But she got better.  They take good care of her and she got good.  And she lived for a long time after that. 

But that was funny.  But it was good that, you know, instead of there's lots of people at the bingo, even some health aides, but nobody stand up to help me except that alcoholic person who was playing bingo just -- that was nice.  Even the taxi driver was giving us help. 

KAREN:  So when you were home in the village and something happened, emergency things, did you get help from other people in the community?
 
PAULA:  Usually the family of a person who is the victim usually give me a hand.  Yeah. 

KAREN:  We -- we've been talking a lot about cases that were traumatic or stressful that didn't come out too well in the end.  What about some that had happy endings where you saved somebody, you were mentioning them as your rewards. 

PAULA:  Yeah.  That -- that happy ending was about that boy that survived whom, I think, was -- you know, you see those, lots of crib deaths, you know.  It would have been a crib death if that -- if the Native people didn't sleep with their babies. 

And a lot of things happened because somebody, like appendicitis, seizures due to meningitis, all those things, we take care of the pneumonias, and -- and prevention, too.  We practice lots of prevention.
 
So that in some villages, like -- like Nunam Iqua, when I -- when I first started working there, I think they had 125 people, the health aides did so much preventative work that even the -- the population sort of doubled. 

These -- there's still -- their average patient daily is two people for the longest time because the health aides do a lot of preventative care.  So instead of getting more and more patients, you know, it's still something like average daily patient care, patient encounters still, too. 

And the health aides also, one -- one other preventative thing we did was that when all the fishermen in summertime, we get lots of people coming to the village from -- even from outside, out states, we let them know that there's -- we can check for, if they want to be checked for gonorrhea, we have the -- you know, we have the things to check, you know.  And then treat them, you know, if they have gonorrhea. 

Also we let everybody know who goes to Anchorage and get drunk and, you know, we know who the drinkers are, it's always available there, so instead of that one spreading, the health aides -- since the health aides let them know there's these, then they get treated right away when they get home, tested and treated.  So that's a good preventative care. 

And some -- some things like placenta getting stuck in the person for a long time, and if the placenta is stuck after baby is born, there's -- there's lots of bleeding, you know, going on.  And from both my mother and from the doctors, we know we're not going to pull, you know, otherwise we might do more damage, you know.  We just let nature take care of that. 

There was one lady that she was losing so much blood that she keep fainting.  But to make sure that the fluid didn't decrease, you did that, you know, to squeeze the little finger, and when she come to, you -- you let them have some liquids. 

It could be water, it could be broth from the fish or from the meat, you know, just try to let them continue having some liquids.  And then whenever the plane came come, you know, you could, you know, let them go, and that is okay, that is good, you know. 

There's more happy endings than sad, you know.  And I think this is majority of the health aides.  They hardly -- they have more rewarding experiences in sick people or accidents than having -- you know, than losing people.  So that is a good -- the health aides do good.

And I think a lot of times it's, you know, out in the village, you know, where there's no doctors, nurses, that give us -- we have to know what to do and depend on ourselves, depend on our skills, everything what we learn, we have to depend on everything what we learn, like emergencies, the YKHC teach us, all about these emergencies, how to take care of them. 

And nowadays, too, they have IVs.  They can put IV and oxygen.  We didn't have that before.  So in place of IV that they have right now, when I was starting or we just use liquid, a lot of liquid. 

KAREN:  Just have them drink a lot of liquid? 

PAULA:  Uh-hum.  Yeah.  And if you -- if they want to vomit, if they have nausea, then you just give them a spoon, a spoon of liquid every half hour or every hour, you know, every 15 minutes, to prevent them from getting dehydrated.