I had a short article in the Feb/Mar Country magazine about why I continue to live on this island.  On a Saturday night  in February in the middle of the night, in the middle of a blizzard, my five year old granddaughter had a massive seizure and I rediscovered the real reason I wouldn’t live anywhere else.

My youngest son, Randall, calls me at 1 AM from Anchorage, Alaska, where he is stuck in contract negotiations  for the local longshoreman’s union.  His voice is hoarse.  “Get to the clinic,” he says. “Dakota had a seizure. The clinic is trying to get a Coast Guard chopper to medivac her to Cold Bay where a C-130 can pick her up and bring her on to Anchorage.”
     I dress on on automatic and go outside to my car, which I haven’t driven for weeks. It is covered in snow and ice. The wipers are frozen down, but the motor starts, and I chip away at clearing a hole large enough to see through. While I scratch at the ice buildup in the driving snow and bitter cold I think about how impossible it will be for a helicopter to land. I pray one is already on the ground.
     I drive the two miles to the clinic through whiteouts and drifts across the road. There is no other traffic.
     My daughter-in-law waits outside the clinic to take me through the locked doors. “They finally got it stopped,” is all she says. She looks much calmer than I feel.  Inside the small room used an an infirmary Dakota’s other grandparents and aunt hover over her stretcher.  Her eyes are closed.  She does not  respond to my voice or the touch of my hand.   She is grinding her teeth.   I do not recognize any of the three attendants.    “Grand mal?” I ask the room at large.
     “No,” the one male replies.   He doesn’t look up from the drawer he is rummaging through. I can see they are getting Dakota ready for transport. My daughter-in-law fills me in on what happened.  Dakota had been looking at the light in the kitchen of her other grandmother where they were visitinng for the evening when she suddenly collasped and would not respond. They rushed her to the community clinic, which is just down the hill from her house, while her father, John Days, who is the Unalaska Harbor Master, called the police and alerted the medical people to get to the clinic. Even at that they were there ten minutes before any medical personel arrived. The roads were so close to impassable.
     She tells me they injected Dakota with valium and dilantin even before they got an IV started.  Later I find out from Randall they had snowed her with phenobarb. So they did all the right things to save Dakota’s life and protect her brain from whatever was preying on it.
     I want to kiss their feet but limit myself to identifying the MD who will be accompanying Dakota to Anchorage in such terrible weather conditions and thank her for risking her own life for my granddaughter.
     The helicopter lands at the airport. I hear the attendants in the next room calling for the ambulance to transfer Dakota. I hold tight to her little hand. It lays limply in mine. I’m careful not to dislodge the oxygen meter taped to her finger again.
     Word comes that mom cannot go. The chopper is too small. It is a dolphin, a stout little workhorse of a machine.   It has flown in from a law enforcement cutter in the Bering Sea in winds that would knock a man down and visability sometimes no grteater than the hand in front of your face.
     The ambulance arrives. Dakota is transferred to a board, strapped down and covered with two light blankets. “Does she have a hat?” The Doctor asks. I take off my knitted stocking cap and snug it around her head, thankful I can do anything at all. I’ve been in aircraft many times in Aleutian winters. They are very cold. We follow the stretcher outside to the ambulance where Dakota is loaded aboard. Her mother is allowed to travel with her for the five minute ride to the airport. I fumble in my pocket for my car keys, knowing my driving skill does not rise to following the ambulance on the hazardous roads.
     Then around the corner of the clinic comes EMT Mike Sheffield. “Cora…” he says. And I am in his arms weeping on his chest. “I can’t stand it,” I scream.
     He gives me a big hug. “She is in good hands,” he said. This is the man who put my husband on a stretcher when he suffered a massive heart attack on another awful night and then gently lifted his body out of the bath tub three months later. He is young. His sons are younger than my grandsons, yet he has the biggest heart.
     “Come with me,” he says. “I’m following the ambulannce.” He helps me into his personal vehicle whose running board is level with my waist. “First I have to stop at Public Safety for a bag.”
     I say nothing but I am so scared. A bag. Dakota has been breathinng fine the whole time, one of the encouraging signs. Now they are afraid she will need an Ambu bag. I must be grateful everyone is thinking of every p[ossible disaster. We stop at the Police Station and Mike runs inside. His truck is cold even with the motor running. Snow quickly piles up on the windshield. He is gone less than a minute and is back with a huge fluffy pink sleeping bag which he stows on the console between us. “Down,” he says. “Good for forty below.”
     I breathe a sigh of relief. A sleeping bag. “Thank you.” The rest of the trip he spends telling me what a competent doctor Ann is, that she is the one he always takes his own kids to, that he has utmost confidence in her. Before I know it we are at the airport. Mike takes the sleeping bag and disappears. In a few moments I glimpse the stretcher carrying Dakota emerge from the ambulance. She is swathed in layers of down sleeping bag. The helicopter is waiting. It is small and red and looks so insignificant against the wall of snow and night. The truck I am in shakes with each new gust of wind. The transfer is quickly accomplished and then I see my plucky little seven month pregnant daughter-in-law jog across the tarmac in her father’s borrowed float coat and climb aboard. She gets to go after all.
     I watch the rotors speed up and like magic the squat little machine lifts off. It is swallowed in an instant and vanishes into the black and white night.
     Then begins the wait, first for news that they arrived safely, and then for Dakota’s condition. Guarded prognosis turns more optimistic as her coma lessens. She is moved from the pediatric intensive care to a regular ward. Tests reveal no permanent brain damage.
     Due to the dedication of the clinic personel and the bravery of the Coast Guard choppper and C-130 crews my granddaughter still has a chance at a normal life.