Imagine the excitement we must've felt. For months we had anticipated our joint family vacation to a paradisiacal resort and the sandy beaches of Cancun, Mexico, all for it to end before it even began.
What a time this will be, we all thought as we were meeting two of my first cousins, who are like sisters to me, and their families for this epic getaway. We booked a suite at the opulent Hyatt Ziva Riviera resort, which checked all the boxes: fun for the kids, and luxury and relaxation for the adults.
Our lengthy travels started the evening before our 8:00 a.m. flight out of Atlanta International Airport. We drove down the night before to make for an easier airport commute, and we had gotten through the thick of our travels—the long drive from Birmingham, long TSA lines, two flights, and a 2-hour layover with an active 2-year-old little girl, and an anxious 12-year-old boy—we had made it.
All we had to do now was meet the car service and head to the resort. We got through customs, and we were at baggage claim collecting our luggage. We were pulling our suitcases from the baggage carousel, and my thoughts were that in an hour, we'd be by the poolside eating tacos and drinking pina coladas. I told my husband to keep an eye on the kids while I grabbed a luggage buggy.
Moments later, everything changed. It all happened in a blink of an eye.
I was 10 feet away when our baby girl erupted in a piercing blood-curdling scream—her pinky finger was caught in the metal conveyor belt on the carousel.
My husband, in a flash, picked her up and ran into the restroom. It felt like everything was happening in slow motion. All I saw was blood. My son had to rip her finger from the crevice of the massive machine.
My heart sank, and my stomach turned upside down. I ran after my husband. My baby girl's heartbreaking cry was the guide that lead me to them. I followed a trail of blood as I entered the restroom and saw my daughter's skin and flesh ripped open on the outside of her hand, and a deep laceration that did indeed expose her pinky finger's bone at the base between the webbing of her pinky finger and fourth digit.
As soon as my husband and I locked eyes we both cried. Although unspoken, we understood the enormity of what we were now facing abroad.
Onlookers helped us get the attention of nearby employees, and we were escorted to the airport's medic office. The medic administered a topical anesthetic to numb the pain and confirmed that we needed to get to a hospital and that we were calling for an ambulance.
You wouldn't believe the strength that our tiny baby girl was exhibiting. Although she was visibly shaken, she was relatively calm by this point. What broke our hearts in half was when she uttered "I just want to go home."
As soon as we arrived at the hospital, we were forced to pay $750 out of pocket for the ride in the ambulance, even though we were never told that the ambulance ride would be at our expense.
We tried to get them to lower the rate, they said they would and then ran our card for $750 anyway. The hospital visit was very taboo. It seemed everything was a haggling game there.
They would not administer care before talking numbers and our agreement to pay their fees. This is frustrating because they hadn't even looked at our daughter's hand to assess the injury, yet were trying to get us to agree to random figures.
We were swindled out of more money at the hospital. After an x-ray, we were relieved to learn that her finger was not broken and that they could stitch her up and send us on our way. The doctors' medical team wrapped my baby in a sheet like a burrito, essentially swaddling her like a newborn baby.
They left her right arm out so that they could access the injury and told me to lay over her and keep her as still as possible because it was going to hurt. I was nauseous as I braced myself for the process. I leaned over my baby girl and prayed with all my might, asking God for his strength and mercy as we went through this procedure.
The doctor began removing the dressing. His mouth dropped, and in broken English told me that he could not stitch her up and that they needed to call a plastic surgeon because she'd need to be put under anesthesia and would need a skin graft.
I was disheveled and blown away. I sent for my husband and told him the news, and we decided there was no way we were allowing our daughter to be put under anesthesia for a non-life-threatening injury in a foreign country. The risk was too great. The possibility of arriving as a family of four, and leaving as a family of three was gut-wrenching.
We told them we didn't want to do that and asked if they would just stitch her up so that we could leave and began making arrangements to return home. The doctor refused and told us we needed to make it back to the States within 12 to 24 hours if we wanted to save our daughter's finger. We were charged more than $1,100 for an x-ray, and a makeshift mitten-like bandage.
By this point, we're completely traumatized. While waiting for our taxi to head to the resort and regroup, I called Southwest and had our flights changed from a Saturday departure to the next day, which was a Wednesday. This cost us another $500.
Spiritbroken and confused, we arrived around 6:00 p.m. We'd made it all this way in anticipation of this first-class vacation and would not get to experience any of it.
Why us? Why did this freak accident have to happen? Is this our fault? Of course it is, we're her parents. Is God trying to use this to teach us or protect us from something? Or is the devil just doing what he does best?
That night, my husband, son, and I huddled on the balcony and watched our precious baby girl sleep, blissfully unaware of the pain and regret we were all feeling on her behalf. We hugged, we prayed, and we asked God for strength and understanding. We realized that we were too anxious, and moving too fast.
How different would this very moment be had we slowed down a bit at the airport? We could be showering and preparing to have dinner at one of the fine-dining restaurants with our family.
We examined nearly everything we could've done differently that would have rendered an alternate reality, and made a vow to be better as a family unit. I began to weep as I thought of how much worse this could have been, and how merciful God had been. It could've been multiple digits that were sucked into the carousel, it could've been her whole hand, she could have been an amputee.
Leaving my husband and son behind in the wee hours of the morning was not easy. We were each experiencing the ache of separation anxiety. Except for little Mama, she was ready for "an adventure with Mommy", that's how I pitched it.
The ride to the airport was leery. The rural area, and the nearly pitch-black road we traveled to the main highway, had my imagination running wild as I sat in the backseat with my daughter straddled in my lap and lying against my chest.
American Airlines were so good to us. They upgraded us to first class on the first flight, served us breakfast, and made sure we had wheelchair assistance through customs and to the next gate. The flight crew on our connecting flight aided us in securing medical transport from the airport straight to Children's of Alabama Hospital in Birmingham.
When we arrived, the hospital staff were ready and waiting for us. This was quite relieving. I finally felt safe again, and like the mission to get my baby what she needed had been accomplished. It had been a long 24 hours.
My daughter's finger was saved. The doctors and plastic surgeons in the U.S. determined that she did not need major surgery and instead sedated her to tend to the wound. Thankfully, miraculously, her finger was spared. God allowed us to get back within the timeframe needed, and no infection had set in.
Airports should have attendants at the baggage claim carousels. My husband was shown how easily the carousel could've been stopped with the push of a button at an airport on his and our son's way back home. Had anyone been attending the carousels, her finger could probably have slid right out instead of having to be pried out.
Parents should be aware of this possibility and keep it at the forefront of their minds while traveling in airports with small children.
All we can do is trust God, and that he has a plan for us that surpasseth our understanding. Eventually, we'll get to do our vacation over again, and I pray God allows us to indulge and enjoy it and all its splendor.
Je'Don Holloway-Talley, a wife, and mother of two, is an Inglewood, California native, a Freelance Writer, and Communication Strategist based in Birmingham, Alabama, where she lives with her family, and runs JEDON x Co. a boutique communications firm that improves digital spaces, company narratives, and visibility one brand at a time.
All views expressed in this article are the author's own.
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