I was lucky to see the first sunrise of 2016 on January 1. Thanks to the medical staff at Kaiser for saving my life and letting this happen. This is not the best sunrise picture I ever took, but perhaps the most memorable as I got this 2 days after my bypass surgery taken from the balcony area of Kaiser Moanalua hospital.
For many years one of the things that I have done was wake up early on the first day of the new year to get photograph of the first sunrise of the year. Capturing the first sunrise of 2016 almost did not happen.
HEART ATTACK
On the morning of December 26, 2015 I woke up at around 5:45 am. Got out of bed, got in the car and drove to Ala Moana Beach Park, Magic Island to do a walk around the area and perhaps take a photo of the setting full moon that I missed on Christmas Day night.
Camera in hand, I started my walk just fine for about 20 yards. I was on the paved Magic Island jogging trail when I kind of felt my chest tighten and heighten in pain. The level of pain was not very great. I continued walking for a few more feet when I decided this doesn’t feel normal.
I did an about face and slowly walked back to my car. I found it kind of astounding that I was also running out of breath. I had only awoken about 45 minutes before this happened. “Am I having a heart attack” I silently asked myself as I struggled a few more yards to get back to my car.
I got there and immediately turned on my cell phone. I was kind of debating whether or not to call 911 or simply drive the car home and rest in my apartment. By the way I am one of the last persons on earth to have bought a cell phone. This occurred in March of 2014. I did not tell anyone about my cell phone or its number except to a few close relatives and friends. Little did I know that the cell phone would be instrumental in saving my life.
While seated in the car, I called my friend Lisa. As I vaguely recall now, her line was busy. So I waited for a few moments, still in some mild pain. I decided against driving home and instead called 911. Here in Honolulu the 911 operator asks if you want police, fire or ambulance. I said “ambulance”. They switched me over to the ambulance dispatcher. The person on the other side told me to stay in the car and turn on its emergency flashers.
The ambulance took 20 minutes to get to where I was. File photo by Mel.
The ambulance took 20 minutes to get to where I was. Parked car, emergency flashers on, parking lot. The nearest ambulance place is about 2 miles from Magic Island. Why did it take so long? If my heart attack was massive, I probably would have been dead before they arrived.
While waiting for the ambulance to arrive, I did call Lisa again. I vaguely remember any conversation I had with her, but I think for the most part she asked me to stay calm and don’t panic.
EMS’s ambulance finally arrived. They opened the back door of the ambulance and surprisingly I could walk out of my car and sit in the gurney. Before I did that I made sure my car was secured. Turned off the flashers, got my stuff (cell phone, camera, wallet, bag). I locked the doors.
The paramedics loaded me onto the ambulance after I sat in the gurney. They laid me down, stuck an IV needle in me, hooked me up to a blood pressure and oxygen machine, an EKG reader and who knows what else. I was also given a nitroglycerin pill that I had to hold under my tongue until it dissolved.
The paramedics also asked me a lot of health questions, including whether or not I drink or smoke, to which my answers were in the negative. I was conscious for the whole ride on the ambulance… from Magic Island to Kaiser Moanalua Hospital near the Salt Lake area of Honolulu / Pearl City-Aiea.
The ambulance arrived at the Kaiser Moanalua Emergency Room in about 20 minutes from my pickup. Since it was an early Saturday morning, there was no traffic on the H1 freeway.
EMERGENCY ROOM AND ADMISSION
Kaiser’s Moanalua Hospital. File photo by Mel.
By the time I got to the Emergency Room, I was feeling a little better. I think the nitro kind of help relieve my heart attack stress.
Anyways I was wheeled in and transferred to one of the emergency rooms. Nurses promptly hooked me up to a number of machines, had some kind of IV going and there I was. Heart attack victim laying on a bed, high tech machines reading out numbers and making strange little beeping noises that were relayed to the main desk I think informing the nurses that I was still alive.
While at the emergency room they ran a series of blood tests. They also gave me something to swallow to check if it was a bad case of heartburn. Turned out it wasn’t. After about an hour the blood test results were returned and the emergency room doctors determined that I had a “moderate heart attack”.
Therefore I was admitted and wheeled out of the emergency room and on to the third floor which is part of the cardio telemetry area of the hospital. The hospital would take good care of me from this point going forward.
After several days and a big operation (which will be covered in the next post), I would be able to see my first sunrise of 2016.
_______________
Technical Note: If you want to leave a comment, you first will have to register on this blog before I can grant a comment privilege. Click on comment and the form should pop up. Don’t be offended if I don’t grant you access.
Hawaii’s Glimpse at the Great American Solar Eclipse
Starting with this post, Bypass Avenue will expand to cover some of my personal commentaries about non-health related items such as the solar eclipse which occurred yesterday. This post also appears at my Hawaii Files Blog site.
By Melvin Ah Ching, Editor & Publisher, The Hawaii Files Blog
As solar eclipses go, yesterday’s partial one in Honolulu was adequately good. The Great American Solar Eclipse of 2017 was a huge phenomena and event throughout the continental United States as the path of totality traveled eastward in a narrow 70 mile wide band from the Oregon coast to the tip of South Carolina. Much of the continent had a good partial eclipse that covered most of the sun.
In a solar eclipse, the moon’s shadow blots out the sunlight as it passes between the sun and the Earth. During totality that shadow blocks out nearly all sunlight except for a narrow band around the perimeter that creates a remarkable and unforgettable view. Solar eclipses are rare occurrences that track within small and varied regions of Earth’s surface. Within the eclipse’s band, many areas get a partial eclipse while totality only occurs within a smaller zone.
Millions of people on the U.S. continent witnessed and captured images of the eclipse going into and out of totality including the 2 minute long phase of full shadowed coverage.
In Honolulu, my friend Lisa Davidson and I awoke early and trekked to the Waialae Kahala Beach Park an hour before sunrise to secure a good viewing spot that I scoped out the day before. Anticipating the eclipse, which started near Hawaii, Lisa and I both photographed the changing light around us as night receded into the new day. The rising sun was going to be in the eclipse process. I had to be prepared for that.
I had three cameras with me including my Canon 600D SLR with a 300mm lens set up on a tripod, Fujifilm HS10 EVF with a wide to long built in zoom lens, and a Samsung smart phone that can also do pictures. Lisa had her trusty little Samsung that she used to catch the “feel” of the moments. We both had protective eclipse viewers that I got last year from Bishop Museum. I used the 58mm screw on sun filter for the cameras to get eclipse images.
We were set. We waited. Talked. Photographed. The sunrise was pretty, but the clouds were getting in the way. I was wondering if the clouds would pre-empt my eclipse view.
Sunrise in Honolulu was at 6:11 am. Moonrise was 2 minutes earlier at 6:09am. The eclipse began at 5:50am before the sun rose. Everything was in motion for a good eclipse except for the clouds.
It was not until 7:16 am that I caught my first fleeting glimpse of the sun poking through the clouds. I fired the Canon for a continuous burst of images as the clouds slowly broke and the sun revealed its new face for a few moments. And then the clouds rolled back in.
I got a few images but I wanted more. My wish came true as the clouds slowly blew away and the eclipsed sun appeared again as I fired more frames off with the camera. I got my 20% or probably a little less than that. It was better than nothing and certainly better than the 10% that I got during last year’s eclipse from Magic Island.
I snapped more photos in the next 15 minutes of the waning spectacle.
Lisa was thrilled as she was able to see the eclipse through my camera’s LCD screen and the protective filters that allowed us to view the show with our own eyes. She was very thankful that I shared these moments with her.
By 7:30 in the morning the eclipse was over. The sun was out, the day was bright and life would continue as it always does.
It turns out that this year’s solar eclipse is the last one to be visible in Hawaii until April 8, 2024, when another total eclipse will be viewable in the continental United States. The next total solar eclipse occurs in the southeastern Pacific Ocean and over the South American countries of Chile and Argentina on July 2, 2019.
Photos by Mel unless indicated.
Catching a live video stream while waiting for clouds to depart.
KHON TV’s McKenna Maduli reports on the eclipse from Waialae Kahala Beach park not too far away from where we were. There are 3 clips embedded in this video composite.
Additional Links:
Comments Off on Hawaii’s Glimpse at the Great American Solar Eclipse
Posted in Commentary, News, The Hawaii Files
Tagged commentary, Hawaii, news, Non-Health Related, Re-Blog, The Hawaii Files