One of the most emotionally-charged issues during the secession battle between Portland and Long Island in Casco Bay during the 1990s revolved around how islanders would cope with emergency medical evacuations that had previously been the responsibility of the Portland fireboat. The issue was especially fraught because it goes to the heart of what level of risk islanders are willing to accept to maintain an independent way of life—and the islanders solved the issue by buying and refitting a lobster boat for such eventualities.
This summer on Vinalhaven, there have been a large number of nighttime medical evacuations, which the entire community learns about the next morning when the 7 a.m. ferry has been cancelled. Between the Maine State Ferry system’s rules about the number of hours the vessel’s captain and crew can operate and the staffing shortages from state budget constraints, the middle of the night medical evacuations result not only in the cancellation of the 7 a.m. boat, but the 8:45 a.m. trip as well so the crew can have the requisite number of hours of rest before going back on duty.
Everyone is philosophical about these emergency trips and subsequent ferry cancellations because, after all, an emergency is an emergency and theoretically this could happen to you. But if you have planned something like a late August wedding on-island and the all-important tent and port-a-potties that take six hours to unload and assemble are stranded on the mainland and the truck is threatening to turn around”¦ well, the nerves of all involved can become a bit frayed and you can begin to feel uncharitable about emergency evacuations.
So you can appreciate the irony of the recent medical adventure of the father of the groom during his son’s recent wedding. The following are 10 lessons he learned during his recent island adventure:
1. Generally, do not let a medical crisis intrude upon your first child’s wedding;
2. If a medical crisis strikes two hours before such an emotionally-significant event and you decide to lie down as if you were napping, do so out of sight of family members, lest unfortunate but memorable aspersions be cast on your character;
3. If you are going to have a medical crisis during your first child’s wedding on an island, arrange the crisis during regular ferry hours (e.g., generally between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m.)
4 If you are going to have a medical crisis during your first child’s wedding outside of ferry hours, it helpful to know that evacuation procedures will involve a large number of island community members;
5. If you are going to have a medical crisis outside of ferry hours into which an ever-widening number of family members will also be drawn, do not let them mistakenly believe the source of the unpleasantness that has awakened them in the night has resulted from the inability of your sons to celebrate moderately;
6. If you are going to have a medical crisis on an island outside of ferry hours and have grumbled over the inconveniences of nighttime emergency evacuations to others on the island, do not let your pride get the better of you;
7. If you are going to have a medical crisis on an island outside of ferry hours and you have insisted that an emergency ferry run is out of the question, be grateful to the island doctor who comes at 5 a.m. bearing a powerful pain killer and arranges an evacuation flight at first light;
8. If you are going to have a medical crisis on an island outside of ferry hours, be grateful to the owner of Penobscot Island Air, who not only flies you across the bay in beautiful dawn light, but drives you through the early morning streets of Rockland looking for a car a family member has parked somewhere on an obscure side street prior to the wedding;
9. If you are going to have a medical crisis on an island outside of ferry hours be also grateful to the compassionate and capable emergency room doctor who quickly diagnoses your problem as easily treated and then prescribes enough synthetic morphine to qualify you as Keith Richard’s jamming partner;
10. If you are going to have a medical crisis on an island outside of ferry hours into which an ever-widening number of family members have been drawn, because you have lain on the floor of the bathroom and have been distressed enough to have awoken and alarmed an entire household who are wondering why your sons cannot learn to drink more moderately; and you have refused to consider an emergency ferry run, which you believe will inconvenience too many others; and you have then drawn in the island doctor who has scrambled for a plane for a dawn evacuation; and you have expressed your deep gratitude to the owner of Penobscot Island Air, who has flown you across the bay in beautiful morning light, and found your car parked on an obscure side street; and you have become the best friend of the compassionate and capable emergency room doctor who has diagnosed your problem and prescribed enough synthetic morphine to qualify you as Keith Richard’s jamming partner; be finally very, very grateful to your spousal mooring and island in life, who will be called upon to minister to your every need during the days of your incapacitation while keeping in touch with now a vast circle of family, friends and community members who wish you had simply called for an emergency ferry run in the middle of the night and spared them the drama of your unnecessary pride.