Eid and a Stabbing

A couple of days after I returned from Canada, the Holy Month of Ramadan came to a close. To celebrate the month of fasting, Muslims have a celebration called 'Eid'. It is kinda the equivelent to what Christmas is to Christians.

Everyone is happy during Eid...not just the people who were fasting, but us westerners as well. Patients and staff are much less grumpy when properly fed. It's also nice to not have to worry about when and where you can take a sip of water. As non-muslims we can only drink and eat in private where those fasting will not see us. And this rule is enforced by the police.

Muslims are not allowed to even chew gum, smoke a cigarette or have IV fluids running into their viens between sunrise and sunset if they are fasting. Some of the extra religious ones do not even swallow their own saliva. (Their is an exception for people who are sick, old, pregnant or menstrating. But they are supposed to pay an extra amount of money to the poor to compensate).

I was once sitting in the back staff room (I had forgotten to close the door) having a cup of tea. One of the doctors walked in and caught me. He jokingly gave me a really hard time for it. Thank goodness I spent most of Ramadam in Canada!

So Eid has come as a big releif for everyone concerned. People celebrate by wishing each other 'Eid Mubarok!'. The security gaurds hand out chocolate. And the Children get all dressed up in traditional clothing. Most people are happy, but not everyone (foreshadowing).

Enter Stabbing:

Last night at work I was peacefully preparing my medications in our medication room, when I heard a comotion. I stuck my head out the door and I saw one man in the corridor holding another man who was shaking. I thought he was having a seizure (this is not uncommon on the neurosurgical ward). Then I saw alot of blood. I thought it was some kind of medical emergency.

But it registered in my mind that that senario wouldn't make alot of sense. The Saudi men had taken their head-peices off and were using the thick black cords that keep them in place to beat each other! (I have seen them do that on our ward before). They were also using the thick tin hospital plate warmers to beat each other on the head.

It made me nervous to see how many people were involved...about ten. And the mob was moving closer to the nursing desk where I was standing! They were in between us nurses and the exit. Two nurses had already managed to run off the ward to go find security and one was on the phone trying to contact someone.

I was still standing by the desk with my mouth open when someone yelled 'he has a knife'. And sure enough, one poor man was getting stabbed. I really just wanted to climb under the desk and hide till it was over.

I thought I should go look for security because the minutes were ticking by and they still hadn't showed up. There was a security desk right around the corner from our ward, but strangely it was empty. There were other people standing outside the ward peering through the window, but no-one actually wanted to go in and break-up the fight. I even went into the hospital mosque to see if the guards had left thier post to go pray. But they were not there either. By the time they got to the ward, both the attacker and the victim had fled.

It took us a while to figure out what had happed. But the story we got was that it was the result of a long-standing family fued. The attacker had come to the ward looking for the sitter of one of the patients with the intent of attacking him. The patient who had witnessed the initial exchange wasn't able to give us any information. He was just a frail, confused, little, old man. Infact he was so frightened that he spent the rest of the night with his blankets pulled over his head.

One of my patients who had a brain tumor and left-sided weakness happened to be walking by when the fight started. He tried to break up the fight but only managed to loose a shoe and get blood splattered on his robe. What I first thought was a mob of people fighting each other, was only two attackers with the rest of the men trying to break up the fight. I thought it was interesting how, instead of standing by and watching two strangers fight, all the Saudi men who witnessed it got involved. It didn't matter if they were sitters, visitors, family or patients.

None of us have heard what happened to the man who got stabbed, but as far as I could tell he wasn't stabbed in the chest or head. It looked like the blood was coming from his shoulder. We heard that the attacker was arrested. I think his visiting priviledges will be revoked for some time!