BY CALVIN PALMER

'VE GOT A YOUNG WOMAN ON THE BACK SEAT OF my car, and I think she's dead." On this Friday morning I was the only doctor on duty at the institution then known as the Warburton Sanitarium and Hospital, in Warburton, Australia.

The young man's startling announcement caught me off guard.

"What happened?" I asked.

"I don't know," he replied. "The neighbors--they just recently got married. This morning the husband went off to work as usual, and my wife, who likes to be a good neighbor, went to see how the wife was getting on--and found her collapsed on the floor. This is the nearest hospital, so I put her on the back seat of the car and have been driving more than 110 kilometers of winding bush track to get here."

We lost no time getting out to his car. There, crumpled on the back seat, was the still form of a young woman. Her skin was cold and white. I couldn't feel a pulse. However, I could just discern a feeble heartbeat. She was alive, but only just.

We immediately lifted her onto a stretcher and carried her into the hospital. I had a patient in extreme shock, on the brink of death, but had no information as to what had caused her condition.

Where to Begin?
After examining the woman further, I said to Matron Mitchell, "Her abdomen is distended with fluid. I think it's blood. It looks as though we have an ectopic on our hands."

This condition--a rupture of major blood vessels in the pelvis--necessitates immediate surgery. We commenced intravenous therapy, then phoned to Melbourne, requesting blood to be rushed up by taxi. The staff prepared the operating room for emergency surgery. Our problem now was the anesthetic. I was the only doctor at the hospital, and because the woman's condition was so critical, we desperately needed an anesthetist. In those days of ether--more than 30 years ago--most anesthesia was given by general practitioners.

There were very few specialists, and I didn't know the name of one. Matron Mitchell had a little experience in giving anesthetics, so because no doctor was available, I turned to her. "I'll have to ask you to give the anesthetic," I said. "We have to operate now, or it'll be too late. If she dies on the table, you will go to court, but I'll go with you."

As the staff prepared the operating room and the patient, I went into my office and prayed. "Lord, this is an emergency. A woman's life is at stake. I desperately need a specialist in anesthetics. But You know all about it."

I told Matron Mitchell, "I'll commence the anesthetic. Then I'll hand it over to you while I scrub up and operate."

Just as I was about to commence administering the anesthetic, the door to the operating room opened. A complete stranger put his head around the corner and said, "I'm Dr. Smith. Can I be of any help?"

I had to know whether he was a Ph.D., a doctor of music, a skin specialist, or a psychiatrist. So I asked him, "What line of work do you do?"

"I'm a specialist in anesthesia."

I explained the situation, and he took over the anesthetic. It took all the skill he had to keep that woman alive while I operated. I opened her abdomen and found it absolutely distended with blood. Never before or since had I seen such a hemorrhage. The electric suction device I used couldn't handle so much blood. I put both hands together and bailed out her abdomen as I had bailed out canoes in the Solomon Islands. I found the ruptured artery still feebly spitting blood. As I tied it off I knew she would live.

When the woman had been taken back to the ward, I turned to Dr. Smith. "How on earth did you appear at the door of the operating room at that precise moment?" I asked.

"I can't explain it," he said, "but I'll tell you what happened."

A Divine Appointment
He began: "As you know, there are very few anesthesiologists about, and I've been working long hours. This morning I turned up at the hospital to do a list of cases, only to be told, without explanation, that the whole list had been canceled.

"I thought, How wonderful! I'm going to get right away from Melbourne for the weekend. I want to go somewhere where nobody knows me, where there are no hospitals, no operating rooms, and no anesthetics."

Then he said, "I had an impulse to come to Warburton. I can't explain it, but I decided I had to come. I had never been to Warburton before, but I knew there were a number of guesthouses where I could spend the weekend.

"When I got to Warburton, I noticed a large building on the slopes of a hill. That looks like a guesthouse, I thought. So I drove up here, but it turned out to be a hospital instead. Just as I was about to turn around and drive off, a woman came out of the gates. 'My name is Dr. Smith,' I told her, 'and I'm looking for a place where I can spend the weekend.'

"She grabbed me. 'You're wanted in the operating room at once,' she said.

"'I came to Warburton to get away from operating rooms,' I replied.

"'But it's an emergency,' she persisted.

"And that," continued Dr. Smith, "is how I came to be here."

Comparing Notes
"Can you tell me," I asked, "just what time you had that impulse that you should come to Warburton?"

"It was at 8:10 this morning."

The sequence of events began to unfold in my mind. At 8:00 the woman had collapsed at Matlock, 110 kilometers east of Warburton. At 8:10 God put into the mind of that anesthesiologist, 80 kilometers to the west, that he must go to Warburton. At about 10:30 I was pleading with God for help, but He had already answered my prayer more than two hours before. The problem was coming from the east, the solution from the west, and I knew nothing about it.

I learned a great lesson about providence from that experience. It has given me a deeper appreciation for the promise "Before they call, I will answer" (Isa. 65:24).

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Before his retirement Calvin Palmer, M.D., served at a leper colony in the Solomon Islands, as a surgeon at Warburton Hospital in Australia, and as a staff physician at Sydney Adventist Hospital.