Epilepsy

The other day my husband got a call from work that someone had fallen at his workplace. I rolled my eyes. "So are they suing?" This happens every now and then and people want to sue because they fell over the curb, or slipped on a slick of wet in the front doors...whatever. I find it frustrating that lawsuits seem to be the order of the day. As the day and story unfolded though, it became clear that she hadn't really just fallen. After paramedics had come and they had taken eye-witness accounts, a seizure was suspected. My husband and his father realized that they may have "the fall" on their video surveillance and pulled it up. When they told the paramedics that they had footage they were eager to see it. I was curious as well. Today I asked my husband to play it for me. Our son has epilepsy. All the children were in the room and wanted to see the footage as well, especially our son. Although he was diagnosed with epilepsy 3 years ago, he is not aware during his seizures. Only the rare foggy memory of post-seizure questions from us are held onto. "Are you okay Darren? Do you know what just happened?" And even then, the seizure has so depleted his strength that he is answering through a half-sleep that he does not recover from till morning. He's never had one in the day before. Never in public. Only in the middle of the night. We use a baby monitor to hear him. Curt finally found the clip and played it. She walked around the store and then came back near the surveillance camera. Suddenly she doubled over 90 degrees and then again suddenly went down on her face...her hands did not shoot out to protect her fall. Her legs were bent at the knee, her waist was still bent and she lay un-naturally like that while two other customers immediately came and tried to turn her over and help her, calling for the cashier. With the jerkiness of the camera surveillace system I could not tell "movement of the seizure" but i could tell the positioning of her body. It took about 10 minutes for paramedics to arrive and she still had not gotten up. One customer covered her with his thick winter coat. Everyone gathered around, staring helpless. I could almost hear the conversation... "What happened? Did she trip? Is she okay? how come she won't get up? Should we turn her over?" As a mother, it was my son I was watching... my son...