Peter Lundquist:
CLASS OF 1978
Mission San Jose High SchoolClass of 1978
Fremont, CA
Santa Clara University - BusinessClass of 1992
Santa clara, CA
University of California - Mechanical EngineeringClass of 1986
Berkeley, CA
Peter's Story
A funny thing happened during high school ...
In late September of 1975 while I was playing soccer in PE at Mission San Jose High School, a boy from the varsity soccer team tried to kick a ball out from underneath me, but missed and kicked my side instead. I was the goalie, in the goal box, but we had no refs or other supervision; the varsity soccer coach (who was our PE coach) was at the other field watching the other two teams play. The pain was fantastic and since no one was helping I crawled to the nurse¿s office. After over an hour there, during which I was given an ice pack for my pain, I stole out of the nurse¿s office because I was getting no relief from this pain and the nurse would not get me to the hospital.
I rode my bike home (my parents were separated, and my mom was in Hayward at Alameda County Library Headquarters working) and pleaded with my brother to help me find a way to the hospital. We could not afford to pay for an ambulance, so eventually my mom found a friend that would drive me to Hayward Kaiser (the closest Kaiser to us). I was in an emergency operating room at Hayward Kaiser for over seven hours while the doctors buzzed all about me trying to figure out what had happened.
Finally, ten hours after the accident had occurred (I was given no pain relief during this time), my parents walked into the room with two doctors. I hadn¿t seen my parents together like this since they sepa...Expand for more
rated and it was a little strange. The doctors then began explaining to my parents and I that they could not find out what was wrong with me, but because I had lost so much blood and was continuing to hemorrhage massive amounts of blood, I would die in less than 15 minutes unless they performed emergency exploratory surgery.
However, they would need to find the problem, stem the bleeding, etc., faster than they were comfortable with, so they made my parents sign a release (as I lie there) absolving the two doctors of any liability because the odds were that I would die on the operating table. I was in surgery for three hours and woke up seven days later in ICU. It was 13 hours from when I was dropped like a rock on the soccer field to when I rolled out of the operating room. They cut me open from about my waist to my ribcage to perform the emergency exploratory operation.
The incision was/is 13" long. They used a grand total of 13 stitches to sew up the 13" scar. There was no need to worry about cosmetics or anything because the odds were against me ever having to worry about that.
I was in ICU for a total of ten days, the first seven in a medically induced coma. After a month and a half, I returned home. I did not return to MSJ until late January of 1976. My mom lost her job shortly thereafter and I had to work. So the rest of my high school days were a little different than those of my fellow classmates.
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