When Pat rang me to say that Laura had seen something about an accident involving Pádraig on Facebook, that she had rung the number on Cape Cod, and that he had, indeed, been very badly injured in a terrible accident, it was after midnight and I was about to go to bed in Sanya, on the Chinese island of Hainan, about 3,000km south of Beijing. I had been invited by the owner of a localization company to give a particular talk that she had seen me deliver at a different event, at her company’s 10th Anniversary Event. The title of the talk was ‘Skyfall’. Yes, ‘Skyfall’ as in the James Bond movie. The point of the talk was to show that the rise of community-driven social localisation could be interpreted to be the worst thing to happen to the mainstream business of localization (like the sky falling on top of it) – or it could be seen as a huge and exciting new opportunity.

When I arrived at the hospital today, I rang the bell for the ward, waited for a reply from the intercom, said I was visiting ‘Herrn Schäler’ – and was told to come in but sit for a few moment in the waiting area, because there were many nurses and doctors around. First I didn’t get the point that all this commotion was happening in Pádraig’s room. But then his visiting Irish friend came out and said that the were with Pádraig. After a few minutes of anxiety, a nurse came out and brought me to his room where they were just finishing with Pádraig. A doctor took me to her office to have a quiet talk (in Beaumont doctors don’t have offices where they can meet patients or relatives on the ward, and talks often took place either in the room, or on the corridor).

It turned out that Pádraig’s left lung had collapsed, in other words, he had had a spontaneous pneumothorax. At 15:30 his oxygen saturation had gone down to 70% (normal would have been 96-98%) and alarms had gone off on the ward. I could imagine what happened remembering the day I had moved the gauge on his finger: mayhem. Within about two hours they had checked him out, done an X-ray, diagnosed the pneumothorax, and assembled a team to insert a drainage (a rubber tube) into his thorax to extract the air around his lungs, air that had made his left lung collapse and that had put pressure on his inner organs and his heart. An hour later they had successfully completed the insertion of the tube  Another hour later, they had done a new X-ray confirming that his left lung was back at work and in a good shape. When I left the hospital at around 21:30, I was assured that he would fine and we would all be ok to go home and rest.

Skyfall starts with ‘this is the end’ (“like the song from the Doors”, I hear you saying:), but it ends on a really powerful note of being together, standing tall, facing it together, and getting out of the mess on the other side, starting anew. Today, again, was a bit of a Skyfall, but I know that we are together, standing tall, facing up to whatever is going to happen – and that we will get out of it on the other side, as strong and enthusiastic as ever.

Finally, we just launched a website: http://www.CaringForPadraig.org, where we tell the story of Pádraig’s accident; list events his friends are organizing for him; collect and make available pictures and videos of the events; as well as the ‘wishing Pádraig well’ messages from some famous Irish bands; and information on how to financially support the care for Pádraig.

-> There is a calendar of friends visiting Pádraig (please let me know if you want to be included:).
-> Follow us on Twitter: CaringForPadraig
-> Visit the new website and pass its address on to friends and family: http://www.CaringforPadraig.org — The website also has a Forum attached to it for open discussions in the group.

Today’s German Music Tip
Paul van Dyk and Peter Heppner, Wir sind wir (2004). Text made available in German and in English by the Goethe-Institute.
What’s hot
Drainage
What’s cold
Arriving home at 23:30
The German word/phrase/verse of the day
“Wir sind wir.
Das ist doch nur ein schlechter Lauf.
So schnell geben wir doch jetzt nicht auf.”
=> We won’t give up that quickly now. <=