From Corporate Hierarchy to the Realm of the Corporeal
A new beginning
My journey starts with my arrival at Cincinnati CVG Airport from London Heathrow on a dark and chilly day, marking the start of a new job and life. I am typically British and middle-aged, so taking on a new and senior-level business role in the United States is daunting. The feeling of uncertainty about fitting into a different culture is more worrying than taking on a new job.
I am alone and ready to begin a new challenge with a career move, and I have a laser focus on what a new role might mean. My beautiful wife, Lori, and our two young boys are staying in the UK until we find a house in the States, so I expect to be here alone for some time. I am the archetypal career businessman on a personal mission with nothing but success in mind.
I have an unfeasibly large number of bags, but I am moving to a new continent on short notice. I have a driver meeting me. She is an older, tall woman with a Midwestern accent. As the car slides into icy darkness, I talk with her about Cincinnati. We drive slowly down Interstate 71 North, which unveils the cityscape in tantalizing glimpses through a haze as we wind down the traffic laden hill.
It is an unreal sight, with tall gray spires and bold towers reaching out of the iced blanket of fog, commanding attention. I see many colored bridges, one of which looks like a giant McDonald’s symbol, reaching up to the sky with smooth yellow curves, and, of course, football and baseball stadiums nestled on the side of the Ohio River. I have arrived in America and landed in Ohio.
Once downtown, we stop, and my driver points to a bleak-looking apartment in the city’s heart. It looks like a converted department store and undoubtedly lacks curb appeal. After stepping out of the car, I trudge alone through slushy ice into a parking garage, where I have been told to collect the key. Then, I cross the street again and enter the foyer. It is not much better to look at from the inside; it smells of urine.
With some trepidation, I haul my bags into a small, narrow apartment with a thick, hairy carpet. It does not look clean. There is a table, a 1960s-style “big” fridge (that smells despite being empty), and a tiny bed offset to one side in a cheap attempt at a mezzanine layout. I turn on the TV to find football coverage on most channels and stare through an ice-laced window frame onto a steaming snowy landscape and a central view of Papa John’s Pizza across the street. I am half happy to have arrived and half freaked out, but I hold my head up, unpack, and go out to find some supplies.
Within minutes, I realize I have strayed into the wrong district. Several people surround and follow me until I decide that retreat is in order. I am almost grateful to be quietly accompanied back toward Seventh Street without spoken words. Once there, I hurry back into the apartment, like a hermit crab, and close the door with a shudder. I get great relief from calling home and enjoy the comfort of hearing family voices for the first time in a while.
After a rough and sleepless night interspersed with loud neighbors reverberating through thin walls, I put on a suit and walk across the road to my new office in a historic and impressive building called the Carew Tower. It is the second tallest building in Cincinnati and has been on the register of National Historic Landmarks since 1994. I am on the ninth floor. A hotel is under the offices, and the block overlooks the central Cincinnati Fountain Square, which is heaving with activity. My office needs some work. It is gray, and I have a small window overlooking another office. This will be my new center of operations, and as far as I can tell, my new view will be of a colleague’s ear as he sits on the phone across the void.
After six long months, we finally bought a house in a village known as a hidden gem called Terrace Park. It feels very English, and the schools, teachers, and police are incredible. The community is spread over just two square miles and has rich and historic architecture, so every house looks different. There is a tranquil serenity filled with trees that defies the concrete sprawling city jungle just a few miles away. It is an oasis that we are lucky to find.
At last, we are all together. The boys, eight and six, seem excited by their new surroundings. I have also made progress with the business and delivered results by following my instincts to create a more open and collaborative culture where people feel empowered to contribute and not scared to voice an honest opinion.
Despite the size of the challenge, things are going well. They are under control, and I am in the driver’s seat with a clear vision and a path to success supported by other leaders. My gamble has paid off; we have been able to translate continents and jobs and come out winning. Job done! I am on the path to corporate success, and our family is thriving.
Nothing could be further from my mind than a personal emergency and crisis. Without any possibility of prediction, we are thrown into chaos. A split second changed it all.
Helpless
My life changed forever on a snow-laden slope sparkling with ice in the hazy light of the afternoon sun. I will always be grateful to an anonymous paramedic for helping to save the life of our youngest son. I learned that we cannot control a personal disaster, but it is possible to be there for others in need with the proper training and skills. I will forever be indebted to one anonymous individual; one critical save was enough to change everything.
It is the Christmas holiday, and we head out sledding, assuming we can find the suggested location without GPS and in winter weather. We wind through unknown white snow-clad roads, over bright diamond-studded hills, and out into the void. The mood is positive, and chirpy comments abound as our six- and eight-year-old sons anticipate the excitement of sledding. As parents, we are happy to be creating a memory of family fun. It’s a good day.
We arrive at a steep hill with a tree bank at the roadside. The boys jump out into the crisp snow and run, grabbing each sled and dispersing up the slope in different directions. I try to keep up but need to put on my winter clothes; I am a crucial twenty seconds behind. As they head in two directions ninety degrees apart, we must decide which way to go, and I follow our eldest, who has a giant sled.
We walk and talk, then turn. Our youngest son is some way away, high on the slope, jumping headfirst onto the small red sled and moving at ten miles per hour. I panic and shout, but he cannot hear me. He has embarked on a terrifying journey that nothing can stop. I run and shout, dragged down by the deep snow. I cannot make progress, and he cannot hear. I am helpless as he accelerates rapidly toward the tree at maybe thirty miles per hour.
I scream for him to roll off, but he cannot hear me. He has no helmet; he is going to die. After the impact, he is lying motionless, and it takes what feels like an hour to run to him. He is unconscious and bleeding onto the white snow, still stuck face down on the sled. My wife drags him off and holds him, and I know this is not the right thing to do after an accident like this, but what do you do in this situation? Natural emotions and actions take over; a mother’s love is stronger than the universe.
We are shouting; we do not have a phone. We are at our very darkest hour, in hell for an eternity, for every second that passes. Over my left shoulder, a calm, steady voice talks to me in measured tones. It irritates me, as I am panicking. He persists. He tells me he is a firefighter. Can he help? Of course not; I need medical help! I do not know at the time that EMS sits under the fire service in Ohio and that firefighters are cross-trained as paramedics.
He is an off-duty paramedic, and he must deal with us before he can take control. He does not rush; he just carefully stabilizes my son’s head and neck, then lays him down while gently feeling his skull. He confirms breathing, checks circulation and bleeding, and talks to my son, who makes a noise. The stranger has a phone, and a paramedic-level ambulance is here within minutes.
A team jumps out, and a crisp report is passed from our anonymous paramedic to the lead crew member; our son is in the ambulance and gone. It is just minutes from finding us to a lights and sirens ride to Children’s Hospital, the third largest pediatric facility in the US. I try to follow the ambulance with my eldest son, but it is hopeless; we get lost physically and emotionally. I ended up at the wrong hospital and had to find new courage to get back into the car and redirect to the main hospital campus. Emergencies are characterized by chaos that paralyzes the mind and prevents logical thought.
We eventually arrive to find an entire clinical team assessing our son. A CAT scan has already been done, and I am instantly so happy that we are not in the UK. In half an hour, my son is stabilized, assessed, transported, and attended to by multiple specialties. He is sick, but there is no major breach of his skull. He has nine fractures around his eyes, but he is cared for well, and his vitals are maintained from the field to the hospital with an effort to protect his spine and neck. They think past the apparent injury and take precautions to reduce life threats for the patient that may not be obvious in the field.
We are in the ICU for four days, and I don’t change out of my winter clothes until I know he will be OK. It was a close call saved by incredibly well-trained people. What do you say to those to whom you owe so much? I have two answers to that question. First, thank you, whoever you are. I owe you for the rest of my life. Second, how do I join? I want to repay you and contribute to your work.
That stranger created a fork in my life that would eventually take me on an unexpected journey to a destination I could not have imagined. He summoned the energy to change my life and the confidence to forget about career progression while following a real-life vocation.
