A continuous pain caused Charmaine to drift in and out of consciousness for several hours. Each time she opened her eyes, she tried calling for help. But no one was coming. This frightened her to the very bones—if someone didn't show up, she might not be able to survive much longer.

At the time she was found by a general search party of four persons, she was unconscious. The men gaped as they saw her sprawled on the grass before them. At first glance, they wondered if she was even still alive.

They quickly fell to her side, proceeding to check her pulse and breathing. One of them, a doctor who went by the name of Dennis, commented in a stressed tone that her breathing didn't seem normal at all. Her heartbeat gave a series of irregular and unsteady thuds, scaring him all the more.

"Get her on the stretcher," Dr. Dennis commanded, never once taking his eyes off the helpless figure lying on the grass. "Quickly! We need to get her to the hospital. Nothing can be done for her here."

Obediently, the party unrolled a roll of thick material. They lifted her onto it and immediately proceeded to carry her away.

"Quickly!" The doctor prompted several times during the process.

Ten minutes later, they reached the hospital and burst through the doors of the emergency room. Not surprisingly, it was flooded with people who had been injured in yesterday's earthquake.

A nurse, who had been talking hurriedly to a nearby couple, caught sight of them and shuffled over. "I'm afraid we can't take any more patients right now," she said. "I'm sorry."

"What!" Dr. Dennis exclaimed. "This girl needs immediate care! Surely someone can make room somewhere—"

"Unfortunately not," replied the nurse. "We can have her in tomorrow morning at the earliest."

"But—"

"Please try to understand, sir. There's simply no room."

Dr. Dennis pursed his lips in frustration. He turned to his colleagues to see if they had any ideas as to what to do now.

"We could go to the hospital downtown," suggested one of the men.

The nurse, seeing that they were now discussing alternatives, wandered away from them in the direction of another family who had just tumbled into the ER.

"You kidding? Central Hospital is almost an hour away driving from here!" Dr. Dennis replied.

"Well, do you have any other ideas?" The man asked.

Dr. Dennis sighed, finally realizing he was just going to have to give in if he wanted to save this girl's life.

"Fine," the doctor said, "we'll go to Central Hospital. Come on." With a wave of his hand, he got the three men carrying the stretcher to leave the ER. He stopped them outside. "Stay here with the girl," he commanded. "I'll go borrow a van. Call me if anything changes."

His friends nodded, and he ran off.

Not five minutes later, the doctor returned in a dusty white minivan.

"Get her in the back," Dr. Dennis ordered as soon as he opened the driver's door. The men didn't waste a moment.

Once they were all in the minivan surrounding the girl on the stretcher, the doctor sped off in the direction of the nearest city. Considering that Charmaine's hometown was practically in the middle of nowhere, they had to drive for nearly an hour before they reached even the outer limits of the city.

From there, they reached the tall hospital in a matter of minutes. They repeated the procedure of carrying the stretcher into the hospital's ER—and though this hospital was full as well, Charmaine was taken in after a mere five minutes of waiting.

The girl was examined by a couple experienced nurses. After a few minutes, they turned to the doctor, who had been briefly allowed into the hospital room with the injured girl.

"It seems that this girl has a serious heart condition, and she got too worked up," one of the nurses explained. "I assure you, we're going to do all we can. But I'm afraid it's unlikely she'll make it through the night."