The woman?s face looked so familiar. Teresa Foster searched her memory, trying to place where she might have seen the hospital volunteer before.
Teresa had lived all over the world, so she could have seen the woman anywhere. But she reckoned it was closer to home since she had lived in the Wichita area since 1985. She now travels the state as a team supervisor for the American Red Cross.
As part of her job, Teresa was conducting a blood drive in March 2018 at Allen County Regional Hospital, the first blood drive in a new partnership between the Red Cross and ACRH. Everyone wanted it to go well.
ACRH Auxiliary volunteer Elle Dominquez, now 79, of Moran, was helping at the drive and saw Teresa staring at her. She worried she was doing something wrong.
Eventually, Teresa made her way to Elle and struck up a conversation: ?Hi, how are you? Where are you from??
It didn?t take the women long to solve the mystery. But it did take them back more than 40 years, to another hospital halfway around the country. Another era. Another lifetime.
Summer, 1976
At the age of 14, Teresa wasn?t someone you?d easily miss. Adventurous and outgoing, Teresa could ?make friends even at the grocery store,? she said of herself.
For most of the summer of 1976, Teresa was stuck in Balboa Naval Hospital in San Diego, Calif., where she had undergone surgery on both knees to correct a birth defect. She spent the majority of her time in an oversized, metal wheelchair. Both legs were covered by casts that stuck straight out from her wheelchair.
Nearly all the other patients on the surgical floor were sailors, many recovering from injuries they had received while serving in Vietnam.
Elle worked as a civilian ward clerk, handling administrative tasks, records and other duties such as transporting patients ? whatever the military officers asked her to do. It wasn?t an easy job. Most days, she ended her shift with a long walk to the end of a pier on Ocean Beach. She needed time alone. She needed to take in the cool ocean breeze and compose herself before returning home to care for her children.
The surgical ward at Balboa was a quiet, solemn place. Most of the nurses and staff strictly adhered to the rules. No noise. No running in the halls. Window curtains closed. Diets strictly monitored. Patients rarely left their rooms and almost never ventured onto the well-kept grounds outside.
?This was at the end of Vietnam. People were dying. It was very serious,? Elle said.
But Elle often broke the rules. She snuck treats like milkshakes or hamburgers to some of the patients. She recalled an unusual request from a sailor who couldn?t have been more than 20, suffering from multiple war-related injuries. He craved hard-boiled eggs. Elle and other rule-breaking staff members boiled eggs for him, hoping to offer some small comfort. He eventually succumbed to his injuries.
?I can still see things that happened there,? Elle said. ?And after all these years, I still get emotional about it.?
