Hospital kicked out the dying girl until this biker threatened to sleep in the hallway every night as a protest. I’m sixty-two years old, been riding for forty years, and I’ve seen some cold-hearted things in my life.
But watching a hospital administrator tell a mother she had to take her cancer-ridden six-year-old daughter home because their insurance had “reached its limit” made my blood boil in ways I didn’t know were possible.
The little girl’s name was Aina. Bald from chemotherapy. So thin you could see every bone in her tiny body. She was wrapped in a yellow blanket, sleeping in her mother’s arms in the hospital lobby, while the administrator explained why they couldn’t stay.
“Ma’am, we’ve provided all the care we can under your current coverage. Your daughter is stable enough for home hospice. We need the bed for—”
“Stable?” The mother’s voice cracked. “She’s dying. She has maybe two weeks left. Maybe less. And you want me to take her to our car? We’re homeless. We’ve been living in our car for three months.”
That’s when I stood up. I’d been sitting in the same lobby waiting for news about one of my club brothers who’d been in a motorcycle accident. But this, this was something I couldn’t ignore.
“Excuse me,” I said, walking over. I’m a big guy. Six-foot-three, 240 pounds, covered in tattoos, wearing my leather vest with all my patches. I look exactly like what you’d expect a biker to look like. The administrator took one look at me and stepped back.
“Sir, this doesn’t concern you.”
“You’re telling a dying child she can’t have a hospital bed. That concerns every decent human being in this building.” I looked at the mother. Her eyes were red from crying. She couldn’t have been more than thirty years old. “Ma’am, what’s your name?”
“Sarah,” she whispered. “And this is Aina.”
I looked down at the little girl in her arms. Aina’s eyes fluttered open. She looked at me with these huge hazel eyes that had seen too much pain for someone so young.
“Hi Aina,” I said softly. “My name’s Jack.”
Aina managed a tiny smile. “You look like a giant,” she whispered. Her voice was so weak.
“I am a giant,” I told her. “And giants protect people. Especially brave little girls.”
I turned back to the administrator. “Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to find this little girl a bed. And if you don’t, I’m going to sit in this hallway every single night.
I’m going to call every biker I know—and I know about two hundred of them—and we’re all going to sit in this hallway. We’re going to make sure everyone who walks through those doors knows that this hospital kicks out dying children.”
Leave a Comment