We survived through a chain of fortunate accidents, and I could not stop thinking about the girls for whom the chain breaks — the ones whose fathers left no drive, who found no phone, who arrived on the wrong doctor’s shift.

They are not less brave than we were, or less deserving.

They are only less lucky.

And it seemed to me intolerable, once I had the means to do something about it, that a child’s survival should turn so heavily on luck.

The foundation exists to take one link of that chain — the doctor who sees, or fails to see — and make it less a matter of chance.

If we could train enough emergency-room staff to recognize what Dr.