Saving lives... making a difference

This, people, is my world.

And this, too.

*"Paramedic Chronicles" were created by a former employee of MAST ambulance -my agency.

People from my yesterday

"Yo hungrey?" Her brow furrowed as she looked at me, tears building in her eyes. "Oh, yo poor thang! They make yo work thet hard?"
I nodded, "I have to work for my food around here... I haven't done enough yet, tonight, so it will be a bit before I can eat."
"Oh, poor thang! Here, ya take these offa me, I gonna make yo something. Where's my kitchen?"
She was difficult to understand; her tongue had grown thick in her mouth. I leaned in to understand.
She was going to cook me up a grand feast of chicken wings -if I would ever let her go.
I didn't. And before we arrived at the hospital, she had forgotten about her whole scheme to save the poor intern from starvation. Now all she could think of was this dreadful cough that she had just discovered as we rolled through the ER door.

Her eyes were blue, pale, gray blue; one was clouded over, the pupil barely visible. It reminded me of the old scraggly dogs that I checked into the veterinary office, the summer I was a vet's assistant. But she was adorable.
"I didn't like you. But now I do. You all have been so nice. I like you." She looked up, sunshine flowing from her face. I smiled, she smiled, and the sun brightened.
She hadn't been able to catch her breath. It hurt to draw in air. It hurt worse not to. She was in her nineties and scared.
But my super-man like partners easily lifted her from her wheelchair to the cot, and she felt young again. And she liked us. And she could breath again.

His hair whipped around, eyes wide, eyes wild, as he jumped from the sound of my voice. I didn't know I was that electrifying. A blossoming red rose was tattooed on his forehead. Sections of it disappeared, in his concentration on what I was saying to him. His eyebrows were thin, black and hairless, and marked with the same permanency as his black eyeliner.
"Sir, tell me, do you always drive your van on the railroad tracks at night?" His hair whipped back around as those eyes found my partner.
Outside the ambulance, the blinking, screeching lights of the police and ambulance melded with the officers' sweeping flashlights and the occasional green flood light, into one mind-mixing scene.
He was under arrest. Not for driving on the railroad tracks. Not for crashing his car into one the buildings. Not for drinking. Not for drugs.
Long ignored child support had caught him. Caught him, on the side of the tracks, the side that he shouldn't have been on.
His eyes pleaded with me, as he stepped out of the ambulance. He was hungry and thirsty, hurt and confused. And I watched him go.

If only I had a BIG sandbox

Push the dirt around. Dig a hole. Pretend it goes to China. Make a crater. Make a bridge. Fill the crater with water. Watch the bridge collapse. Stick the hose in the ground. Watch the water bubble up through the sand. Avoid the cat poop. Make a mountain...

One of my favorite past-times during my carefree, lazy growing-up summers, was playing with dirt and water. You could almost always find me, a little pony-tailed girl, playing in the ditch under the big willows, or making a river down the driveway with Mama's flower-watering hose.

If only I had this, back then(!):





The fire guys took me out to learn how to "knock a hydrant." A 101 on how to hook up a fire hose to a hydrant, in case of a fire.

Now I know why they love their job so much! Water -everywhere!

First things, first: Are YOU offended?

"I must ask you first, are you offended by profanity and cursing? ...it's a common thing around here, but..."

Pause. A bit too long. "Yes?" an eyebrow raise

I knew this is where I'm supposed to say something, but what do you say to that? Do I like it? No. Do I enjoy it? No. Am I going to purse my lips when someone uses it? No... err... maybe... in a bit of a knee-jerk reaction?

But in all reality? The language they choose to use, is theirs, and it's not my place to play regulator to their conversation. I would prefer if they understood that I didn't enjoy, and would volunteer not to use profanity... but that takes a bit and accompanies the respect that comes with knowledge -not with me saying "That offends me, please DO NOT use it."

With that said; if you are at all offended by profanity, please stop reading this post now. I mean it.

No, I really do.


FUCK YOU!

Fuck your fucking head! I need a fucking paramedic! I'm dying... I don't want to die... fuck you! I'm fucking having a heart-attack here! NO, fuck you!

Shit... I'm a fag, man! I'm not going to fucking hurt you, dear! I'm fine! Well, I'm not fine, but you fucking know what I mean! I love all the ladies... I'm a faggot, man! Fuck this.

His eyes were glued to mine, and mine were glued right back.

The soft restraints were cinched on his wrists and ankles. His head was lifted off the gurney, veins jumping from his shoulders, neck and head. Bits of fresh green grass were scattered across his naked chest and abdomen -evidence of a previous argument with the police.

I wished that I could reach out and touch him, and that touch would somehow relay to him Love -the Love of Christ. Why didn't I?

He was loaded into the ambulance. A fireman leaned over my shoulder, "You might want to go un-fuck your head after this one." I turned and smiled; I love these brothers of EMS.

Five hours later: The time is about 0730. The fire chief strides into our office. "Fuck you!" He points. We all laugh.

Welcome, to Medic 1132.

*And now, I'm left here, knowing that I will click "publish post," but wondering if it is the right thing to do. Is my point taken? Is one exception made, only to let loose a flood? Is the love understood?

As prehospital emergency care providers...

...we are taught to improvise.

When you call 911

There are three of them. Jerry, slouched in his high back, technically designed, $3000, office chair to my right. Nameless, his back squarely to my face, in the middle. William, arranged in a "casual" position around a stuffy, little, blue, cubical chair, on my left. They each have three or more computer screens in front of them. The computers occasionally beep or blurp or make some other technical sound, at which the men in front of the computers will press a button, adjust his head phone or pick up the phone.

These men are dispatchers. Emergency dispatchers. And they are hardcore.

I'm sure the fresh, blond, professional with her perfect posture and white pressed uniform resides somewhere under these men's fingertips. In the phone? Between the keys on the keyboard? Or in their matching Mardi Gra necklesses they dawned for national dispatcher week?

Jerry has a sharp, skinny nose, a perfect match for the rest of his body. He slouches even when he walks. His hair never grew out of the "bowl cut" his mama gave him when he was six years old; the only thing different between now and when he was six is the addition of a six o'clock shadow (which I'm guessing he added somewhere in his late twenties). Whatever Jerry says, walks the "should I laugh?" line, and he never does laugh... until you do, then he smiles.

He cares.

Nameless could be any classic stereotype that you make him. Or was it just the stereotypes that he threw over his shoulder, or swiveled in his chair to emphasize? Ask him about Boston someday (he won't talk about the fall colors). Nameless sported a pony-tail and worker boots with blue-jeans. He hunts, feeds his "long-necked pigs" (aka horses), and works hard organizing the emergency world.

He cares.

William talked. A lot. He kept his chair facing me, turning only to answer the crackle of the radio, only to turn back again and pick up in mid-sentence. I could cut him out of the dispatch center and glue him onto a golf-course with a beer in hand. He would fit perfectly -without any photoshopping. William is leaving the dispatch world to become a full-time wedding photographer. He was anxious to leave.

But, he cares.

These men answered each phone call with grace, integrity and respect. I wanted to laugh at the 18 year-old boy who wrecked his mini cooper and was wandering the street in his bathrobe, and the little old lady with amnesia who kept reporting that her son had taken her car and she wanted it back, and the man who was chasing down a low-riding, tented honda, full of men, who he saw swipe his neighbors gas can. Their eyes would twinkle, but they never gossiped or trash-talked the callers.

Here's to Snuff, Rough and Guff. The heroes on the other side of your phone. They know what they are doing.

*I meant it to laugh *with* these guys, but... once I started writing... well? I couldn't hold it back.