One of my partners used to call me a company man because I used to clear as soon as possible from calls. We’d be in the EMS writing up the run report and the dispatcher would scream. Can anyone clear? I’m holding two calls. Priority One. I’d clear, then she’d bang us with a transfer…
Company Man-Union Man
Farewell Tour
My old partner has finally gotten his transfer to Florida. He moved to this area from New York fifteen years ago when he first met the woman who would become his wife. Now that they have divorced, he says he has no reason to stay up here. He loves Florida and the sun – he…
My Patch
Nothing for eight hours, then we get a call for an unresponsive. When we arrive, a man meets us at the door and he says, “They are not certain if she is breathing.” We enter the house and I see an officer standing in a bedroom doorway. I can hear the mechanical voice, “No shock…
My Boy
We get called for a drunk. We find a fifty seven year old man holding the fence in front of a house. An old woman comes out and says it’s her son and she wants us to take him to the hospital. She won’t let him in the house drunk as he is. He doesn’t…
Mississippi — What’s Important
I arrived home last night after eight days in Gulfport, Mississippi. As Hurricane Katrina hit, our ambulance company, which has a local base in Mississippi had already sent out a call to its divisions across the country for help. Ambulances and crews from California, Oregon, Washington, Texas, Florida, Georgia and New England were sent to…
Hurricane Wind
I stopped at the State armory and unloaded five bags of clothes for the hurricane victims. I was ruthless going through my closet. Every Christmas I get a sweater from my father and his wife. They sit in my closet because I rarely wear anything besides my work clothes and then jeans or workout clothes…
Sore Throat
We get sent for a choking downtown. We find the fire department standing around a guy on a low cement wall that is part of the landscaping. A tree looms over him. Even in the dusk I can see the man is purple. He looks dead. I am about to say, check for a pulse…
Roommates
A woman in a nursing home is in severe respiratory distress. History of COPD. Her lungs are decreased with an expiratory wheeze. Her SATs are in the 80’s. The nurse’s aide who gives me her paperwork says she is a DNR, but the papers haven’t been signed by her doctor yet. I give the patient…
Variance
I’ve been playing poker seriously for over five years. When I say seriously, I don’t mean I play for big money, I mean that I am a student of the game. I read books about it, discuss the game with friends, run simulations, constantly try out new strategies. I started out playing in the local…
Honey, I Love You
I come in at six and find the night crew is out on a call. A few minutes later they clear their scene with a refusal, but then are dispatched to a possible dead body/overdose at a local business. They ask me to respond in the second ambulance to meet them there in case it…
Homer Jones
We get sent for a premature baby difficulty breathing. Lights and sirens response. A minute later we get the update we want to hear, “Baby breathing normally.” We arrive to find a twenty-three-day-old baby sleeping comfortably on his mother’s knee. She tells us he was born seven weeks prematurely. For about a minute his head…
It is Unethical
230 lb guy slips in the shower, lands on his shoulder. When we get there he is in extreme pain and has an obviously deformed shoulder. It is either fractured, dislocated or both. What do you do for pain? Morphine. Okay, now here’s the catch. The location is a drug and alcohol rehab clinic, the…
School’s Out/ The Grasshopper and The Ants
I love being a paramedic, but I periodically wonder about the future. How long can I continue in this field? Will my back hold up? Will 70-80 hours a week of work destroy my life? Will there continue to be 70-80 hours of work a week available for me? What will happen to me when…
Viva Las Vegas
I’m on the Strip in Las Vegas. A volcano erupts in front of the Mirage, giant spumes of electrical lava shoot up into the night sky. Outside Treasure Island, an attacking pirate ship blasts it cannons, setting the rigging of a merchant ship on fire. I’m walking across the street when I hear a loud…
Dead is Dead (Or Is it?)
We get dispatched for a report of a man unresponsive in a locked car, covered with blood. Priority One. My partner and I speculate as we head out lights and sirens toward the address in the neighboring town, a street lined with cheap hotels, where many marginal people rent by the week. We both think…
Here’s to You!
A week or so ago I wrote an entry called “A Remarkably Heroic Feat.” It was about a police officer credited for saving a baby’s life by performing mouth to mouth on what appeared to be a child who had suffered a fairly typical febrile seizure, which may briefly convince a layperson that the patient…
Ritual
I drove up to Boston, left my car at my friend’s house, then took the train in to North Station, then took the T to Kenmore. Met my buddy at Boston Beerworks, and we drank several pitchers of beer while we got caught up. We do this two or three times a year. We tell…
Remarkly Heroic Feat
It was on TV, on the radio and the following article in the paper: Officer Praised In Saving Baby City police officials are praising one of their North End beat officers, saying his quick actions saved a baby’s life over the weekend. Officer X, a year veteran of the Police Department, was on foot patrol…
Funeral Procession
15 month old not breathing. You rush out to the ambulance, buckle yourself in, and as you flip through your field guide to read the recommended ET tube size for the age and the epi dose, you wait for them to update you. Child is breathing. Child choked on some milk, but is alert and…