I'm not much for telling war stories but these two have been bugging me for a couple of months. I don't think anyone actually reads this Blog but I'm getting these demons off my chest they've had enough time to play around in my head.
I had been a Volunteer First Responder for about a year and my nickname was "Ready to Go Joe". I worked hard to prove myself on every call few as they were. I was doing my homework one night in the dead of winter at about 10:15. When the tones dropped all they said was "female vomiting blood". I went to the station and we rolled out the door within 3 minutes. We walked into what I still maintain could have been the cover for a horror movie. I remember the scene like I just walked out of it. I wonder if it's still frozen in time like it was that night?
When I walked into the room the patient was seated on the other end of the room at the dinning room table with a small juice glass in her hand and a bottle of store brand grape juice to her left. Behind her, her Grandson was holding her head at an angle, her daughter to his left and her son in-law to her right all staring blankly at us. The kitchen behind them was clean and homey, pictures of the family on the walls and fridge. It was warm and cozy throughout.
It didn't click at first and then I realized she was gone that's when it hit me. Everything in front of her for about 8 feet was covered in blood. My mind had put grape juice in her glass but it wasn't juice, the napkin her grandson was holding under her mouth was red. My partner, a seasoned veteran was the first one in the room maybe the world to speak. He told me to go hold her head. He then explained to the family that there was simply nothing we could do and as he rambled I wiped her mouth and told her I was sorry but I was glad I didn't get there any sooner.
After the fact we cleaned her up and put her back in her bed and let the family come back to say goodbye.
I can't describe the feeling of sadness I had at that point it was the first time it sunk in to me that when I get back to the station after a bad call we talk about it and go home. Once the doors close on the station it's over. I saw that night that the family will never be the same again, ever.
About a year ago while typing a blog post we got a call to assist EMS on a cardiac arrest call about 50 feet from the outer edge of our district. I hustled my butt the 10 miles to the house to find the medics already on scene. I walked in to find a very large man on floor and he was in a flat-line rhythm, no chance. He laying halfway on the floor and half on the bed his pants around his ankles and nothing else.
His daughter and her boyfriend were there and they had called 911. I had to stop the daughter from going in but she seemed to have accepted it or at least knew that there was nothing she could do. At that point I heard a blood curdling scream from outside. His wife came in at a full run a pack of Pall Malls in her hand.
"I just went to the store I've only been gone 10 minutes!"
I stepped in front of her to keep her from going in the room she ran straight into me, she tried to push me to the side.
"I'm so sorry" It's all I could say.
Then I left her and my body standing in the middle of their small kitchen. I watched from the corner as she screamed at the man standing in her kitchen. She beat on his chest with both fist wailing in sorrow. I saw it all from the corner of the room. I couldn't hear a thing, couldn't feel anything but a sucking vortex under my feet.
Why wouldn't he move? Wrap his arms around her? Comfort her in some way? At least say something?
Why wouldn't he let her see her husband?
WHY THE HELL WOULDN'T HE MOVE?
Her daughter came in and tried in vain to comfort her. Then the boyfriend came in and lead her out of the house.
My perspective changed again. My chest hurt and the sucking hadn't stopped.
He was a rather large man in a very small house at first we thought we were going to have to cut a wall out of the house to get him out but after the longest 2 and a half hours of my life. We pulled him out the bedroom on a blue tarp and 8 of us loaded him onto the funeral home's gurney. The gurney had a cover and when we took the body outside the whole family was standing there to watch us load it up. There she was again she said her goodbye and turned and cursed me for not letting her into the room. If I live to be a hundred I'll never forget the hatred in her eyes. Or looking down at the bruises on my chest every time I took my shirt off for a week and a half.
I still get that sucking sense when I look back on this one.
I've said for years the dead don't bother me. Sure they come visit me sometimes when I close my eyes but they don't ever do anything. Even the poor bastard my own age that I tripped over that night on the interstate other than the boot print on his white tee shirt he just kind of says "Hi".
The living are the ones that never have anything good to say.
I'll never quit running these calls, I'm not afraid of the images that I let in or the stories forever changed by the very fact that they had to call me into their lives for a brief moment. I will be there when people are in need it has been my honor and calling to serve. If I stop running then these memories will never leave me alone. It's not that I have to feed the beast inside, it's that I know that there will always be people in need. I'm not going to stop because I can't leave those people. My conscious will not let me. I'll never stop running those calls.
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