When EMS Crews Make Fun Of Their Patients

"Silence is the universal refuge,…our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail."
Henry David Thoreau


There is a good chance (75/25) that if an ambulance crew arrives to pick you up; they will make fun of you once you’ve been deposited safely at the ER.
           
It is not because we are cold hearted or cruel, it’s because we need an outlet to diffuse the stress and emotion that could easily kill us if we took every thing so seriously.
           
What might we say?
         
 “Was that mold growing on the dishes in the sink? What trailer park trash.”
         
 “Could he have been any fatter? Maybe if he lost 200 pounds he might be able to breathe.”
           
“Was it just me or did it seem as if the whole family was a bunch of hysterical hyenas slightly on the retarded side?”
         
 “Christ, what a WHINER. If I ever whine like that, throw me off the rig and run over me a million times.”
         
 There are those calls, however, that still our voices, that leave us speechless.
         
 We arrived in front of a sprawling house with an immaculate lawn. A State Police car was already parked at the curb.
           
She was pretty, a pink afghan wrapped around her shoulders even though it was the middle of summer. She was tall and blonde and walking up and down the driveway. “Oh My God, Oh My God, Oh My God.”
           
Ed, the senior medic, stopped to ask her if she was okay. Her teeth were chattering in between the OH MY GOD’s. Obviously, she was not okay.
           
The trooper met us at the door and led us upstairs to a bedroom.
           
As I always do, I pay close attention to the details of the house. This one was perfect, everything sparkling, clean, in its proper place. It was like walking into a show home.
         
 He was lying on the floor in the bedroom: The gun not far from his right hand. His face looked like it was made of wax and someone had grabbed the left side of his head and stretched it out as far as it could go. He looked like a disfigured comic book character. A villain in search of Batman and Robin. There was brain and bone spattered on the ceiling. I was fearful it would fall on me so for the most part, I stood in the doorway.
           
There was a bullet hole in the window.
         
 “Oh yeah,” said the veteran trooper, “a-lot of times they take a practice shot to make sure the gun is working.”
           
There were pictures of him and the hysterical woman all over the room. On their wedding day, on a boat, on a beach, under a Christmas tree. He was 29. He was Esquirish good looking.
He left a note that wasn’t very telling. He apologized to his family. To his wife. Sorry. I just couldn’t take it anymore. No matter what I do, I’ll never be good enough. I hope you forgive me for the embarrassment this will cause you.
           
We waited until the woman’s mother arrived to drive her away from this perfect house, with the nice cars, and the once handsome husband, and the crystal blue swimming pool in the perfectly green back yard.
         
 Ed had kept trying to calm her down but she just kept pacing, kept whispering “Oh My God”…but at one point she crossed the lawn to where I was standing and grabbed my arm with her cold, tiny, hand.
           
“Why? Why would he do this?”
           
Her eyes were wild, like a trapped animal, and when she had touched my arm, it was as if she had instantly transferred her pain into my heart and for a moment, I felt the shock of it all. The violence, the loss, the end of life as she knew it. I opened my mouth to say something but there was not a word to be found.
           
We drove back to the station in total silence. No jokes, no music, no questions.
           
So, if you ever have the unfortunate occasion to find yourself in the care of EMS, remember this: if you catch an eye roll or smirk out of the corner of your eye, be thankful: It’s the silence that you should worry about.

Excerpt from Girl Medic: Confession of Chaos and Calamity Behind the Sirens.

Donuts and Destiny - Excerpt from Girl Medic

Coincidence: The occurrence of events that happen at the same time by accident but seem to have some connection.

“You often meet your fate on the road you take to avoid it.”

French Proverb.

           

I had barely made it across the station threshold when the tones dropped and County radio informed us we had an overturned vehicle on the turnpike. I turned around before the door had time to close, cursed myself for not stopping to pick up a coffee because it was cold and rainy; it was six in the morning and accidents on the turnpike could last forever.

            Snuffy was our driver, a grouch on good days and a (rhymes with sucker) on bad days. Still, there was always something about Snuffy’s black cloud that attracted me to him and there was this one time…well, that’s a different story. Ray was our medic. Gray hair, but handsome in a George Clooney meets Pierce Brosnan sort of way. He was always smiling. Even when he was chewing you out for spiking the wrong IV bag, you always felt good around Ray.

            On the way out to the turnpike, Ray chatted about the weather, Snuffy growled every now and then (only because he admired Ray…this was his way of being nice) and I tried to climb into my bunker gear in the back of the moving rig without falling over. Because I was the smallest person, I was usually designated as the “climb in the mangled car to hold stabilization” person.

            Because the Turnpike is State Police territory and almost everything in State Police territory is far, far, away from their barracks, we arrived seconds after the black and white (and red and yellow).

            We could barely make out an overturned truck a few yards off the side of the road. The Trooper was walking towards us from the accident scene, holding a flash light, shaking his head.

            “Funniest thing…someone called to report the accident as it happened…which was, what, about fifteen minutes ago? Said the truck lost control, swerved off the road and flipped a few times. Caller said he had to keep going because he was going too fast to stop and was afraid he’d cause another accident. Anyway, there’s nobody in the truck.”

            “Is there anyone UNDER the truck?” Snuffy asked, his bottom lip bulging around the tobacco he had hidden in his mouth (thus the nickname).

            “Nope. Not as far as I can tell.’

            We grabbed flash lights and headed to the truck. He was right. No driver, no passenger. There was, however, a baby seat, which gave us pause. The truck had landed in such a way that the guys were able to push it so we could peer underneath and make sure there wasn’t a tiny body stuck under the metal.

            There was a farmhouse tucked away, off the road. A good mile hike. We’d either have to walk to it or drive off the turnpike and get back on in order to get to it.

            “What do you think?” Ray turned to us.

            “I’m not walking there.” I said. No way, no how. Not in this frigid weather, and not on an empty stomach.

            Ray didn’t even bother asking Snuffy.

            The Trooper shrugged. “Ah, if someone walked to the house and had injuries, I think they’d have called by now.”

            It was too early, too wet, too cold, in the morning to have to really think about it, so we climbed back in our rig and headed into town. Ray chatted about possible scenarios of what could have happened to the driver of the truck. Snuffy growled when appropriate, and I climbed out of my wet bunker gear.

            A few blocks away from the station there was a Yum Yum Doughnut coffee shop. I’d rather have an egg and bacon for breakfast, but since I was dying for a cup of coffee, I begged Snuffy to stop.

            “I’ll even buy you something, as long as you keep it under a buck fifty.” I told him.

            As usual, whenever an ambulance pulls into ANY place, people stare at us like we have purple skin and three heads when we walk through the door. We got the looks, of course, but then someone said excitedly, “Are you hear for the people in the accident?”

            What?

            The patron pointed to the far end of the counter where a man, a pregnant woman, and a toddler were sitting, the only people in the place NOT looking at us.

            As soon as we approached them, the woman started crying hysterically. “Please don’t take my husband away, please don’t take him away.”

            They were, indeed, the accident victims from the turnpike. Someone had stopped to help and they asked for a ride back into town. Turns out, the husband had an arrest warrant issued for him and they knew if they went to the hospital, his freedom would be cut short.

            I don’t know how he did it, but Ray charmed them into going to the hospital. Promised he wouldn’t tell the cops, but he knew the doctor’s would have to report it.

            It was such a short ride to the hospital that I didn’t have much time to talk to them, which was fine because I was feeling a bit woozy:

1)      I STILL hadn’t had any coffee.

2)      I could not believe the way fate had intervened and we had found our missing accident victims.

As soon as we dropped them off at the ER, we got hit for another call. By the time we got back to the hospital, a police car had arrived for the ‘wanted’ man.

I learned two things from this call:

1)      When you’re thinking should I stop for coffee now or later? Now is always the answer.

2)      When you’re trying to outrun the law, never hide in the doughnut shop.

Excerpt from Girl Medic - Confession of Chaos and Calamity Behind The Lights and Sirens. 
Available at BN.com and Amazon.com

The Seventy Year Old Lady Who Loves Her Some LSD

"Humor is the shock absorber of life: it helps us take the blows."- Peggy Noonan

Our patient was in her seventies. She lived in a one-room apartment filled with nothing but dust and old newspapers and crushed cigarette boxes. A few cans of half eaten tuna fish sat on the chipped orange counters. The walls were vintage hunting cabin (you know-fake, dark, drab, paneling). I about gagged from the aroma of fish, urine, and stale smoke. The patient’s daughter had called, concerned because her mother was ‘too thin’ and didn’t seem to be ‘in the right frame of mind' lately.
   
We took her vitals. Her blood pressure was low. Her heart beat rapid. She wheezed when she spoke. She did not want to leave her swanky home to go to the hospital. She did not want to be poked and prodded and besides, you couldn’t smoke in the hospital.
   
But she liked Jamie, who was the medic in charge.
He was tall, lean, blonde hair, blue eyes.
   
“Will you sit with me in the ambulance?” she batted sparse eyelashes.
   
 “Sure.”
 
“I’d like to park my slippers under your bed,” she smacked her cracked lips together.        

Jamie’s face turned red as the rest of us laughed.

 In the back of the ambulance she turned to me.
 
“Have you ever had LSD?”
 
I dropped the IV bag I was spiking and glanced over at Jamie- his eyes bugged out like a cartoon character hit over the head with a fry pan.
 
“L…S…D?” I practically screamed the letters to make sure she heard correctly, and that I had heard correctly.

“Honey, I’m not deaf. Yes, LSD.”

 “No. I have never had LSD,” I recovered the IV solution.
 
 She clacked her tongue and shook her head, “Every girl should have LSD.”
 
Jamie leaned toward her and took her long splintered fingers and held them.
 
“Have you had LSD?” he asked.
 
 “Oh, my, not for at least 20 years.”
   
Jamie looked at me and I shrugged. Nothing surprised me anymore.
   
“You do know what LSD is, don’t you?” his words were kind, not sarcastic.
   
“Of course!” she rolled her eyes. “L…S…D," she waited a beat then continued, "Long Slim Dick.”
     
I found I could still be surprised after all.
     
Jamie and I laughed so hard, tears spilled down our cheeks.
     
There was nothing wrong with her frame of mind!

Excerpt from Girl Medic - Confession of Chaos and Calamity Behind The Lights and Sirens. 
Available at BN.com and Amazon.com