Load N Go Or Stay N Pray?

Load and Go or Stay and Pray?

If you’re in EMS – you know what I mean by load n go or stay n pray.
If you’re not in EMS – a brief explanation; some medics prefer to get out of the house as fast as possible and “work the patient up” while they patient is in the ambulance. Load and Go medics bring as little equipment into the house as possible. Load the patient onto the litter (stretcher) and then Go out the door. Asking questions, taking vitals, doing medic type stuff on the way to the hospital
Stay n pray medics would rather pitch a tent (thus we called them Campers), haul all the equipment into the house and make a mess.
I really hate messes.
Back in my early days, when I was an EMT at Medic 108, we had a part time medic who was notoriously a Camper.
He was a nice guy – but man, he turned the simplest call into a Lifetime Original Movie. Campers like to spread all their equipment on the floor. They like to ask the patient 5 million questions. They like to ask the family 5 million questions. They like to gather up all the medications littered throughout the house and put them in a brown bag to transport with the patient (as taught to do in medic class).  They do every thing by the book, line for line, word for word.
County dispatch would always check in with the EMS crew if, after 20 minutes, they heard nothing from the crew. And thus, when we worked with the Camper, county was always checking in on us.
“Medic 108, for the third time today, Status Check?”
One time, and I’m not proud of this (I’m lying, I totally am proud of it) – the Camping Medic, myself, and another EMT (back in those days, we ran 2 EMTs and 1 medic – good times!) were on a call at the local nursing home that was just a few blocks from the hospital.
I don’t remember exactly what the call was, but I do remember it was a class three patient – nothing serious.
Of course, the Camper was dragging his feet, and actually left the room to go to the records room to make copies of some paperwork.
I don’t even think there was a conversation about what my EMT partner and I  were going to do – eye contact was all that was needed as he and I wheeled out the patient to the rig, drove two minutes to the hospital, dropped the patient off, gave a report to the ER nurse, replaced the dirty sheets on the stretcher with clean ones, and we were loading the stretcher back into the rig when country radio called us: “108 – could you return back to the nursing home? Apparently you forgot your tent.”

More EMS stories available in the book - Girl Medic: Confession of Chaos and Calamity Behind the Sirens. Available in ebook format on Amazon or Barnes and Noble.

EMS: Heroes or Adrenaline Junkies?

Chillin After Dinner at SARS Substation 

I am was no hero.

I want to make that totally, unabashedly, clear.

As a matter of fact, I'm possibly very selfish.

Being a paramedic gave me back more than I put into it.

It's not an untruth to say I was attracted to it because I wanted to help people.

But the real truth is, the rush I got from the adrenalin of pushing a needle into a vein, or delivering a shock to a fluttering heart, or snaking my way into the crushed metal of a car, was the main attraction to the job.

Every medic, every EMT, every firefighter (if being honest) would tell you they love to hear a report of a major pile up on the turnpike or a four alarm fire with entrapment. When the words "put the helicopter on standby" or "fly the bird" are broadcast over the radio, our veins constrict; our hearts pound, our pupils dilate.
Yeah, baby, this is good shit.
It's not that we want suffering in the world, it's that, if there's got to be some tragedy going down, we want to be there so we can witness it first hand, so we can patch up the holes, so we can save a life.

So we have stories to tell.

When the summer nights are long and the calls are slow and we sit in a semi circle on white plastic chairs smoking cigarettes under a full moon, we have this to say:
"Remember that Easter we got hit out for the accident on 309? When we pulled up to the scene there were three bodies lying on the road? And Darin almost ran right over one of the bodies?"
"Remember that water rescue? We spent two days searching for those teenagers and then it turns out it was just a prank? Lori broke up with me because I missed our anniversary dinner."
"Remember that car rescue in front of the bank? The one where that Hilltown firefighter smelled like booze so the cops kicked him off scene?"
"Remember how Martin and Shoppy got into a fist fight during that rescue in front of the motorcycle shop because Shoppy forgot to crib the car?"
We are not heroes.
We are junkies.
Adrenaline junkies.
Story junkies.

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

Life By Accident - Excerpt From Girl Medic

 Life By Accident

"This cannot be accident: it must be design. I was kept for this job."
Winston Churchill

My life has not gone according to plan.
I'd had great plans for life after high school. There was going to be college and law school. There was going to be a minor in theater, and maybe, who knows, I might bypass law all together to become the next Julia Roberts. I wanted a life full of energy, I wanted to help people, whether that was in a courtroom or by becoming an entertainer, I wanted to leave some sort of mark on the world.
I'd always been a voracious reader and started writing stories as early as the second grade. My English teachers, my friends who I wrote stories for, told me I should become a writer. I scoffed at the thought. Writing is solitary. Lonely. There is no immediate feedback on your work. No instant knowledge of "yes, this is good stuff" or "this sucks, try again". So though I continued to write, I had no desire to make it my life's work.
After high school, I found myself pregnant by my boyfriend of two years. We had a horrible relationship but did what so many do, married and started a family. College was no longer an option because he felt my place was at home, raising our daughter. I'd lost my independence, coming to rely on him for money and shelter, and we had moved 1,200 miles away from friends and family. He was all I had. My dreams fell off the radar screen as I struggled to make an unhappy marriage work, figure out how to be a mother at such a young age, and try to salvage pieces of who I was and combine them with who I was becoming.
Two years into the marriage, I had another child. My husband still believed my place was in the house, but I was becoming desperate to do something with my life. I was in need of friends, I was depressed that my life had not worked out according to plan.
And then one night, a car accident in front of our house changed everything. I would spend the next 8 years of my life taking on challenges I never imagined. I became a volunteer for the local ambulance, then a career EMT, then a paramedic. I became an EMT and CPR instructor. I became a certified fire fighter and certified in rescue vehicle operations. I would make life long friends and enemies. I would get divorced and fall in and out of love many times, remarry leave EMS for what I thought was good when I was three months pregnant with my last child, only to return a second time, because once again, I needed to be rescued.
I've been unable to hold a steady job since leaving EMS. I'm still struggling to find something as challenging and rewarding. I've toyed with the idea of going back, and who knows, by the time you read this, I might be crawling into the back of a mangled car, trying to breathe life into an unconscious patient.
I've always believed everything in life happens for a reason.
My life did not go as I had planned, because perhaps, life had a plan of its own for me. I've seen the worst in people; I've seen the best. I've struggled to make sense of death and in doing so, have come to the realization that in order to understand death, first, I must understand life.
10-42 is the code we use to let the radio room know that our shift has ended; we're no longer in service. Though my shift ended a long time ago, I want to share the lessons I've learned from my front row seat in the arena of life and death.
My life didn't go according to plan, and for that, I'm grateful. And I know though I can assure you, if you feel  lost now, there is something for you around the corner.
The one thing I would like for you to remember is this quote:
"There's no such thing as chance:
And what to us seems merest accident
Springs from the deepest source of destiny." - Friedrich von Schiller

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