Noon. Hour nineteen of a thirty-eight. Sixteen calls so far, long way to go. Me and Adam are riding back to the station.
"The sun is hurting my eyes."
"That's because you lost your sunglasses."
"I think something far more sinister is going on."
Flashback-Seven hours ago...
0523hrs. Pre-dawn. Dispatched to a tenement house in South Providence for a suicidal pregnant twenty year-old with arm lacerations. I stand on the third floor landing listening to Oliver talk to the girl and her boyfriend. I can't get up the rest of the stairs, all forward progress has stopped, the guys from Engine 10 and two Providence police officers clog the narrow, dimly lit stairway. I'm quite happy to wait at the end of the line and listen.
"Did you try to hurt yourself?" asks Oliver.
"She cut her wrist with a broken crack pipe," comes a male voice from above.
"Were you smoking crack?"
"Not us, she's pregnant."
The line turns toward me and heads down the stairs. I lead the march into the street and toward the rescue. A pretty, pale woman joins me in back.
"I'm all set," I say to the cops and firefighters, Adam goes in front to drive. My patent's cuts are superficial, scratches really. She stares intently at me as I begin my report.
"What happened?"
"He was going to hurt me," she states in a regal manner, very articulate, "He planned to cut me and drink my blood."
I look over the edge of the paper and see her eyes focused intently on mine, not blinking, not moving, as if I'm prey.
"Why did he want to do that?"
"I stopped him by cutting myself," she replies, ignoring my question, still staring. I'm a little unnerved. She has an old fashioned way of speaking, as if she has been alive for centuries. Her skin is even more pale in the dim light of the rescue, translucent. Her eyes are bloodshot, but intense. I can't wait to get to the hospital. Thankfully the rescue slows, turns and backs into the rescue bay. I quickly stand and help my patient out the door. She clutches my arm with her wounded one, some blood is transferred.
"Thank you, you've been very kind." I wouldn't say she smiled, but her face showed amusement, as if we're in on something together. She continued to stare, and as I left I looked over my shoulder and she still stared, still amused.
0730hrs, Dispatched to a methadone clinic for a man who can't walk. I uncross my arms from the front of my chest, open my eyes and rise from my slumber. It's warm, the sun hurts my skin. I roll down my sleeves and squint into the glaring sun. A small man, troll-like, stands at the bottom of the hill at the entrance to the clinic. He stares as we pass. I walk inside the clinic and ask who called 911, nobody answers. The troll runs up the hill, stands in front of the rescue and tells me he can't walk.
"You just ran up the hill."
"I can't get on the bus."
"But you can run up a hill?"
The troll goes bananas, starts taking off his clothes to show me his MRSA scars, his deformities, and tells me he is HIV + with Hepatitis C.
"I need to go to the hospital."
"Get in."
I'm tired. The troll is annoying. I can't understand a word he is saying as he rants and raves all the way to the hospital, less than one mile away. His language is foreign, possibly Latin. I swear his head turned 360 degrees when I looked away. He stares at me after we drop him off at the hospital and doesn't look away. The stare stays with me all the way back to the station. I enter my office, turn out the light and close the shades. The sun still hurts. I can't wait till night.
Three calls come and go with nothing strange happening. I think I'll be okay.
1436HRS. Called to a hi-rise for a man with chest pains. Adam gets in the truck and starts it. I say something, he jumps, startled and says he didn't see me sitting there. Interesting, I'll have to find a mirror and see if there is a reflection. We arrive and find a seventy-two year old Haitian man with a dried chicken claw tied around his neck, hung on a loose rawhide cord.
"Are you a Voodoo Priest?" I ask.
"Yes," he replies. "And, I'm the son of Satan." He also has Hep-C and HIV.
I swear I'm not making this up.
As the call progresses and I treat the Son of Satan, who also happens to be having chest pain with ST elevations I find him to be quite pleasant. He is deathly afraid of needles, but tells me I have a gift as I sink one into his arm. The blood is rich, and red as it drips from his arm onto the 4x4. It is fascinating, this blood, I think to myself as I finish up the IV, give him some aspirin and nitro and ride together to the hospital. He shakes my hand and stares into my eyes as I'm about to leave, I have a difficult time looking away.
Five more calls, nothing strange. If a Catholic Priest calls 911 tonight I'll start to worry.
Darkness descends. I'm in my office, waiting for the night to begin. It's the first warm Friday night of the season. Should be a bloodbath.
http://www.emergiblog.com/2009/04/the-handover-meets-emergency-the-best-of-ems.html
Kim over at Emergiblog hosts this months Handover Blog Carnival, and a fine job she did! The theme is EMERGENCY! Stop by, you'll feel like you're at Rampart.
Rescuing Providence will be hosting next months Handover. The theme is "Partners." Please send your submission to me at mmorsepfd@aol.com and I'll get you in, I know the guy who runs this place.
The latest meeting of the mutual admiration society was in full swing as we drove through the East Side. Adam and I talked about how fabulous we were, knowledgeable, dashing lifesavers with no peers, here or anywhere. Why we had to share the same earth with lesser beings escaped us as we cruised Thayer Street, looking for a cup of coffee worthy of such brilliant EMT's.
The previous job went off without a hitch, a fifty-nine year old female found slumped at her desk, a call made to 911, rapid response by the closest fire company, we arrived from the opposite end of the city in eight minutes.
She had reported for work, said hello to coworkers, poured herself a cup of coffee and walked to her office. A friend found her a short time later, slumped and semi-conscious. Our exam showed left side weakness with facial droop, hypertensive and confused. Possible CVA.
As her coworkers and various onlookers watched, oxygen was administered, the patient extricated from her basement office, history obtained, IV established, vitals assessed, hospital notified and the patient transported within fifteen minutes of dispatch, approximately thirty minutes from onset of symptoms.
Every now and then a call goes perfectly, the patient given prompt, efficient treatment with a hopefully positive outcome, and the onlookers and friends fall over each other trying to touch us as we leave, or even share the same space, hoping some of what we have might rub off on them. We casually bask in the glory, accept the accolades as our right and privilege and wait for the next cry for help from the citizenry we are sworn to protect.
A sixty year old man has fallen and struck his head on a tile floor. We respond. Wrong straps on the backboard, wrong size cervical collar and proceed to go downhill from there. We finally secure the patient to the backboard and place him backwards on the stretcher as the collar that is supposed to be providing c-spine immobilization moves from under the patients chin and begins to suffocate him. He violently shakes his head back and forth, freeing himself from his restraint and verbally attacks his rescuers. Our capes firmly stuffed between our legs we try to right the situation as we explain that his feet are at the head of the stretcher and his head is at the feet.
Somehow we get him to the rescue without paralysing him, lift him inside and botch three IV attempts. Add mangled arm to his list of injuries. An air leak has rendered the truck's suspension useless, it feels as if we're riding a hay wagon down a rocky trail on our way to the hospital. What began as a head laceration with no loss of consciousness is now a Level 1 Trauma.
Our patient somehow survives his ordeal, his coworkers and family wait for us at the ER, forming a gauntlet as we wheel their loved one past them. I swear some are holding pitchforks and torches. Our heroes pass the patient over to the ER staff then slink out of the hospital, avoiding eye contact with the angry mob that has formed.
Another call for help comes in as we call to a close the latest meeting of the mutual admiration society. Good thing there were only two members.
Bruins lead series 3-0
The basement was cold, musty and when alone a little scary. A space heater hissed and crackled, hot to the touch, ugly yet comforting. Asbestos tile covered the floor, doors on one side of the room opened to a narrow passageway where the heart of the home sat, called upon to provide warmth when needed, forgotten when not. The "Christmas Stuff" waited in the little closet under the stairs, now and then a little smell of Christmas would escape between the louvers of the door, spreading more warmth into "The Garden."
A couch sat in front of an old RCA television console, reserved for game night. Wires snaked from the back of the cabinet, stapled against the paneled walls, into the passageway and out the cellar window, up the side of the house next to the chimney and onto the roof. The latest in television technology was planted there, much like the American Flag was planted on the surface of the moon earlier that summer, only this was no flag, it was a rotary antenna.
Some nights the picture was almost clear when the antenna pointed North, toward Boston. Sometimes turning it Northeast worked better, and for some mysterious reason pointing it South provided the best picture on the weekends. Even the best picture was always obscured by "snow." It never occurred to us that some day we might actually see the puck.
If there is heaven on earth, it was in the basement of 19 Haley Road on Game Night.
My father watched nearly every game on that old TV, inviting his fan club to his lair where we would make it through the first period, slumber during the second and be out cold by the third. Occasionally a thrown empty would crash against the TV screen, the anger directed at some hooligan from the other team, usually a Canadian, but the bums on the Rangers weren't much better. If the noise woke us, we might see the end of the game before sneaking up the stairs to bed.
The year before he died my wife and I took my father to Boston Garden for a Bruins game. The old place was scheduled to be torn down soon, we were afraid we were running out of time. Turns out we were, but not for the reason we expected.
He had followed the team since the thirties and never set foot on the hallowed ground. It was a magical moment when he entered the arena, stopped in his tracks as he looked toward the ghost filled rafters and saw first hand the championship banners that had collected over the decades. It was if the earth stood still. He stood, hypnotized, tears filling his eyes but not escaping; never escaping, and took it all in. For a man who started following his team by listening to the "Original Six" on the radio it was a near perfect moment.
For his son who spent the best years of his childhood in a magical basement it was.
Bruins Hockey. Nothing better. Especially when the Stanley Cup is in sight.
http://wellinvolved.blogspot.com/2009/04/future-fire-museum-burns-in-providence.html
Well Involved did a great job covering this two-alarm fire yesterday. More than the building was lost.
She's on her way to work, blond hair blowing in the wind, radio on, ready to start her day when a car hits her from behind. She's startled, looks in the rear view and sees another car closing in. That car slams into the one that hit her, which then hits her again. The impact pushes her car forward, it hits the car in front of her. Four cars in all, the last car in the pile-up has the most damage, the occupant is already boarded and collared by an East Providence Rescue and rolling past us as we pull past the accident scene and come to a stop. Two people are leaning against a jersey barrier, a beautiful woman dressed in black and a guy next to her, dressed like a mechanic. They stand close, talking, relieved the accident wasn't worse. I asked if they were injured, the man looks dazed, the woman states her neck hurts but she doesn't need medical treatment. The man has a glazed look in his eye, I ask him three simple questions, "where are you, who's the President and what day is it." He answers correctly and refuses transport as well. I look at the cars, the blond woman's took a pretty good hit, she'll be sore tomorrow, I'm sure. One more time I ask if they want to be transported to the hospital. The woman smiles sweetly and says she wants to go to work. The dazed looking man smiles back and says, "no thanks it wasn't that bad. I think I'll be alright. It was just a love tap." They look at each other, move a little closer and laugh together.
I'm hoping thousands turn out for tomorrow's Tea Party on the State House lawn from three o'clock until six. There are those who would lead you to believe that my union membership makes me philosophically opposed to such an event. How wrong they are. This is not an anti-union protest, it is a protest aimed at government and its inability to manage money collected from "we the people."
http://taxdayteaparty.com/teaparty/rhode-island/
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She's twenty-four and homeless, and has been for four years. She has kids back in Ohio, had to leave them there when it was time to find a better life for herself. She found Rhode Island. At nine o'clock at night she wandered into Kennedy Plaza, the main bus station in Providence and slumped against a wall. A police officer told her to move on, she said she couldn't. The police called us.
"What's the matter?"
"I can't move."
"You can't move."
"I've been walking all day and can't walk anymore."
"Get in the truck."
I've given up. I used to fight to maintain some resemblance of dignity concerning EMS and the 911 system, now I operate as if I'm part social services agency, part homeless advocate, rolling medicine cabinet, part taxi and occasional emergency medical technician.
She managed to move, this time ambling into the rescue. She slowly stepped in and sat on the bench seat. I sat across from her, Adam drove toward Rhode Island Hospital where the cure for "inability to move" waited.
"Why have you been walking all day?"
"I have nowhere to go. I'm homeless."
"Where are you from?"
"Akron, Ohio."
"Why don't you go back?"
"They only have one homeless shelter in the state! They don't have no food kitchens, nothin! I can't even get a coffee!"
"Why did you come here?"
"Three hots and a cot. Everybody knows this is a good place. Every day of the week somebody's got somethin. Sundays at the Amos House, every day at the McCauley House, soup kitchens, shelters, people give you money just for holding up a sign."
"Why don't you go to "Tent City?"
"They threw me out."
"You got thrown out of tent City? Why?"
"I didn't play by their rules."
Rules? I didn't know there were any rules. We arrived at the hospital. I walked my patient in. A young girl from Ohio living on the streets of Providence, getting by mainly from the generosity of others. Our generosity is harming her more than helping her. She would be better off in Akron, learning how to be responsible and taking care of her children.
Here's an interesting story about "Tent City."
http://www.projo.com/news/content/HOPE_CITY_03-29-09_HFDQG8Q_v29.341a631.html
Eyes closed, barely breathing, track marks up his arms. Family stands by, nervously laughing, trying to act nonchalant. Face purple now as a needle of a different sort enters his arm. Glass vial shines, reflected light from the overhead. Underwear soaked, ice cubes roll around the floor, picking up pubic hair when they near the shower. I crouch next to him, less contact with the floor the better. Breathing slow, two a minute, oxygen nearby, bag valve mask ready. Quiet now as the narcan enters his bloodstream. Minute passed. Eyes flutter. Purple turns to red, to grey, to white. Eyes open. Breathing normal. Family sighs and moves on. Stretcher comes to bathroom door. A sheet appears, covers him. IV ripped from arm, restraints placed. Into the night, a man in his underwear, recently resurrected enters the rescue. The doors close.
"Why are you two laying on top of each other?"
"We went man down."
"You went what?"
"Man down. Call 911."
"You look like homosexuals."
That got their attention. One crawled off the other, they dusted the mulch off their filthy clothes and tried to stand. One succeeded, the other stayed "man down."
"We not fags man, we ain't Will and Grace."
"Who?"
"You know who. Bellhopper and The Fridge."
"They're gay?"
"Ya think?"
Bellhopper and The Fridge are two homeless guys who have prowled these streets for years. At one time they were loners, recently when one calls the other isn't far behind. Whichever one is more coherent makes sure the other is taken care of. It never occurred to me they might be more than friends. The fact that they have usually pissed and shit themselves before somebody called 911 to clean them off the streets probably has something to do with it. I just can't imagine them having the capacity for sexual relations, gay or not.
"You guys keep going "man down" and they'll be calling you "Will and Grace."
"We ain't no Will and Grace! We like the poossy!"
The one who briefly stood fell back into the bushes, next to his buddy. We fished them out and took them in.
From the slightly scruffy author comes the slightly scruffy book! Paladin is offering slightly damaged books at half price.
http://www.paladinpress.com/product/1108/94
In honor of all the homeless people everywhere I give to you the godfather of punk, the one and only Iggy Pop. (Bonus! Slash and Duff from G&R are the Ig's backup band.)
I won't be home till Thurdsay.
So the other night I'm posting something in this here blog of mine, when outside my window loud explosions and bright flashes of light appear seemingly out of nowhere. Fireworks! A marching band thundered past my house playing "all Hail the King," Maurey Povich, Jerry Springer and Merv Griffin all left messages asking for me to appear on their shows. Proposals for marriage from Naiomi, Gisselle and Tyra were delivered by "special" courier and huge piles of money appeared on my doorstep.
Why all the fanfare, I asked myself.
A loud voice boomed from the heavens.
"You have now had 100,000 hits!"
Considering half of those are probably me obsessively checking for comments, fifty thousand ain't half bad!
Thanks everybody for sticking with me.
Since starting this blog, Paramedic Supermonkey responded to a plane crash, Herbie at Pocono Paramedic, previously Brick City Blues had four kids executed in a schoolyard and now this. Stay safe out there everybody, thoughts and prayers to Chrysalis Angel who sent me this e-mail a little while ago, shortly after I heard about the situation.
http://news.aol.com/article/binghamton-shooting/413155?icid=main|main|dl1|link1|http%3A%2F%2Fnews.aol.com%2Farticle%2Fbinghamton-shooting%2F413155
In an old tenement house in the inner city at ten till midnight a baby wakes, struggling to breathe. When everything his mother tries isn't enough and her son continues to struggle she calls 911. Ten blocks away the tone sounds at the Broad Street Fire Station, sending The Bullies into the night for another rescue run. They roll out of the bay thirty seconds later, four veteran firefighters, their turnout gear picked up from the floor and taken along, sitting next to them as they speed through the quiet streets. A mile away Rescue 1 leaves the Allen's Avenue Fire Station toward the same address.
Engine 10 arrives first, a combined eighty years of firefighting experience among them. I've known these guys for eighteen years, have seen them at fires, and have worked alongside them. You will not find a tougher bunch anywhere. They enter the house looking for the patient.
A few minutes later Rescue 1 arrives on scene. I copy the report, a two year old infant in respiratory distress. Inside the home I find The Bullies crowded around the little boy, one of them holding the child on his knee, another holding oxygen close and the other two doing anything they can to help. The mother is nervous; she has a four year old with Cerebral Palsy in the next bedroom. She lives alone, the kids father left her when he realized his son "wasn't right."
The Bullies bundle the boy up, make sure he has a warm blanket and take him to the rescue while I make sure the mom is okay and the other boy taken care of. He goes upstairs to the landlords house to stay until his family returns.
Inside the rescue the baby has captured the Bullies. He's still on the knee of one of the firefighters, smiling, enthralled by all the attention. His breathing has improved, his color returned to normal. We get him secured, seat belt the mom and get ready to go. The firefighters leave as soon as they know the baby "is right." The baby starts to cry. He doesn't stop until we get to Hasbro Children's Hospital.
Sleep tight, Providence. There are Saints in the heart of the city, thinly disguised as Bullies.
