Well, my orders are cut, and I'm off to Iraq as a medic with a Engineering unit, specializing in rapid road repair missions. They blow up roads, we fix them.
I wont be posting much, due to OPSEC reasons. Funny stories yes. Combat stories, if any, will come after the mission is complete and I am home. I don't want to jeapordize our safety over there. The enemy watches these things.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Thursday, January 28, 2010
A shift in review
We respond to a female fallen, with a nosebleed. Sitting there in her wheelchair is a profoundly mentally retarded woman. She is dirty disheveled. She doesn't respond to me verbally when I try to talk to her, just looks at me and rocks back and forth. The bleeding from her nose is stopped.
"She fell," the nurse tells me. She hands me paperwork and tries to run off. I'm already frustrated with her.
"How about giving me a report?" I'm barely covering the edge in my voice. The nurse repeats her previous statement.
"Any LOC?" She shakes her head. "How long ago?" 30 minutes, comes the distracted reply. For some reason she wants to run. I do a quick assessment and find no other injuries whatsoever. My patient is covered in old food, and smells like spoiled milk.
"So, you're telling me that this woman was sitting *IN* her chair, and without standing up, fell forward onto the floor, landing on her face, and the ONLY injury she managed to obtain is a bloody nose with an obvious fracture?" The nurse nods and runs off. I write it in my report as it was told to me. I don't buy it. No word on if the state is involved yet. My words might have made no difference.
................................
We're called to another home, for chest pain. There are two other ambulances there for other patient, but medics have initiated care already. She is in no acute distress, alert and oriented. As we get to the elevator, her daughter comes up to the stretcher. "This is all because she was out at Lace last night!" She must be kidding, Lace is a strip club, but I play along.
"I thought I recognized you there!" We laugh and the daughter grumbles, "I'm a grandmother myself, they'd probably kick me right out of there!" She looks no older than 50.
My partner is taking her in, and because she is lucid, he explains everything to he. He even explains all of her history, and tell her what it means. He tells her each and every one of her medications, and tells her what they are for. He is very patient with her many questions. "I like that about you," she tells him. "because you treat me like a real person."
The transport is an easy one, and as I turn to leave the ER she says, "Are you married?" I shook my head no.
"Haven't met a woman that could stand me yet," I said with a grin. She smiled. "I'll pray that you find one. You're such a nice young man." She smiled, and I know that her scary moment had been turned into something a little more positive, because she had a good crew.
.....................
Dispatch must be crazy. They're sending an all-male crew to go pick up a 14 year old female psych patient. I'm ready to refuse when my paperwork says that she is aggressive and violent, and I have a scrip for restraints. A 21 year old soldier wrestling a 14 year old girl alone in the back of an ambulance is just asking for a lawsuit or jail time, even if everything was by the book, and there were no dishonorable intentions. A female supervisor comes down with us instead.
The girl is quiet, reserved. She seems friendly enough. I can scarcely believe the stories on the paperwork...punching cars, threatening her family with a bat, sending nude photos to boys, walking out in the middle of traffic, and lie after lie. She sits there and listens to her Ipod until she pops in a stick of gum and I offer to throw out the wrapper.
Sometimes it only takes a small trigger to make a psych go off. It also takes an equally small trigger to get them to warm up to you. It's a delicate balance that in this case, paid off. From those few spoken words, she began to talk. About school, and getting kicked out. About her dreams of getting into medicine. About kid stuff, like climbing trees and decorating books with aluminum foil from gum wrappers, and snowboarding. She walked into the treatment facility of her own volition with a smile on her face. Only God and she know if any of the stories she told me and my supervisor were true, but if nothing else, the talking made a difference. And those little differences are why I do what I do.
"She fell," the nurse tells me. She hands me paperwork and tries to run off. I'm already frustrated with her.
"How about giving me a report?" I'm barely covering the edge in my voice. The nurse repeats her previous statement.
"Any LOC?" She shakes her head. "How long ago?" 30 minutes, comes the distracted reply. For some reason she wants to run. I do a quick assessment and find no other injuries whatsoever. My patient is covered in old food, and smells like spoiled milk.
"So, you're telling me that this woman was sitting *IN* her chair, and without standing up, fell forward onto the floor, landing on her face, and the ONLY injury she managed to obtain is a bloody nose with an obvious fracture?" The nurse nods and runs off. I write it in my report as it was told to me. I don't buy it. No word on if the state is involved yet. My words might have made no difference.
................................
We're called to another home, for chest pain. There are two other ambulances there for other patient, but medics have initiated care already. She is in no acute distress, alert and oriented. As we get to the elevator, her daughter comes up to the stretcher. "This is all because she was out at Lace last night!" She must be kidding, Lace is a strip club, but I play along.
"I thought I recognized you there!" We laugh and the daughter grumbles, "I'm a grandmother myself, they'd probably kick me right out of there!" She looks no older than 50.
My partner is taking her in, and because she is lucid, he explains everything to he. He even explains all of her history, and tell her what it means. He tells her each and every one of her medications, and tells her what they are for. He is very patient with her many questions. "I like that about you," she tells him. "because you treat me like a real person."
The transport is an easy one, and as I turn to leave the ER she says, "Are you married?" I shook my head no.
"Haven't met a woman that could stand me yet," I said with a grin. She smiled. "I'll pray that you find one. You're such a nice young man." She smiled, and I know that her scary moment had been turned into something a little more positive, because she had a good crew.
.....................
Dispatch must be crazy. They're sending an all-male crew to go pick up a 14 year old female psych patient. I'm ready to refuse when my paperwork says that she is aggressive and violent, and I have a scrip for restraints. A 21 year old soldier wrestling a 14 year old girl alone in the back of an ambulance is just asking for a lawsuit or jail time, even if everything was by the book, and there were no dishonorable intentions. A female supervisor comes down with us instead.
The girl is quiet, reserved. She seems friendly enough. I can scarcely believe the stories on the paperwork...punching cars, threatening her family with a bat, sending nude photos to boys, walking out in the middle of traffic, and lie after lie. She sits there and listens to her Ipod until she pops in a stick of gum and I offer to throw out the wrapper.
Sometimes it only takes a small trigger to make a psych go off. It also takes an equally small trigger to get them to warm up to you. It's a delicate balance that in this case, paid off. From those few spoken words, she began to talk. About school, and getting kicked out. About her dreams of getting into medicine. About kid stuff, like climbing trees and decorating books with aluminum foil from gum wrappers, and snowboarding. She walked into the treatment facility of her own volition with a smile on her face. Only God and she know if any of the stories she told me and my supervisor were true, but if nothing else, the talking made a difference. And those little differences are why I do what I do.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Tioga Boar Hunt '09
It was 7am when I parked my ambulance, changed, and headed home to pick up two good friends, Louis and Eddie, for a wild boar hunt in Pennsylvania. I hadn't slept yet, but I was excited and it kept me up. After a few gear issues, (Eddie forgot his ammo) we headed up Rt 17. It was about a 4 hour drive, and as pleasant as you can make it for three 6 foot men and hunting gear in a Ford Ranger.
Our destination was a ranch in North Central PA. You can find their website here: www.tiogaboarhunting.com.
We made our way to the office and got checked in, then taken to our living quarters for the weekend. It was a small, cabin like house with two levels, the bottom of which was mostly a lobby type area. A small dining room and kitchen were on the left, and a TV room off to the right, but we didn't spend any time there. At the top of a steep set of stairs were several bedrooms, and we took one with 6 bunks and settled in.
Once our gear was in order, we took off for the range across the street (Ok, it was a dirt path) to the range to make sure we were still sighted in and nothing had been rattled off zero in transit. My Savage .30-06 and the Nikon scope mounted on top were still dead on, so I spent a few rounds practicing kneeling and offhand shots before I was satisfied that I would hit my mark the next day.
Louis had no issues with his NEF 12 Gauge, and we expected none. After all, it was wearing iron sights, not a scope and there is very little to go wrong with a solid single shot gun.
Eddie's rifle was a different story. Eddie is, out of the three of us, by far the worst marksman. He can generally keep his shots within a 14 inch circle at 100 yards and not much better. That's rested, of course. Ed had sighted his rifle in previously, but only to a point, and had expected to fine-tune it here. That was a mistake we'd warned him about. He couldn't seem to figure out how to use the low rest at the range comfortable, and decided to forego the rest entirely. He couldn't seem to get hits at 100 yards, so we moved back to the 40 yard target, and he still had trouble hitting. After about 10 rounds I took the rifle and fired a shot at 40. It hit about 3 inches high, which would be about right at 100. So we knew it wasn't the rifle. Frustrated, he put the rifle away to shoot Louis's Ruger .357 for a bit.
It's a fine pistol, and very accurate with a 6 inch barrel. The .38+P rounds we were shooting were mild, and they hit where you wanted them to at 25 yards. Louis and I left Eddie to shoot some more. After another 8 rounds or so, he'd managed a decent group and was satisfied with the rifle. It was a fine gun, a pre-1964 Winchester Model 70, but the scope was ancient and foggy, with a post reticle that was hard to master.
I laid down for a nap until dinner-Elk stew with buffalo sloppy joes. It was an outstanding meal. We sat up and chewed the fat with the other hunters for a little while after, then laid down for the night. Wake-up was 0600.
The morning was chilly, in the mid 40's but not uncomfortable, and very clear. We followed our guides for the day up the dirt path in my pickup and headed out to the area we would hunt.
Tioga's hunting is "canned", in that the animals are kept in fenced preserves. But it is not as simple as it seems. They have over 1500 acres of land with which to hunt, and our area was at least 300. Fallow deer, water buffalo, white-tails and of course, boar all co-exist in some sort of fantasy ecosystem inside the wire. Both Bald, and Golden eagles flew overhead, and I spotted an osprey once. There were a few Coopers hawks flying around the trees looking for songbirds as well.
Once inside the wire, we split up. Eddie went with one guide, Chase, hunting for a smaller "management" boar, while Louis and I went with the other guide, Carmen, after a trophy pig. They were in contact via radio, and we set out looking for pigs. We didn't find many right away, but Eddie did. We heard a shot ring out below us, and another just a few seconds later. Over the radio I heard that they thought he has wounded "a little spotted pig." Great, I thought. Now we're looking for an angry, wounded pig. This could be interesting.
We saw quite a few fallow deer, and heard of pigs elsewhere on the radio, but saw none in the first hour. I was glassing the pines ahead with a pair of binoculars looking for Eddie's wounded pig, when Eddie's guide said over the radio that a nice red trophy boar was headed our way. We quickly moved to head it off and I spotted him alone, working his way through the trees 100 yards off. I moved up, little by little from tree to tree at a crouch. Finally at 60 yards I took a knee and raised my rifle. I waited until he came out from behind a tree, a good broadside shot, and squeezed the trigger just as he started walking forward again. My rifle bucked, and the pig squealed, then dropped, his back legs useless. He turned and whirled, looking for whatever had hurt him, but found that he could no longer move. I moved up a little closer, and put another shot right behind his shoulder to finish him.
When he'd expired, we walked up to take a look. He was a nice sized pig as far as I could tell. I was upset because my first shot had landed too far back. It took out his spine, but wouldn't have done anything immediately lethal, and I'd ruined some meat. The second shot was a perfect heart/lung and I wished that I'd pulled that off the first time.
We linked up with Eddie and on our way, saw his spotted pig with another group. It didn't look hit at all, and they hadn't found a blood trail, so he had missed it entirely. We sat behind a stump for the next hour. I threw in a lip full of Skoal and watched a white-tail buck amble past. A group of pigs came over the rise behind me, and when I finally turned and spotted them, they took off. Louis and I moved on, splitting with Eddie once again. Our guide had found a pair of pigs bedded down in a field. They were tired and done running. We got close enough for Louis to get a shot off with a slug gun and open sights, but not close enough to endanger ourselves. Going by his first shot, we maybe should have been closer. He placed the first slug into her neck, and they both took off as if he had missed entirely. The slug passed cleanly through nothing but fat. She barely knew that he'd shot her. Eddie shot twice more soon afterward, with 2 more clean misses.
We tracked her about a mile back, down pine slopes and through a swamp. Carmen spotted her 100 yards out and wheeling back around, coming towards us. We got situated behind a huge stump and waited. She got within 10 yards and stopped, but it was a frontal shot. She might have scented us, but kept going. As she got broadside to the log, she caught a look at me. There was blood in her eyes, and she took 2 trotting steps in my direction before Louis dropped her with a well placed shot behind the ear. She died on the spot. She was no more than 3 yards from me. I realized that my hand was in my pocket looking for shells when he had shot. That pig wanted my bacon.
We trekked back to meet Eddie once again, while Carmen went back to grab an ATV and get our pigs back to the lodge. He fired once when we were walking up the hill, but once again, no pig. He was unable to get a follow-up shot in because some other hunters came up in front, they had radioed their position wrong. Lucky they were in orange.
We sat with Eddie for another half hour or so, but no pigs came through, and we started to walk back to the lodge, so that Louis and I could take a look at our pigs and get more pictures. Eddie was planning on going back out when we got back, but on the way out, I spotted a white head in the bushes. I almost didn't get us stopped in time, my first inclination was to hold my fist in the air in a military "halt", but then realized that I needed to actually say "hold up." Eddie managed to get within 25 yards from it, and finally put it down. He shot once, a little far back in the ribcage, missing the heart/lung but doing some damage to the liver and spleen. It was still on it's feet though, and he put a second shot in just to be sure.
Back at the lodge we learned that my pig was much more massive than we had originally thought. In the woods, he hadn't seemed exceptionally large, but next to some of the other pigs, all in the 200 pound range, his size was exceptional. In a class by himself really. We never exactly weighed him, but they had to use a backhoe to hang it up, and I would guess he was pushing 300 lbs, if not 325. There is more meat in my freezer than I know what to do with, so I will be having a BBQ this weekend if the weather holds, and may give some of it away as well. I still have a deer tag to fill, and no room to put it in.
It was a great experience out there, and a good entry to big-game hunting. I've hunted plenty of small game before, and tried to hunt deer and bear with no real success. I'm hoping this year will be different, and now I have little to worry about with 'buck fever', because I know that I can perform in the woods. Next time I'll be hoping for a one-shot stop.
Happy hunting, and stay safe.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Horror and hindsight
I am disoriented and groggy when the high pitched, two-toned call pierces the air. It is dark and I roll over once groaning, then sit up. "WNXX-527, Stony Point Ambulance and Medic One respond to an Motor Vehicle Accident, Palisades Parkway Southbound, between exit 16 and 17. 3 month old infant involved. Time now 0230."
That woke me right up. I cursed under my breath and laced my boots up a little faster, then ran for the ambulance bay doors and cranked them open. We rolled out a moment later. We were right around Exit 15, so the ambulance had to go North past the scene and turn around where there was a spot for it. We would have crossed the median, but there were too many trees in the way. No sense causing another accident on our way. Luckily there were very few cars on the road at such an early hour.
After what felt like an eternity, but was probably less than ten minutes, we arrived on the scene. There was a blue minivan on the shoulder, perched up on a tall rock, and the front end in a small tree, maybe a foot in diameter. Shining my flashlight I can see two adults in the van, huddled over a small, crying baby. That's a good sign.
To a medic, a crying baby is a good baby. Kids cry when they are hurt or upset. It's their way of telling you that something is not right, when many times they are unable to say what. It also tells you that they have a patent airway, and they are breathing, with adequate air-flow to scream. A quiet child who has just undergone major trauma makes me nervous. He may be brave, and perfectly OK, or he may be silently slipping off the cliff that is a child shock profile.
I take the baby from Mom, who is crying and hyperventilating herself, and a quick assessment show's no injuries except a fairly deep, clean laceration on the left side of her chest by the pectoral muscle. Bleeding is mostly controlled. It looked to have been caused by one of the plastic adjusters on the car-seat that she was strapped into. I put her back into the car seat and take it with me. We don't have any C-spine materials that small, and with all her thrashing with the crying, and her parents having moved her, I didn't see a need to stress her more.
Both parents are patients as well, and Tommy is with me so they both climb in the back. They are insistent that we only treat their baby. Mom is hyperventilating and complaining of a severe headache, but refuses to let us look. Dad claims he is sore but nothing else. Neither one will allow us to board and collar. Dad is like a helicopter. As I hold pressure on his baby's wound, he leans in as if in a panic, and says " They baby is dying! The baby is dying, do something!" I am a calm individual and simply told him that nobody would die in my ambulance today. When he continued, Tommy, and our ALS for the night(at least 450 pounds between the two of them) told him that he needed to calm down, or go with the nice police officers that wished to speak with him.
I was actually shocked that he wasn't arrested on scene. The police pulled him out of the ambulance, I believe he had already signed an RMA. He was not carrying a license and driving his fathers car. He claimed that a deer had jumped out and that he swerved, and ended up on top of the low, sloping rock that we found the car on, but there was something off there. When the police took him away from the back, Mom went nuts. Her hyperventilation increased severely, she cried and screamed worse than the child laying on my cot, in a total panic. We let him come back aboard mostly for that reason.
It was an easy ride to the hospital. I made repeated offers to check out Mom, and her head- she refused, though it seemed to be giving her severe discomfort, and she kept rubbing one particular spot. Dad continued to panic, asking me once when the baby finally relaxed, "Is she still alive?? Does she still have a pulse?" I told him that she did. I told him that I didn't even need to feel for it. I could see her heartbeat causing her skin to pulse around the fontanels, and her color was fine. He tried to then grab her head, as if he couldn't see and wanted to feel the pulse I had mentioned. I stopped him and told him that touching a baby's head like that could be harmful, and not to do it again. He leaned back against the bench and calmed down a little longer until we reached the hospital. I gave my report, wished them luck, and said goodbye.
A few days later I was told that a police officer needed to speak with me about a call that I'd worked the previous week. Earlier that evening Tom and I had done an obvious domestic violence case. A woman's boyfriend had pushed her down some stairs and thrown dirty cat litter on her. She claimed to the police that she had tripped over a cat, but it was easy to see her black eyes through the makeup and I don't think the police officer bought it. She told us the truth in the truck, and swore us to secrecy but I wrote up the wounds as I found them, and wrote the Chief Complaint as I'd found it. I figured that he would want to talk about that call, but I was very wrong.
Three days later, dad had spent the day with Mom and her child. Before he returned home for the evening, he asked to hold his child one last time for the night. He then took his beautiful, new, lively daughter, and swung her by her ankles, hitting her head repeatedly against an iron railing. She had died instantly, an he was tackled by a horrified neighbor before he could run. Police were looking to see if there was any kind of precursor or warning to this. They'd found a Leatherman tool in the car, with brown hair that looked like it was from mom's head on the floor of the car. Apparently it had been wrapped up in her hair with the knife blade to her throat. The skid marks show that the car was traveling in excess of 90MPH, on a slight uphill grade. It started to click. Her headache, and her reluctance to allow examination. His panic, not because he was scared for his daughter, but because he had wanted her dead, he had hoped she would die. The crash was attempted murder. He wanted to kill everyone in the car. I felt like I had missed something. Alarm bells were ringing in my head the whole time, but nothing I could place, nothing I could act on. And now a child was dead. I held no sympathy for Mom. To me, she was almost just as responsible for her daughters death. She could have told us, while he was gone. She could have let us examine her, find out for ourselves. She could have let the police arrest him. She could have gone to somebody when she realized what a freaking psycho he was. But she did not.If only he'd gotten a bit more aggressive and I'd hit him, and THEN he'd been arrested, But I wasn't given that opportunity. And I am still left feeling like I missed something.
Neither one of us was ever called into court to testify. There either was no provable connection between the crash, and the savage murder, or they had such an open-and-shut case we weren't needed. I never found out what happened to him, or his enabling girlfriend. A google search showed plenty of stories if the incident but no sentencing info. I hope he rots in Hell. Maybe he's already dead. Even most inmates have a conscience when it comes to children.
That woke me right up. I cursed under my breath and laced my boots up a little faster, then ran for the ambulance bay doors and cranked them open. We rolled out a moment later. We were right around Exit 15, so the ambulance had to go North past the scene and turn around where there was a spot for it. We would have crossed the median, but there were too many trees in the way. No sense causing another accident on our way. Luckily there were very few cars on the road at such an early hour.
After what felt like an eternity, but was probably less than ten minutes, we arrived on the scene. There was a blue minivan on the shoulder, perched up on a tall rock, and the front end in a small tree, maybe a foot in diameter. Shining my flashlight I can see two adults in the van, huddled over a small, crying baby. That's a good sign.
To a medic, a crying baby is a good baby. Kids cry when they are hurt or upset. It's their way of telling you that something is not right, when many times they are unable to say what. It also tells you that they have a patent airway, and they are breathing, with adequate air-flow to scream. A quiet child who has just undergone major trauma makes me nervous. He may be brave, and perfectly OK, or he may be silently slipping off the cliff that is a child shock profile.
I take the baby from Mom, who is crying and hyperventilating herself, and a quick assessment show's no injuries except a fairly deep, clean laceration on the left side of her chest by the pectoral muscle. Bleeding is mostly controlled. It looked to have been caused by one of the plastic adjusters on the car-seat that she was strapped into. I put her back into the car seat and take it with me. We don't have any C-spine materials that small, and with all her thrashing with the crying, and her parents having moved her, I didn't see a need to stress her more.
Both parents are patients as well, and Tommy is with me so they both climb in the back. They are insistent that we only treat their baby. Mom is hyperventilating and complaining of a severe headache, but refuses to let us look. Dad claims he is sore but nothing else. Neither one will allow us to board and collar. Dad is like a helicopter. As I hold pressure on his baby's wound, he leans in as if in a panic, and says " They baby is dying! The baby is dying, do something!" I am a calm individual and simply told him that nobody would die in my ambulance today. When he continued, Tommy, and our ALS for the night(at least 450 pounds between the two of them) told him that he needed to calm down, or go with the nice police officers that wished to speak with him.
I was actually shocked that he wasn't arrested on scene. The police pulled him out of the ambulance, I believe he had already signed an RMA. He was not carrying a license and driving his fathers car. He claimed that a deer had jumped out and that he swerved, and ended up on top of the low, sloping rock that we found the car on, but there was something off there. When the police took him away from the back, Mom went nuts. Her hyperventilation increased severely, she cried and screamed worse than the child laying on my cot, in a total panic. We let him come back aboard mostly for that reason.
It was an easy ride to the hospital. I made repeated offers to check out Mom, and her head- she refused, though it seemed to be giving her severe discomfort, and she kept rubbing one particular spot. Dad continued to panic, asking me once when the baby finally relaxed, "Is she still alive?? Does she still have a pulse?" I told him that she did. I told him that I didn't even need to feel for it. I could see her heartbeat causing her skin to pulse around the fontanels, and her color was fine. He tried to then grab her head, as if he couldn't see and wanted to feel the pulse I had mentioned. I stopped him and told him that touching a baby's head like that could be harmful, and not to do it again. He leaned back against the bench and calmed down a little longer until we reached the hospital. I gave my report, wished them luck, and said goodbye.
A few days later I was told that a police officer needed to speak with me about a call that I'd worked the previous week. Earlier that evening Tom and I had done an obvious domestic violence case. A woman's boyfriend had pushed her down some stairs and thrown dirty cat litter on her. She claimed to the police that she had tripped over a cat, but it was easy to see her black eyes through the makeup and I don't think the police officer bought it. She told us the truth in the truck, and swore us to secrecy but I wrote up the wounds as I found them, and wrote the Chief Complaint as I'd found it. I figured that he would want to talk about that call, but I was very wrong.
Three days later, dad had spent the day with Mom and her child. Before he returned home for the evening, he asked to hold his child one last time for the night. He then took his beautiful, new, lively daughter, and swung her by her ankles, hitting her head repeatedly against an iron railing. She had died instantly, an he was tackled by a horrified neighbor before he could run. Police were looking to see if there was any kind of precursor or warning to this. They'd found a Leatherman tool in the car, with brown hair that looked like it was from mom's head on the floor of the car. Apparently it had been wrapped up in her hair with the knife blade to her throat. The skid marks show that the car was traveling in excess of 90MPH, on a slight uphill grade. It started to click. Her headache, and her reluctance to allow examination. His panic, not because he was scared for his daughter, but because he had wanted her dead, he had hoped she would die. The crash was attempted murder. He wanted to kill everyone in the car. I felt like I had missed something. Alarm bells were ringing in my head the whole time, but nothing I could place, nothing I could act on. And now a child was dead. I held no sympathy for Mom. To me, she was almost just as responsible for her daughters death. She could have told us, while he was gone. She could have let us examine her, find out for ourselves. She could have let the police arrest him. She could have gone to somebody when she realized what a freaking psycho he was. But she did not.If only he'd gotten a bit more aggressive and I'd hit him, and THEN he'd been arrested, But I wasn't given that opportunity. And I am still left feeling like I missed something.
Neither one of us was ever called into court to testify. There either was no provable connection between the crash, and the savage murder, or they had such an open-and-shut case we weren't needed. I never found out what happened to him, or his enabling girlfriend. A google search showed plenty of stories if the incident but no sentencing info. I hope he rots in Hell. Maybe he's already dead. Even most inmates have a conscience when it comes to children.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Attention Drivers!
I do not turn on my flashy red lights and sirens for no reason. I'm not making a coffee run, nor am I just trying to be cool. I'm way past the point where all that noise and red light will give me a rush. I am responding to an emergency call. Somebody is sick, or hurt, and I need to get there, without dodging your sorry ass because you can't be bothered to pull over for five seconds so I can go through. My red lights do not give me a license to speed, so no, you should NOT simply go faster than I am going to avoid pulling over. That will only piss me off. The lights and sirens are a warning to get out of my way, so that I don't have to worry so much about drivers up ahead making sudden maneuvers while I am en route. Your going faster means that at some point up ahead, I'm gonna have to snake my way through clogged up traffic at a red light, and get within inches of your tiny little car in order to make it through with my big ambulance. It only makes both our lives harder. And I'm still ahead of you. So pull the hell over already.
To the lady who looked at me this morning as I entered the busy intersection with both my sirens and horn going, I hope that one day, if something bad happens to you or somebody you love, that there are more courteous drivers on the road that recognize that there are indeed things more important than making it through the yellow light or getting their morning coffee. Hell, I didn't get mine yet.
And the the not-so-gentlemanly guy who stopped at the intersection, than darted out in front of me as I proceeded through...I don't know if you're an idiot, a jerk, or what, but trust me, the vehicle I'm driving will probably run through your little Honda like a hot knife through butter. I'm pretty sure I'd come out on top there.
That is all.
To the lady who looked at me this morning as I entered the busy intersection with both my sirens and horn going, I hope that one day, if something bad happens to you or somebody you love, that there are more courteous drivers on the road that recognize that there are indeed things more important than making it through the yellow light or getting their morning coffee. Hell, I didn't get mine yet.
And the the not-so-gentlemanly guy who stopped at the intersection, than darted out in front of me as I proceeded through...I don't know if you're an idiot, a jerk, or what, but trust me, the vehicle I'm driving will probably run through your little Honda like a hot knife through butter. I'm pretty sure I'd come out on top there.
That is all.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Blast From the past Pt 2
This is a poem I had to write for one of my classes in my first college semester.
It made my mother and her entire office cry when they read it. The poem is about my life, and where I saw myself 10 years in the future. Back in those days I had wanted nothing more than to become a forest ranger. This poem actually helped me realize though, that a family and a home of my own were what I wanted most out of life, and how I got there didn't really matter so much. In a way, it helped validate my dropping out, to myself at least.
Morning mist muffles birdsong and squirrel call.
The sun, shrouded in cloud struggles to rise.
It casts a pale, growing glow on a moss covered cabin.
Lonely in the dark, damp forest.
The ranger is up before the dawn,
Window panes cold and growing a frost.
He lights a lamp in the dark, dresses.
Gun and badge glisten in subdued radiance.
He is tall, and strong, but his eyes are friendly.
They are seared with the memories of friends and strangers lost.
But they shine with confidence
And love for life and family.
In the kitchen, the hound stirs.
He chases rabbits in the night,
His tail, quivering, shivering,
Like the flame on a match.
Awake to the smell of frying eggs and coffee,
His wife, bleary eyed and sleepy
Pads down the hallway in her robe.
She is beautiful in her tired morning glory
They are quiet, as forks tinkle against plates
And the lanterns flicker weakly.
The heater is on, and they are warm.
But soon the ranger must venture out.
The clock says 5:04 and it is almost time to go.
He wanders down the hall once more,
And enters on the left to see,
His daughter, cozy.
She is much like her mother.
He leans over the bed,
Plants a kiss on her snoozing cheek.
She will be five in as many short months.
And she will have a sibling sooner.
In the kitchen again,
His wife, embraced in his arms.
She will be back in bed soon.
With a kiss and a tip of his hat,
The ranger is off to work.
The days are long, and demanding.
Headlights are used, coming and going from home.
He climbs from his truck, stiff with exhaustion,
But satisfied with his days work.
From the cabin comes his child, ecstatic
And she is swept from the ground,
By strong, proud father’s arms.
She tied her own shoes today.
The ranger’s wife has felt another kick today.
It was strong, and the baby is active.
She thinks they will have a son.
She smiles across the dinner table at Daddy.
It is another cold night, and snow is falling.
Tomorrow is another long day.
The ranger ponders the glistening white ground,
And puffs a honey cigar, gently.
He is wreathed in smoke.
He thinks back, ten long years ago.
He was just a boy then
Though he liked to think himself a man.
He didn’t miss much.
His high school days of falconry, had long gone.
He hadn’t the time to hunt his hawk each day.
So he had given it up.
He missed the autumn afternoons
In the crisp leaves with his hunter.
And the days of college parties,
They’re over too.
But he didn’t miss them much, fun as they used to seem.
He had a need for responsibility now, to set an example.
And his beer was much better while it could still be tasted.
His child is asleep,
And as it gets later, her parents must do in turn.
His wife clicks out the lamp,
And they crawl into the covers,
For another restful night.
It made my mother and her entire office cry when they read it. The poem is about my life, and where I saw myself 10 years in the future. Back in those days I had wanted nothing more than to become a forest ranger. This poem actually helped me realize though, that a family and a home of my own were what I wanted most out of life, and how I got there didn't really matter so much. In a way, it helped validate my dropping out, to myself at least.
Morning mist muffles birdsong and squirrel call.
The sun, shrouded in cloud struggles to rise.
It casts a pale, growing glow on a moss covered cabin.
Lonely in the dark, damp forest.
The ranger is up before the dawn,
Window panes cold and growing a frost.
He lights a lamp in the dark, dresses.
Gun and badge glisten in subdued radiance.
He is tall, and strong, but his eyes are friendly.
They are seared with the memories of friends and strangers lost.
But they shine with confidence
And love for life and family.
In the kitchen, the hound stirs.
He chases rabbits in the night,
His tail, quivering, shivering,
Like the flame on a match.
Awake to the smell of frying eggs and coffee,
His wife, bleary eyed and sleepy
Pads down the hallway in her robe.
She is beautiful in her tired morning glory
They are quiet, as forks tinkle against plates
And the lanterns flicker weakly.
The heater is on, and they are warm.
But soon the ranger must venture out.
The clock says 5:04 and it is almost time to go.
He wanders down the hall once more,
And enters on the left to see,
His daughter, cozy.
She is much like her mother.
He leans over the bed,
Plants a kiss on her snoozing cheek.
She will be five in as many short months.
And she will have a sibling sooner.
In the kitchen again,
His wife, embraced in his arms.
She will be back in bed soon.
With a kiss and a tip of his hat,
The ranger is off to work.
The days are long, and demanding.
Headlights are used, coming and going from home.
He climbs from his truck, stiff with exhaustion,
But satisfied with his days work.
From the cabin comes his child, ecstatic
And she is swept from the ground,
By strong, proud father’s arms.
She tied her own shoes today.
The ranger’s wife has felt another kick today.
It was strong, and the baby is active.
She thinks they will have a son.
She smiles across the dinner table at Daddy.
It is another cold night, and snow is falling.
Tomorrow is another long day.
The ranger ponders the glistening white ground,
And puffs a honey cigar, gently.
He is wreathed in smoke.
He thinks back, ten long years ago.
He was just a boy then
Though he liked to think himself a man.
He didn’t miss much.
His high school days of falconry, had long gone.
He hadn’t the time to hunt his hawk each day.
So he had given it up.
He missed the autumn afternoons
In the crisp leaves with his hunter.
And the days of college parties,
They’re over too.
But he didn’t miss them much, fun as they used to seem.
He had a need for responsibility now, to set an example.
And his beer was much better while it could still be tasted.
His child is asleep,
And as it gets later, her parents must do in turn.
His wife clicks out the lamp,
And they crawl into the covers,
For another restful night.
Blast from the past...
Some stories on my old hard drive, from high school and that failed first college semester. They're between 3 or 4 years old now. Since I haven't been writing I figured I'd out them up. Enjoy!
Popped My Code Cherry
Most 16 year olds would spend their Wednesday nights doing homework, or out with friends if their parents were lenient. I on the other hand, found myself sitting in the back of an ambulance checking its supplies. My shift had started at about 7 PM. I don’t think I was sitting in that rig very long before the tones rang out.
It was an ominous feeling, because I sort of sensed it before it happened. Almost like my brain could see it coming before the radio picked it up. It startled me nonetheless and I snapped to attention in the seat of the rig, already hastily replacing the cervical collars into the long blue bag. The sharp, two-tone alarm rang hung in the air. I don’t think there was a longer pause between the tones and the dispatch then normal, but looking back, it felt like an eternity. I knew something hard was about to hit us.
“WNXN-527 on the air, request for Stony Point Ambulance and Medic 1. Please respond to number 123 Fake Street for a 41-year-old female, not breathing. Time now is 1914.” I stifled a curse and hopped from the back of the rig to open the bay doors. I climbed back in, grabbing the giant blue first-in bag, equipped with everything from oxygen and airways to a BVM, and trauma pads. I dropped the handheld suction in the top of the bag as well. I didn’t want to bring too much in since we would have to move fast, but suction would likely be important.
Eddie Conklin, our driver, slammed his door shut. He turned back to me sitting in the captains chair and tossed a big binder back towards me. “Hey, Junior!” he yelled. “Fake Street, and make it fast!” The binder was an alphabetical listing of each street in Stony Point, with directions on how to get there. I wasted no time in locating the street and relayed the direction up front as the EMT Tom Peterson reached his seat. The rig pulled out of the bay and I was out the back, closing the doors, and back in the rig in a matter of seconds. Seconds counted.
I’m not entirely clear on how fast we were moving, or how long it took us to get there. My thoughts were moving way faster then an ambulance ever could. This was my test as a First Responder. Could I really do this? Would I remember my training? Would I fail? Would I choke? All the while I made sure that the supplies we needed were there, that the crew had gloves. As the rig stopped, Tom made sure I got right out and did not wait.
There was snow and ice still on the ground. The moon was high up and it’s light caused the snow to glitter. The beauty of it was offset by the on and off strobe of red flashing emergency lights. I ran through the door of the house where a police officer was waving us. All beauty disappeared.
It wasn’t a large house, and it was a mess because furniture had been hastily pushed aside. My eyes moved to the floor. Lying on a light brown carpet, lit from the dim glow of a dying light bulb was our patient. A police officer was doing CPR, with one hand. A man to my left was breathing with a bag-I don’t remember if this was another cop, or her husband.
The first thing that caught my eye was her stomach. It was large and bloated. “Is she pregnant?” I asked, more to the officer then anybody else. Tommy was there as I knelt on the floor next to the officer on compressions. Turning to Tom, the man bagging her said with frustration, “Her jaw’s held shut, I can’t get any air in!” Tommy pried with his hand and I handed him a measured oral airway but to no avail. They couldn’t get her mouth open.
“Let’s try a nasal,” I suggested. I dug in the bag for a few moments. A pang of fear hit me when I didn’t come up with it right away. I cursed myself. I’d just checked it myself, dammit! But there it was a moment later, under another OPA bag, a little orange tube. I measured that and lubed it, then handed it to my EMT. The medics arrived through the door as Tom was midway in getting it in.
The dialogue is a bit sketchy for a big part of this, mostly because it was curt and quick, and we all knew what needed to be done anyway. The paramedic team asked the normal cardiac arrest questions-how long she’d been down, what had happened. She was without pulse for about 10 minutes before they walked through the door. He husband had left her watching TV to take a shower. When he came back she was down. He’d started CPR and rescue breathing himself-but had not extended her airway properly, hence the stomach bloating. She was not pregnant, and each of us breathed a sigh of relief.
Though her jaw was locked before, it opened on contact for the paramedics. One of them spread-eagle on the floor pushed a tube down her throat. Now we no longer needed a nasal airway. They pushed an IV into her arm, and gave me the bag to make sure it kept dripping. Suddenly I found myself with everything, and nothing, to do all at once. It was am important job. But I found myself wishing that I could be doing more-giving this woman CPR or on the bag. I didn’t feel as if I was using my skills properly. So I became a bystander and a player all at once. I saw the medic perform accelerated CPR to circulate the drugs faster, and I saw them hook her to an AED. Asystole, no shock-able rhythm. They put her on a chain of light shocks-called pacing-to try and stimulate her heart to beat.
Eddie Conklin had grabbed a backboard and the stretcher. They rolled her, and lifted her onto the stretcher with the board beneath her. We made our way quickly to the ambulance, careful of the ice and snow. One of the police brought our equipment out.
There was music in the rig, which died down when Eddie got in. It seemed so fitting-and yet discourteous. In the movies, everything has a theme song. Here it was not the time. The husband rode up front. I sat in the captain chair, Tom to the side in the CPR chair. The medic that rode along with us, Neil, was on the bench. We quickly put a cervical collar on, a job that fell to me being at the head. It would keep her from getting whipped around and keep an open airway. I began to bag, while Tom compressed and the paramedic did his thing.
The thing about it was, everything was so different. It wasn’t at all how I imagined, to rush in and be the knight on his white horse to save the day. Not at all. This was sad, and harsh. This wasn’t like the books. This was not a mannequin. This was a wife, and a mother. And my patient.
Our ride to the hospital was a longer one then most corps. It still couldn’t have taken long. But it felt like we were driving through the next millennium. At some point, Neil leaned towards the two of us. “At this point, she is dead. But because she’s so young, and because her husband is with us, we’re going to keep working.” He looked down at her face. There was a yellow-green fluid leaking from her mouth and nose. “Do me a favor, grab some 4X4’s and clean her up a bit.” I nodded soberly. I was still holding out on a miracle for this woman, as resigned as I was that this would likely be the first patient I would ever lose.
Though I was at the head, and bagging the whole time, cleaning her up was the first time that I ever had really looked at her face. The gunk I was wiping up never gave me the willies or anything-but it saddened me. It killed the idea that we would save this woman. When I finished, however, I looked at Tom Peterson; mouth cocked half open, red in the face, pressing down on her chest over and over. CRP was no easy task, and this woman had a chest harder than most, although I‘ve since forgotten why. “Switch with him,” the medic gestured towards me. Tom insisted he was fine, but Neil stayed firm, and I slid past Tom into the CPR chair, benchmarked her chest, and pushed. I continued the next few minutes until we arrived at the hospital. Before we got there Neil gave a bit of a pep talk. “Keep working hard, put on your game faces. To her husband, it’s not over yet.”
Stone-faced we unloaded the stretcher, entered the code into the doors, and wheeled her into Cardiac 1. Doctors and nurses kept working for another few minutes. When they called it, and went outside to tell her husband, he burst into tears.
It took awhile for the full effect of everything that had just taken place to hit me. It was a bittersweet moment returning to the building, and returning home. Everyone was so proud-myself included. Tommy even wrote on my evaluation that I handled the call “like a seasoned veteran.” But I wasn’t sure there was anything about losing a patient to feel proud about. Weak, grim smiles accompanied the news for anybody who had asked about it.
It had to be two days when it took maximum effect. The day I had read her obituary in the paper. I saw it and went out for a walk. It was dark, and cold. I was walking fast, franticly. I lit up a cigar and puffed on it as if my life depended on it-ironic in that I was killing myself in the process. I broke into a run, my brain swimming with emotions and images that wouldn’t leave. The idea that she would die didn’t occur to me before. I knew the statistics on CPR, but of course I never thought that *I* would loose a patient. The idea that perhaps, she was watching me now from above was a little eerie. Voices echoed in my head. As we had left, her daughter had given her dad a hug, and through tears, said “I love you daddy.” “I love you too sweetheart,” he replied.
Before I reached home again, coyotes were howling on the hill. I listened to them for awhile trying to take my mind off it all. I sobbed relentlessly in my room later that night-that became the release, the turning point. That night I came to terms with what had happened. She changed my life. I later found out that she had suffered a major brain bleed. Even if it had happened to her on the table, she probably could not have been saved.
Popped My Code Cherry
Most 16 year olds would spend their Wednesday nights doing homework, or out with friends if their parents were lenient. I on the other hand, found myself sitting in the back of an ambulance checking its supplies. My shift had started at about 7 PM. I don’t think I was sitting in that rig very long before the tones rang out.
It was an ominous feeling, because I sort of sensed it before it happened. Almost like my brain could see it coming before the radio picked it up. It startled me nonetheless and I snapped to attention in the seat of the rig, already hastily replacing the cervical collars into the long blue bag. The sharp, two-tone alarm rang hung in the air. I don’t think there was a longer pause between the tones and the dispatch then normal, but looking back, it felt like an eternity. I knew something hard was about to hit us.
“WNXN-527 on the air, request for Stony Point Ambulance and Medic 1. Please respond to number 123 Fake Street for a 41-year-old female, not breathing. Time now is 1914.” I stifled a curse and hopped from the back of the rig to open the bay doors. I climbed back in, grabbing the giant blue first-in bag, equipped with everything from oxygen and airways to a BVM, and trauma pads. I dropped the handheld suction in the top of the bag as well. I didn’t want to bring too much in since we would have to move fast, but suction would likely be important.
Eddie Conklin, our driver, slammed his door shut. He turned back to me sitting in the captains chair and tossed a big binder back towards me. “Hey, Junior!” he yelled. “Fake Street, and make it fast!” The binder was an alphabetical listing of each street in Stony Point, with directions on how to get there. I wasted no time in locating the street and relayed the direction up front as the EMT Tom Peterson reached his seat. The rig pulled out of the bay and I was out the back, closing the doors, and back in the rig in a matter of seconds. Seconds counted.
I’m not entirely clear on how fast we were moving, or how long it took us to get there. My thoughts were moving way faster then an ambulance ever could. This was my test as a First Responder. Could I really do this? Would I remember my training? Would I fail? Would I choke? All the while I made sure that the supplies we needed were there, that the crew had gloves. As the rig stopped, Tom made sure I got right out and did not wait.
There was snow and ice still on the ground. The moon was high up and it’s light caused the snow to glitter. The beauty of it was offset by the on and off strobe of red flashing emergency lights. I ran through the door of the house where a police officer was waving us. All beauty disappeared.
It wasn’t a large house, and it was a mess because furniture had been hastily pushed aside. My eyes moved to the floor. Lying on a light brown carpet, lit from the dim glow of a dying light bulb was our patient. A police officer was doing CPR, with one hand. A man to my left was breathing with a bag-I don’t remember if this was another cop, or her husband.
The first thing that caught my eye was her stomach. It was large and bloated. “Is she pregnant?” I asked, more to the officer then anybody else. Tommy was there as I knelt on the floor next to the officer on compressions. Turning to Tom, the man bagging her said with frustration, “Her jaw’s held shut, I can’t get any air in!” Tommy pried with his hand and I handed him a measured oral airway but to no avail. They couldn’t get her mouth open.
“Let’s try a nasal,” I suggested. I dug in the bag for a few moments. A pang of fear hit me when I didn’t come up with it right away. I cursed myself. I’d just checked it myself, dammit! But there it was a moment later, under another OPA bag, a little orange tube. I measured that and lubed it, then handed it to my EMT. The medics arrived through the door as Tom was midway in getting it in.
The dialogue is a bit sketchy for a big part of this, mostly because it was curt and quick, and we all knew what needed to be done anyway. The paramedic team asked the normal cardiac arrest questions-how long she’d been down, what had happened. She was without pulse for about 10 minutes before they walked through the door. He husband had left her watching TV to take a shower. When he came back she was down. He’d started CPR and rescue breathing himself-but had not extended her airway properly, hence the stomach bloating. She was not pregnant, and each of us breathed a sigh of relief.
Though her jaw was locked before, it opened on contact for the paramedics. One of them spread-eagle on the floor pushed a tube down her throat. Now we no longer needed a nasal airway. They pushed an IV into her arm, and gave me the bag to make sure it kept dripping. Suddenly I found myself with everything, and nothing, to do all at once. It was am important job. But I found myself wishing that I could be doing more-giving this woman CPR or on the bag. I didn’t feel as if I was using my skills properly. So I became a bystander and a player all at once. I saw the medic perform accelerated CPR to circulate the drugs faster, and I saw them hook her to an AED. Asystole, no shock-able rhythm. They put her on a chain of light shocks-called pacing-to try and stimulate her heart to beat.
Eddie Conklin had grabbed a backboard and the stretcher. They rolled her, and lifted her onto the stretcher with the board beneath her. We made our way quickly to the ambulance, careful of the ice and snow. One of the police brought our equipment out.
There was music in the rig, which died down when Eddie got in. It seemed so fitting-and yet discourteous. In the movies, everything has a theme song. Here it was not the time. The husband rode up front. I sat in the captain chair, Tom to the side in the CPR chair. The medic that rode along with us, Neil, was on the bench. We quickly put a cervical collar on, a job that fell to me being at the head. It would keep her from getting whipped around and keep an open airway. I began to bag, while Tom compressed and the paramedic did his thing.
The thing about it was, everything was so different. It wasn’t at all how I imagined, to rush in and be the knight on his white horse to save the day. Not at all. This was sad, and harsh. This wasn’t like the books. This was not a mannequin. This was a wife, and a mother. And my patient.
Our ride to the hospital was a longer one then most corps. It still couldn’t have taken long. But it felt like we were driving through the next millennium. At some point, Neil leaned towards the two of us. “At this point, she is dead. But because she’s so young, and because her husband is with us, we’re going to keep working.” He looked down at her face. There was a yellow-green fluid leaking from her mouth and nose. “Do me a favor, grab some 4X4’s and clean her up a bit.” I nodded soberly. I was still holding out on a miracle for this woman, as resigned as I was that this would likely be the first patient I would ever lose.
Though I was at the head, and bagging the whole time, cleaning her up was the first time that I ever had really looked at her face. The gunk I was wiping up never gave me the willies or anything-but it saddened me. It killed the idea that we would save this woman. When I finished, however, I looked at Tom Peterson; mouth cocked half open, red in the face, pressing down on her chest over and over. CRP was no easy task, and this woman had a chest harder than most, although I‘ve since forgotten why. “Switch with him,” the medic gestured towards me. Tom insisted he was fine, but Neil stayed firm, and I slid past Tom into the CPR chair, benchmarked her chest, and pushed. I continued the next few minutes until we arrived at the hospital. Before we got there Neil gave a bit of a pep talk. “Keep working hard, put on your game faces. To her husband, it’s not over yet.”
Stone-faced we unloaded the stretcher, entered the code into the doors, and wheeled her into Cardiac 1. Doctors and nurses kept working for another few minutes. When they called it, and went outside to tell her husband, he burst into tears.
It took awhile for the full effect of everything that had just taken place to hit me. It was a bittersweet moment returning to the building, and returning home. Everyone was so proud-myself included. Tommy even wrote on my evaluation that I handled the call “like a seasoned veteran.” But I wasn’t sure there was anything about losing a patient to feel proud about. Weak, grim smiles accompanied the news for anybody who had asked about it.
It had to be two days when it took maximum effect. The day I had read her obituary in the paper. I saw it and went out for a walk. It was dark, and cold. I was walking fast, franticly. I lit up a cigar and puffed on it as if my life depended on it-ironic in that I was killing myself in the process. I broke into a run, my brain swimming with emotions and images that wouldn’t leave. The idea that she would die didn’t occur to me before. I knew the statistics on CPR, but of course I never thought that *I* would loose a patient. The idea that perhaps, she was watching me now from above was a little eerie. Voices echoed in my head. As we had left, her daughter had given her dad a hug, and through tears, said “I love you daddy.” “I love you too sweetheart,” he replied.
Before I reached home again, coyotes were howling on the hill. I listened to them for awhile trying to take my mind off it all. I sobbed relentlessly in my room later that night-that became the release, the turning point. That night I came to terms with what had happened. She changed my life. I later found out that she had suffered a major brain bleed. Even if it had happened to her on the table, she probably could not have been saved.
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