I’ve been recently reminded of my years running as a medic with our local rescue squad. Running rescue can certainly put you on an emotional roller coaster. Rage, sorrow, despair, desperation, panic, frustration, joy, and sometimes you even encountered downright comedy. Thank God for the comedy calls, they certainly help offset some of the more tragic ones.

Being called to people’s homes at all hours and for all manor of emergencies certainly gives you an eye opener into how some people live, or I should say “exist”. And it’s certainly a reality check of the wide range of competence levels that lurk in your local community.

We were called once to “Assist the fire department with a structure fire”. We were closer and arrived on the scene shortly before the fire department. We got out and walked up to the man standing in his yard. He looked like a pot bellied Gomer Pyle with his hands pushed deeply into his pockets, just watching the smoke and flames shooting up out of his chimney. He glanced at me and then back at the house, “Yep, that’s gonna be a big mess to clean up, my family sure ain’t gonna like that,” he said.

I looked around and didn’t see anyone else, so I asked, “Where is your family?” He nodded towards the house, “Oh, they’re in there. My wife is sleep, but at least she’s deaf so she won’t hear none of this noise,” he said as the fire truck sirens approached. I turned and said; “Well don’t you think you should get them out of there?” He looked at me, “Well, do ya really think I should?” I was astounded! “Uh… well, your house is on fire…. Ummm Yea, I think it might be real a good idea to get them out of there!” (What a dumb ass!) He went in and came out with his wife, still half asleep, two kids, a dog, a cat and a bird.

To run rescue there tons of classes you have to take to make sure your clinical skills are sufficient enough to handle any kind of medical emergency as well as any type of trauma injury. During these classes we learned lots of little “squad terms”, one of which was “Load and go, or stay and play”. The patient’s condition would determine which of these approaches you would take. Well the term, “load and go” came in handy for more than just a patient’s condition. It could also mean; “Just load, get the hell out of here and assess it OUTSIDE!”

We went on many calls to people’s homes that were not such urgent emergencies, but some of the living conditions we encountered were so foul that you would gag just walking through the door. I entered one house and was overwhelmed with a very strong combination of cat piss; rotten bananas vomit and dirty feet. That was a “Load and go!” Not to mention some of the really creepy places you would end up in trying to find your patient.

We were dispatched one night for a 16yo girl, 6 months pregnant and in labor. We arrived to find lots of really strange people wondering around inside this rather dark creepy house, not even taking notice of us as we walked in. We found the patient (on our own) in an upstairs room. “What is that smell, is something on fire? It smells like burning plastic!” I said repeatedly trying to fan away the fumes, and repeatedly my partner said, “Load and go, just, load and go!” Okay, so now I know what crack smells like, and yes, I’ve been in a crack house.

Some people have very serious anger issues as well as an inability to control violent behavior. We were called once to assist the police department with a Middle Eastern man that had been involved in a domestic dispute with his girlfriend. Actually we were on our way back from dropping her off the in the ED when the call came in that they had apprehended him. According to her he had beaten the shit out of her and stolen her car.

We arrived to find this guy beaten, bloody, handcuffed, shackled, pepper sprayed and two officers still struggling to restrain him. “What happened, did he wreck the car?” I asked. “No” answered one of the officers, “the car is right there.” “Well, did you guys do this?” “No, No, it wasn’t us, we found him like this,” they both insisted. I looked at the car as the officers held on to this man whose only weapon of retaliation at this point was spit. The driver’s side mirror was broken off and there were scuffmarks on the hood.

I did make a futile attempt to check this man’s injuries. One of the officers said to me after they “threw” this guy into the back of my ambulance, “We’ll just follow you to the hospital.” “Follow me my ass! Are you crazy!” was my rather blunt reply. “I’m not going anywhere with this asshole!” I shouted. He’d already soaked me with spit and tried to bit me twice as I attempted to check him over. “I’ll tell you what,” I said quite sternly, ” either one of you is coming in here with me or you can throw his ass in the back of your car and I’ll follow you!” The younger officer climbed in and rode with us.

Ultimately we discovered that the girlfriend had dragged him about a half a mile on the street with that car “before” he beat her ass into the asphalt and took off in it. Luckily there were witnesses to confirm that because the patient couldn’t tell us anything. He only knew two words of English, “Fuck You,” and he shouted them all the way to the hospital as he thrashed around on the cot. I just stood back and let him bleed as we drove to the hospital. But I did at least put an oxygen mask on him, mostly so he could enjoy his own spit, and called to have security waiting to help remove him when we arrived.

One thing was for sure, and that was that you were never sure of what would be next. Some accidents were so bad you literally had to shut down all emotion and go on autopilot. You did anything you could think of as fast as you could do it to keep people alive. Work quickly now, cry later, just focus, keep going, and don’t give up as long as there is even just the slightest chance for survival. Some you could save, some you couldn’t. A trauma fatality was called a D.R.T., which stood for “dead right there.” After walking away from one of those in a mashed and mangled car that was about all you could say if someone asked you the patient’s status, you just said DRT. Everyone knew what that was and everyone had to face one from time to time.

Stabbings, shootings, suicides, babies born into toilets and left there. Once I had a 5 yr old impaled on a pool stick. We had all sorts of medical emergencies and some situations you can’t even imagine. CPR in progress was always a challenge to your stamina, especially with an extended transport time. So was not falling off the cot if you were the one up there straddling patient doing compressions as the cot burst through the ED doors, around the corners and down the hall.

Was it all worth it? Was it worth the wrenching in your gut when you had to look into a loved one’s desperate eyes and say, “I’m sorry, we did all we could.” Was it worth being called out at all hours of the night to be vomited on, bled on, peed on, and even assaulted? Was it worth the total embarrassment of having to stop your ambulance in the middle of traffic, emergency lights flashing, and jump out into the middle of the road? Then proceed to frantically strip to your underwear and jump around in the street like an idiot as everyone poked their heads out of their car windows watching and wondering, “what the fuck is she doing?” Words of advise here; be very careful of falling into soft dirt in dark places; it could be a giant anthill, and ants will swarm up your legs and bite the shit out of you if they get into your pants, trust me!

Yes, it was well worth it.

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