6/2007
“Are you okay? You look a little pale.”
My preceptor was talking directly to me, and I heard him, but I couldn’t bring myself to answer. The truth was that I was most definitely NOT okay. I was not okay. But that wasn’t something that I wanted to put on display. I wanted to be the portrait of strength, not the sobbing wreck who wanted to toss her cookies right there next to her preceptor’s partner in the ambulance bay.
**********
“This, folks, is what I love about this job.” Scott, aka “The Preceptor” was sitting on the step on the side of the truck that led into the patient compartment. His partner, Danny Boy, was snoring loudly in the back of the truck. I sat in the front passenger’s seat, window open, just watching. He was physically beat, hell, we all were. 12 runs in ten hours. 12 runs that took twice as long as they should have because he had me with him. I was slow. I’ll admit it. I was being ridiculously thorough. Paperwork took longer, assessments took longer, everything took longer.
It had been a long day, but it was ending in spectacular fashion. We were on standby at a house fire. For a girl who has had zero fire experience, it was fantastic to watch. Every color in the spectrum was lighting up the summer sky. It was the first time in my life that I thought that I might want to learn more about this “fire stuff”. I was watching the flames when I heard a frantic voice. A screaming voice.
“WE HAVE A KID!”
No. No no no. No kid. No people. The house was supposed to be empty. Scott jumped from his seat and was in the back of the truck before our information had a chance to make it’s way from my brain to my body. He was screaming at Danny Boy to “Wakethefuckup” while he furiously grabbed at whatever equipment we could possibly need.
“Epi, getyourassbackhere!” Whatever calm Scott had in him had gone out the window. I was out the door before he had a chance to finish yelling.
Almost as quickly a large man with a mixture of steam and smoke coming off of his shoulders deposited a tiny limp blackened body into Scott’s arms.
I can’t repeat the string of expletives that escaped my lips.
I found myself ill equipped. I worked on a transfer truck for crying out loud. I didn’t see burned babies… I saw dialysis patients. I saw wound care patients. On occasion I took a stable MVC patient to the ER or got the chance to dodge vomit. Once in a great while I was on a truck for a chest pain patient or a CVA. Certainly not a charred baby the age of my littlest one.
I jumped into the empty captain’s chair and reached for the airway bag while Danny Boy tore the boys clothes from his little body and The Preceptor checked the little one’s vitals.
As we suspected. Pulseless. Apneic.
**********
Continued tomorrow night.
Epi, we are never equipped for those moments. We do as we are trained because we must but it never gets easier. I’m past 50 now; it never gets easier….
Thank you, Lynda.
It was a run that I had very recently that brought back these memories. I wish to hell I didn’t carry them with me.
Hopefully with time I’ll be better at leaving it all at work.
Yeah…those are never fun…and no, they are never easy.
That said, those are the ones you want to talk to someone about and put away. Hanging onto them for too long will definitely leave you a mess…and you don’t deserve that.
Jesus Epi!
Horrible. I hope that I am never in that position.
Sending lots of Hugs!
I’m sorry Epi. I hate all pedi calls and that one sounds bad. The last two ped calls I’ve been on have been horrible.
Epi- You have now been slapped in the face with reality, and it’s NOT pretty… Burns are bad, pedi burns are even worse… They NEVER get easy, I will tell you I still have nightmares from a call I ran in 1978… Your only choice is to put ALL your feelings in stasis and work the problem without letting anything but your training filter through. Only afterwards can you take the time to process the rest of the information. And I will also tell you it never gets easier… However, IF you can save just one, that save will be worth it’s weight in gold to you!
Good post, want the rest. JS
I swear to god my stomach dropped through the floor when I read that line.
I’m not a medical person – I could never do what you do (I can just about cope with being a first aider at work and occasionally having to put a plaster on a blister). Just *hugs* and so many thanks.
Epi,
It doesn’t matter that you work on a transfer truck. Even in a 911 system you don’t see burns of that nature on a regular basis. Ped burns like that are even worse, and less common. And while I don’t have a ton of time in (12 years isn’t as long as some others), I can tell you that the really bad ones stay with you. And it doesn’t ever get easier.
BTW…for some reason, my virus scan doesn’t like your website and keeps blocking it.
Hugs,
Gnome
Oh my God, Epi, I’m so sorry to hear about that. I can’t think of anything more heart-rending.
Oh…. sighing expletive.
We all carry this junk, and if it were easy to carry it, there would be something very wrong with us.
Hugs, dear. Further words have no value.
Oh god…
Doing resus on duty is my worst fear while working as a First Aider, no matter how much training I’ve done with AEDs and Oxygen and CPR. Doing resus on a child… I can’t even begin to imagine… I find doing it on a Baby Annie bad enough.
Kudos to you, for dealing with this and not running a mile afterwards…
It sucks. There is no way around it. Sometimes it just sucks. Out of my last five patient encounters, only one is still alive. The others all had the same first name. And two died violently. One died talking to us- violently. The most violent death I have ever seen, and that includes the frying electrocution we witnessed. Sometimes, it just sucks, and you would give anything for a run of the mill hypertension. But those calls get boring.
Talk about it. Blog about it. Whatever. We all have those ones. The calls that just… yeah. they suck.
Epi -
As TOTWTYTR put it once in a “Chronicle” episode:
“hours of boredom, punctuated by moments of terror”.
While most of us would like to think we’ll never have to see something like this, the unfortunate reality is that we have and will.
The fact that you’re NOT okay is actually good. You SHOULDN’T be okay with this. It’s an indication that you still have a heart and that you still care.
It’s a sad thing, but it will pass. You’ll never forget it and it will make you a better provider.
Don’t internalize, don’t drown the sorrow. Vocalize, emotionalize, socialize.
-The bad Lieutenant
Hi epi.
If the patient is a small one the horror is always bigger.
Hurt and sick kids always have the power to let out our biggest feelings.
Good thing you didn´t keep this inside.
Keep it up, keep learning, keep expressing yourself.
“Be as good as your patients deserve.”
Greetings from Mexico.
Saludos, un abrazo.
Is it tomorrow nite yet?? Where’s the rest of the story?
Bring it Epi!!!