EPTThe television is a dull blur of white noise as I lift weights in a futile attempt to get a 6 pack, I finish my set and look down, it hasn’t worked yet. As I continue with my heinous grunting, strenuous movement and disgusting sweating, the tones go off over my head. I set the weights down and begin to walk down the hallway to the stairs that lead to our vehicles. The thunderous thuds rumble throughout the station as me and my partners let momentum and gravity push us down the stairs. As I step into my turnout pants and zip them up, I feel the repugnant smell my balls are secreting being sealed in, only to be let out when they have had time to stew and worsen. Once I feel I look presentable enough to the general public, considering what I was just doing, I jump in my truck and begin to pull out. It’s a medical alarm at a dog groomers, should be just another bull shit call and I will be able to go back to the station and finish my attempt at bodily improvement as my captain and other partner transports the hypochondriac to the hospital. Then I hear and feel a banging on the tail of the truck.
“Balgrog, it’s a code, get in the medic,” My friend Jason hollers at me. “Well, I suppose a cardiac arrest is more interesting than someone who self diagnosed themselves on webmd,” I think to myself. I quickly reverse the truck, park it, grab my turn out jacket and helmet and jump in the back of the ambulance, with Tom, our original firefighter looking, mustached captain, and Jason, someone who has the facial features of a 15 year old, but the mind of a wise man. As I am closing the door, the medic lurches out of the bays, the lights flair up and the siren begins its endless wail, scarring off surrounding vehicles and other people too blind to see our lights. I sit alone in the back in the airway seat, looking out of the rear windows as we fly down the main street, I sway side to side and listen to all of the equipment jingle and jangle in the back as we swerve around cars and bounce over pot holes. I grab the large gloves and pull them on, glad that by this time all the sweat on my hands is gone. As I finish putting them on we take a sharp right turn and come to an abrupt stop, here we are I guess.
I hop out and grab our monitor/defib and the airway bag. As I turn around I see a police officer with her hand on a man hunched over his steering wheel in a gray wagon car of some sort. It was the kind where when you were kids you would fight over who got to sit in the trunk seat to watch everything fly by like going into warp speed in star wars. My captain Tom goes over and talks to the police officer and tells me and Jason to just grab the cot. I set down what I have in the gravel with an audible crunch, and walk around back back of the medic and pull out our cot. I pull out or cot and it makes its signature mechanic groan as I lower it to the ground, then wrestle it over the gravel to Tom. As we pull his lifeless body out of his car, his arms fall down and his grey lifeless eyes are open looking directly up at me. There is still nothing comparable then looking into something you see everyday that is full of life, description, love, and seeing nothing, just staring into a void of emptiness.
Once he is on the cot we put it in the back of the ambulance and all leap in. My captain checks for a pulse as I look for breathing, nothing. I get the trauma shears and cut off his shirt, with that exposed I immediately go into CPR. On my first compression, two snaps disturb the air and his chest caves underneath my hands like when you first crack the seal on a beer can. Knowing I broke the sternum fully on my first compression is a good feeling, knowing that you don’t hesitate, your mind doesn’t waiver, your body doesn’t hesitate. As I am pumping away on this mans chest, I see his colossal stomach making ocean like waves with each compression. Everyone says to do compressions to the beat of the song Staying Alive by the Beegees, but for me, it is always Harder Better Faster Stronger by Daft Punk. So as I am bee-bopping away on this man’s chest, Jason is applying the defibrillation pads, attaching a blood pressure cuff, SpO2 monitor and ECG pads to his chest. While Jason is doing this and I continue to ravage this unknown mans chest, my captain inserts a piece of plastic into the mans mouth to keep his tongue from closing his airway, then put a bag valve mask over his face and begins giving him air. When Jason has finished his task, I ask for him to take over compressions and I take over managing the airway from my captain. Now it is just me with the rolled back lifeless eyes staring at me, in a judgemental way, as if watching my actions, criticizing me on the care we are giving him. I have done nothing wrong, I haven’t wronged him, why is he looking at me this way? Tired of his judgemental stare I look up to see what else is being done. Just as I do I get to see my captain is drilling into the mans femur, went in well and now we have a line in, everything is going well, we are all working silently and doing what needs to be done, this is a good sign. As I am looking around trying to stay away from the patients glare, I see the truck I was originally in pull up with my buddy. He comes over and right as he gets in back I say “You're dropping a king, get it ready.” He takes a second to look around and comprehend what exactly is happening, then soundlessly goes to work getting out a airway tube and starts prepping it, when he is ready with the lubed up tube in hand, I give the judgemental man one last breath, then remove the mask and plastic from him. My friend puts his hand in the patient's mouth, grasps his tongue with his thumb, outside jaw with the rest of his hand, and pulls it up. As he is doing this he slides the tube down his throat, blows up the balloons so it secures it within his throat, then I attach the bag and continue breathing for him, back to the piercing glare of judgement. Once we have secured the tube, I look up again and see my captain is finishing up pushing epinephrine into the line established in the man's leg. He tells Jason to stop giving compressions and I look over at the monitor. The mans heart is in a normal rhythm and beating on its own, I reach down with my free hand and check for a pulse, he has one, we are not pronouncing him dead.
My friend jumps in the driver seat of the medic and off we go! The mans heart stops working on it’s own, Jason resumes wailing on the now dead mans chest, we shock him, judgemental man is back with us, now he is dead again, continue beating his chest, give more epinephrine, he is alive, epinephrine half life comes to an end, now back to a corpse. The back and forth of life and death continues until we reach the hospital. We take him into a large room with a bed encircled with doctors and nurses, with their help we move him from our cot to theirs, where they descend on him with hands flying and large nonsensical words fluttering about, as my captain gives the report to the head doc, I slide the cot out and slink off unnoticed to the cleaning area. I take off my gloves and go get a chocolate milk from the fridge as a reward. I look down at it as I twist off the cap, it is glaring up at me with judgement.
