The Garage Door

A neighbor of mine recently suffered a self inflicted calamity.

It seems that this young lady, of high school age, had a lot on her mind as she prepared to drive herself, her brother and a couple of friends to school. She started up her car and pulled out of the garage, saving time by not first opening the garage door.

Panic, remorse and extreme embarrassment ensue.

Life has come to an end.

This happened just before I returned home from duty crew at the local fire & rescue company. Being one who prides himself on situational awareness, I noticed the customized door as I drove by her home. Never being one to pass up a chance to cause embarrassment, I walked next door to see what happened. In the garage were the young driver, brother and friends. I looked at them and said "Skate board accident?". They laughed ... well ... three of them laughed and said no, not a skate board accident.

This entertaining group of young people had already missed the school bus so I offered to drive them to school since there are certain penalties if they arrive late. On the way to school, in an attempt to ease the tension, I suggested we begin the process of thinking of new nicknames for the driver of the Sherman tank. My unspoken favorite was "Search Warrant!!!" based upon scenes from the TV program Cops.

During a lull in the repartee the young demolition derby driver asked me, thinking I'm sure of the pending evening's dinner discussion with her hard working single mom, just how much would I kill her if she were my daughter.

And I gave it some thought, although not along the lines she anticipated I'm sure.

Here I was, still in uniform, disheveled and smelly from a hard day's night. It had been a difficult night with two back to back diabetic emergencies, one of which greatly worried us as to the eventual outcome of a life and death struggle. Upon arrival we found the lady comatose and somewhat convulsive. Her glucometer reading was 14 when "normal" for an adult is 100. She needed glucose and needed it now. Sadly, she was a difficult stick and the medic, someone whom I greatly admire, knew it. He had been on a call a couple of months ago with the same lady and the medic with whom he was serving, who really knows how to stick an IV, could not do so. The lady carries a reputation as a difficult stick and her reputation remained intact last night.

No dice.

The medic administers what he can via injection into her muscles, a slow road to China as far as administering medication. We load her up into the ambulance and off we go. I'm the only qualified emergency driver on this crew that night so I'm behind the wheel. In the back with the patient are the medic, an EMT and a probie who is a former Marine and has patched people up in the middle of combat. Good people all.

"It was a dark and stormy night" and traffic was a pain in the ass. Good LORD people, when you see and hear an ambulance coming up behind you, GET OUT OF THE WAY! What about that don't you understand? The local hospital, just 10 minutes away, was already overloaded and was no longer accepting business. We were rerouted to a hospital far, far away. Not quite a galaxy away, but it sure seemed that way. I'm up front, driving hard but trying to be safe. I have four souls in the back for whom I am responsible, three working very hard to save the fourth. I'm working the gas, brake (gently now, don't be throwing people around in the back when the only one secured was the unconscious patient), lights, siren and air horn.

I'm patting my head, rubbing my tummy and steering, all while trying to thread my way through traffic on a dark and stormy night.

The talented medic and his able helpers are trying their best to keep our patient alive. NPA shoved down the nose into which they pump life giving oxygen, OPA to keep her tongue from blocking her airway, non-rebreather mask to deliver that oxygen and then, later in our journey, a bag valve mask to breath for the patient when she stopped doing so on her own.

About half way to the neighboring galaxy I'm told to pull over and stop. This is not something you want to hear. It generally means that the patient’s heart has stopped and you need to hook up the Life Pak to shock the heart, refocusing it's attention on the task at hand .... beating. I, running fast in the left lane the way I've been trained, pull over three lanes to the right seeking a firm shoulder upon which I may rest my weary ambulance.

No such luck.

A large curb looms as far as I can see (did I mention the "dark and stormy night" part of this ordeal?). Then, I spot a left turn lane coming up fast. Imitating a drunk ambulance driver, and making sure I'm not going to generate additional business for fire & rescue along the way, I cross over three lanes to the left and into the left turn lane, smoking to a stop just before the intersection. I look in the center mirror to see if I should jump into the back to help, but my services are not needed. Her heart has not stopped beating and the medic performs whatever life saving task of the moment he needs to perform, and then tells me to whip the horses and continue on to the hospital. I tell everyone to hang on because I'm going to need part of the bumpy shoulder to get up to launch speed in order to merge back into traffic in the high speed lane.

Off we go into the night.

We arrive at the hospital and wheel the patient into the ER. I literally have sweat dripping off of my face, and I was only driving the bus!! I had the easy part. All three of my coworkers are exhausted, one of them stepping into the bathroom to lose the Chinese dinner just recently eaten so long ago.

The ER staff start to perform their wondrous work.

Our patient soiled her pants as she died.

Our patient vomited as she came back to life.

Life is yucky, but death is yucky and sad.

I'll take door number one, please.

We clean ourselves up first, and then resupply our wondrous, fire breathing steed. We put ourselves back into service.

On the way back to the barn, with our skin still shinny with sweat, our temporary peace is interrupted by yet another call. Another diabetic emergency. The cops are with an unresponsive driver and are requesting our presence... please RSVP.

And off we go, lights and sirens. Exhausted, but ready for the next fight. The next wondrous, fulfilling, life giving fight.

The good fight.

..................................................

By now, we are at the high school and I drop off four beautiful, vibrant, healthy people. I love them They are so alive. And they smell good too.

I try to tell Ms Demolition Derby to not sweat it. She'll live through it.

But she doesn't believe me. Her life is over.

She has so much to learn, outside of school. I hope she takes her time learning about life. I want her to be happy for a very, very long time.

Happy and healthy.