I’ve been busy preparing for the premiere of the Chronicles of EMS and haven’t been sleeping well. When I do sleep, it is shallow, poor sleep, at least at work. At home Mrs HM tells me I sleep like a baby rock log.
But a few days ago at the table after a long night at work I had to ask the firefighter on the engine, “Did I get in trouble last night?”
As I remember it, we were running back and forth on our usual compliment of folks unclear on the concept of an emergency. The engine was dispatched to a reported motor vehicle versus pedestrian. At 4 AM it could be bad, so we were ready to work when we arrived at the intersection to find a man laying on his back between 2 parked cars.
A quick approach shows no damage to the vehicles around him and no fluid on the ground. As we approach we see his feet crossed and he wipes his chin with a dirty hand.
“Sir!” I call out as we arrive at his side.
“Ah, you made it. Man, I need a place to sleep, this is killing me.” He replies as he rises looking past me to the engine. “Where’s the ambulance? I asked for an ambulance.” No distress, no problems.
I assessed his clean clothes and unstained shoelaces, a clear sign he has not been on the streets long. He told us all about how he was a local and grew up in the neighborhood, but couldn’t name the school he went to or what street he lived on.
We get a lot of folks coming to town thinking it’s all wine and roses on the streets of the big City. Many other cities appear to be using us as their dropping point for folks they choose not to help.
This guy clearly expects an ambulance to take him in. As we confirm he is not injured, I spot a $20 in his pocket.
“You have cab fare, just call a cab if you want shelter.” I tell him as the boss code 2s the ambulance.
“You can’t tell me what to do, now call me an ambulance and go away.” He said laying back down between the cars.
I lost control for the briefest of moments and threw the BP cuff at him from a short distance. I was fuming, rage kept deep for so long bubbling up to the surface and I know I have to leave. Across the street I walk and sit down.
“What the hell are you doing?” The boss calls out to me.
“I’m done with him. Call the EMS Supervisor and the BC, I’m not coming back over there, I might do something more stupid than I just did.”
Hours later I’m sitting at the kitchen table, sipping coffee, still angry. The firefighter is pondering my earlier question, clearly thinking about it.
“No, I don’t think so. Did you kill someone while I wasn’t looking?” He answers, looking back to the metro section.
“Did I throw a BP cuff at that guy in the street?”
His head looks up and he smiles. “Threw a WHAT? Are you feeling alright? Have you thrown anything, like, ever? No you didn’t get in trouble last night. We didn’t run a guy in the street.”
The boss has heard the tail end of the conversation and chimes in, “Bad dreams huh?” and he offers to fill my coffee.
Bad dreams indeed.
RTB means Return to Base. A cuppa is slang for a cup of tea. Allocating is something I very much wanted to see first hand.
Here is a shot I took at a local shopping mall. Many places I go have these markings and few rescuers know what it means when a Star of Life is in the elevator well. And why does this one have it but the one next to it does not?
What about the house next door with this sticker?
Well, Ma’am, a great deal more than you. Especially when it comes to emergency response protocols, anatomy and physiology, the effects of alcohol on the clotting factor of blood and what my job is.
I’m walking through a busy shopping center looking for someone, not sure who, and it’s stressing me out. Panic, confusion, anticipation. Then a loud tone strikes me from my sleep, the shopping center nothing but a dream. The lights are bright in the dorm of the firehouse, the time is just before 2 AM and the tones finish just as I sit up to the corner of the bed awaiting the inevitable magic voice telling me where the sick people are.
Peter Stoddart, Operations Manager and the arranger of most of my experiences in Newcastle, was in attendance as was his lovely wife. We spoke at length about event EMS at the Sunderland match the day before and I had to bend his ear about disaster and event related topics later as well. What can I say, I’m a systems and resource allocation nerd.
Well, did you finish the statement?
It was reported this morning in the 
As with many of our other adventures this day, Mark in the car had folks wondering where the emergency was. No one thought he was the Police coming to get him…until they saw me in my navy blue. When Mark ordered my meal and the fellows standing nearby read the back of my jacket, which said “Firefighter/Paramedic SFFD” they were curious to ask all the questions we’ve been asking each other for months.
Then I got to do what my Grandmother never did, stand on Hadrian’s Wall, where her hero Arthur may once have stood. There was a connection with that place I can’t really describe. I have the book she was reading when she died, Stories of King Arthur, a book she received as a child from her grandmother and I display it proudly in my living room, bookmark still in place and soon a photo of this part of the wall will accompany it.
Upstairs in the control center I had a chance to peek at the emergency response plan and these guys have it all figured out. I learned later that a number of previous events led to a mandate that each stadium have an action plan and the resources in place to react to those emergencies. We also talked about rotating the teams if more than 1 fly team was mobilized, the extent of the St John involvement, their ability to staff a team and a number of other things most laymen would have fallen asleep thinking about.
As I mentioned earlier, we should have cut the evening short at the bridge. The jet lag, the drink, Mark’s dancing, a long day and an early alarm clock would spell disaster early the next morning for our last day on the car.
