“The weight of a thousand lives, carried on our shoulders, sometimes leaves a heavy ache in our hearts.” – unknown

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Previously on Haunted, Untold Stories of EMS:

BEEP BEEP BEEP

Tones dropped around us just as I started to scribble my grievances on the “disputes” section of my write up. With hands shaking from fury, I hurriedly tried to finished my sentence but Matt was already standing up.

“It’s ours. It’s a code at Marshall’s,” he said looking at his phone with the call information.

I stood up. “Wait, we just came from there. We’ll take it.”

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No sooner had we arrived back to the station and I’d gotten my mild, albeit probably deserved, finger wagging, the tones had dropped with a code in the same place we’d just come from.

“Maybe it’s a coincidence?” Jase offered as he lit up and pulled out of the bay.

“Maybe,” I agreed grimly.

The sky had gone dark extending the reach of our lights. In my side mirror I saw the echo of fire’s lights behind us. Being the end of November it was a comfortable temperature, but it would be pitch black well before 8pm, and the overcast day that had loomed over us gave way to a chilly night that covered me with dread.

“Your patient will be located in the men’s bathroom,” Dispatch advised over the radio. Not what I wanted to hear. Bathroom codes were not ideal. Aside from having to kneel on a dirty urine-splattered floor, it gave us very little room to work. But the only positive side was that it kept us out of the public eye. Onlookers in a public place made the scene more intense.

Jase kept the lights on as we pulled into the dirt parking lot once again and tried to follow the hand signals of the staff guiding us in.

“STOP! STOP!” Jase stopped immediately and rolled down his window. It was, Carl, an off-duty medic we were familiar with, but he was not there on official business – that we knew of anyway. “He’s in the bathroom!” He yelled at us as we started exiting the ambulance.

“We know,” I said, “we’re just following the flaggers.” (Vernacular lesson: a “flagger” is someone who waves their arms at us as we approach to let us know where to go. Writing it down sounds like a slur, but it’s not. I just want that to be clear.)

I opened the side door and jumped in to grab our equipment, but our monitor was already gone.

“He took our monitor,” Jase said and started to unload the gurney.

I puffed out a breath. “Well we can’t do anything without the rest of our equipment,” I said and pilled the rest of our stuff on the gurney.

We high tailed it across the arena and through a crowd of onlookers into the bathroom where Carl was directing CPR to other bystanders. I could see the firefighters attempting to take their position, ready to start compressions.

I mustered up my big-girl voice so everyone could hear me: “I need anyone who is not EMS to vacate the area, please.”

Every. Single. One. of the bystanders looked at me and then back to Carl.

“Continue CPR.” Carl instructed – against my orders – and the bystanders resumed their tasks while my crew continued to try to take over.

I got my pregnant self and my jump bag over to the patient’s side and bent down. “Cory and Jase, take over CPR.” I instructed. “Carl, I need you to get these people out of here so we can work. Good job everyone, we’ll take it from here.”

Jase and Cory took over CPR and one by one the bystanders filed out. But Carl stayed. He’d attached the de-fib pads to the patient’s chest before we’d walked in, although somewhat askew, and was staring at the monitor. I pulled out my drill and buried it into the patient’s shin bone for an IO. With limited space, I wasn’t going to bother with attempting an IV.

“What story do we have?” I asked.

Carl was standing over my monitor watching it. “Friend just said he went down. He’s in v-fib. Do you want me to shock him?”

I pressed the trigger on the drill and secured the IO, attaching it to my line of fluids. In the corner of my eye I could see that Jase had already inserted an IGel for the airway and was bagging with a BVM. Chadwick was on compressions and Cory was ready to take over.

Now listen, I would have shocked this patient immediately, but while Carl thought he was helping, he was causing unnecessary distraction.

“No I don’t want you to shock him. If you want to stay, you can do compressions but-“

Carl interrupted me, “I can shock him if you want.”

I yelled for the crew to pause compressions and saw v-fib on the monitor. “Continue compressions, but be prepared to stop. We’re going to shock.” I set the monitor the the appropriate defibrillation dose and called “charging” to the crew. The monitored alarmed letting everyone know it was ready to deliver a shock. “Everyone clear?” I scanned the room and everyone called clear as I made sure there were no hands on the patient. “Three, two, one.” I pressed the button and the patient’s body jumped off the floor. “Resume CPR.” I instructed firmly as I attempted to maneuver my belly around to reach my drug box.

I grabbed the Epinephrine from the top drawer and loaded it into the syringe. “You can stay and do compressions if we need you, but I cannot have you doing ALS,” I said to Carl. I pushed the Epi through the IO and flushed it with saline. I wrote down the time on my glove. “First Epi in.” I called to the crews.

Carl’s face changed from one of determination to a mix of anger and dejection. “Oh, so it’s like that,” he said.

“Under the circumstances, yes.” I confirmed. “I can’t have you doing ALS skills. I don’t know what the implications for that are and I don’t know what you’re capacity is tonight. So you can either stay and let me run this code, or you can leave but you are not going to be a distraction.”

Carl folded his arms – a gesture I wasn’t sure was in defiance or an act of self-protection. I ignored him and began to draw up amiodarone from a vial and pushed that through the IO as well. Carl hadn’t moved from his spot and with the limited space we had, we couldn’t afford it to anyone who wasn’t active in this resuscitation.

“Jase, do you have your radio on you?” I asked.

“Yep,” he said pulling it off his belt.

“Call for Medic 5. I want another set of hands here.” I knew that Carl was aware of Medic 5 being Matt’s truck. And if he wasn’t going to listen to me, he was going to have to deal with the supervisor. Additionally, I needed another medic and Matt was the guy you want on your code backing you up. In my current state, I technically could maneuver from head to toe, intubating and giving drugs, but having a medic at the head, the EMTs in the middle doing compressions, and one medic at the feet would allow for better flow to make everything just work better. Then we wouldn’t have to scramble all over each other.

Jase did as I requested and I gave out a few more orders while Cory and Chadwick alternated applying the necessary diagnostic equipment. I drew up my next Epi and checked my watch. It had been two minutes and my compressors had just completed their 200 compressions.

“Pause for rhythm check.” I called. V-fib persisted. “V-fib, charging, resume compressions.” I felt like a robot as I mechanically called out the steps. I charged the monitor to the new defib setting and it alarmed when it was ready. “All clear?” I called and swept the room again. Everyone called back clear with hands up in the air. I pressed the button and the body bounced again. “Resume compressions.”

I checked my watch again. 3 minutes since my last Epi – so I pushed the syringe into the line. “Second Epi in.” I called and started to draw up the second dose of amiodarone. “Does anyone have a name and date of birth on our guy?” I looked around the room and caught the fire chief’s eye. Harry winked at me, a sign that he’d get whatever information I needed.

But then I caught Jase’s eye. “Holly, it’s the same guy from earlier.”

I looked down, now recognizing the familiar clothing and finally letting my eyes glance on his face.

Michael.