Rocky Mountain Medic

Sunday Morning.

2008-03-09T22:05:00.004-06:00

The plastic alarm next my warm, pillow-topped bed clicks on and The Rolling Stones serenade me out of my slumber, telling me "I can't get no satisfaction." With the blink of an eye the night has escaped me like Houdini handcuffed in a watertight box. I roll to my side, sigh, and fumble for the snooze button. Half asleep, my eyes still soggy from sleep and my mind full of fresh memories from the dreams before, I quickly do an algebraic equation in my head to determine how many more times I can hit the snooze button.

The metal tags on my dog's collar rattle and I hear him stir from his embroidered nest on the floor. The sun casts its shadow on the window at the head of my head and the neighbor's dog barks at the white, plastic security door, pleading to be let back in the house.

I can delay the inevitable no longer and throw the down filled comforter off my warm, well rested body. The shock of the cold air stings and I am forced to quickly jump out of bed and start my day. I swing my feet off to the side, bend down to pet my dog "good morning", and stand. My day has begun.

The bathroom is still warm from my wife, the condensation dripping from the ceiling and the floor damp with fresh water. The mirror is fogged and the chrome on the sink glistens like morning dew of my front yard after a fresh May rain shower.

I slide myself into the shower and the warm water blankets my dry skin and begins to rejuvenate my soul. I wash away all the worries from the night and cleanse myself, preparing for the week ahead. I am awake now and, unfortunately, I can disdain reality no more.

The rest of the morning passes in a blur. My workweek has begun and the carefreeness of the weekend past is now just a distant memory.

My hands grip the leather steering wheel as I weave in and out of Sunday morning traffic. Like a hidden voyeur on an Italian beach, I admiringly gaze into the vehicles of passer-byers. "Where are they going? What are they doing? Why can't that be me”? All fleeting thoughts in my clear mind as I drive down the highway.

With the light morning Sunday traffic I arrive to work much earlier than expected. I slowly ease my SUV down the street like a suspicious solicitor looking for a house to rob. I find a meter across from the garage and ease my truck backwards in between a large Land Rover and a silver Honda hybrid. I don't have to pay today because it is Sunday. The classical music from my stereo softy plays from the large black speakers in the door. Tchaikovsky's symbolic serenade about conquering the New World is abruptly, and symbolically, ended with a slam of my door.

I swipe my white badge reader on the dulled, black reader outside the nondescript metal door. It beeps and a light flashes from red to green. Entrance, once again, has been allowed.

I step forward, cross the metal threshold of the entrance and my eyes dilate. The steam from the carwash and the dimly lit fluorescent bulbs coldly slap me in the face as I enter. An ambulance is backed into the wash bay directly in front of me by someone wearing all blue who seems to be practicing graffiti in the streaking wet, dirt on the side of the boxed vehicle.

In the not-so-far distance music is playing loudly from another ambulance being stocked in the next ambulance bay. All its doors are open and, even though it is early in the morning on a Sunday, it sounds like a Saturday night at a downtown club. The ambulance vibrates and the papered cones of the speakers split, as they are unable to sustain the vibration from the Hip-Hop music being transmitted from the FM radio.

The concrete ceiling, the concrete walls, the concrete floor are all cold and damp. Warmth does not exist here and each step has to be carefully placed, as to avoid the wads of spit sprinkled on the floor like landmines.

I make myy way to my ambulance and find my partner in the back. Personal belongings are sitting in the driver's seat, insinuating to me that they would prefer to drive -again. I unload my pack like a Sherpa on the base camp of Everest, find my computer, slide my radio in its holster, and close my eyes.

Here we go again.

Saturday Night.

2008-03-01T14:26:00.003-07:00

Saturday night and the sun slowly sets behind my water stained wooden fence. The orange hue of the fading sun floats lazily from north to south like stagnant smoke from a cigarette. The Rocky Mountains hold the remaining minutes of daylight hostage and its glowing warmth radiating from the white snowcaps prolongs my day a few more minutes.

The brown eyes of my golden dog casually look up from the white, hollow bone between his long legs as he licks out the peanut butter filling. One quick glance as he lays in the brown, brittle grass of the backyard and a conversation of one thousands words is exchanged. He sees right through me, can see into my soul, and is sympathetic towards how I feel.

My wife’s warm hands hug a labeled pint glass of fresh raspberry iced tea. Her legs propped comfortably on the bench seat of our deck –shoes off, her head rocking back and forth as she illustrates a story of words with her body to her mother on the other end of the telephone line. I glance at her, she smiles.

An old blues song hovers from inside the house. The light, fluorescent from the lamps, blankets the two kittens cuddling in the sill of the wooden window. Their gray, spotted coats lean against the black mesh screen and they wish with all their lives that they, too, could be outside.

A single engine plane tugs in the distance, its engine churning furiously to keep the plane above ground and its occupants safe from the world below. The shadow precedes the noise and the silhouette dances across the suburban rooftops like a rabbit running from a vicious canine.

The clouds hover gracefully above my head, teasing my imagination into creating images remembered from the warm summer days of my childhood. Floating between the still, naked branches of the dormant winter trees in my backyard the vastness of the sky, the birds, the clouds, and the squirrel that lives in my Aspen, all taunt me into seriously re-examining my faith. They look at me and ask me to ask the questions that everyone should examine in their own lives. They remind that there is more to life than an occupation. That it is the journey itself that life is about.

But, with the inevitability of a Death Row conviction, the second hand of time marches forward regardless of my emotion. The sun sets, the moon rises, the day ends and my mood changes. Sullen. Sad. A little stressed. It is my Sunday night on this Saturday eve and tomorrow I will return to work. Tomorrow my shield goes up and I will try and protect what little inner salvation I have left from this draining job.

The wild things are out there -waiting ominously. Managers, coworkers, passer-byers, and patients all feverishly rubbing their hands together like a villain in a silent film, all waiting and hoping to stain my soul with their very own sadness, anger, and immaturity. My shield will be ready and my strength renewed.

I sigh, stand and open my flimsy screen door into the family room. Where did the weekend go?

And why can't I do this for a living?

Trying it again.

2008-02-29T14:59:00.000-07:00

I'm gonna try it again.

1 a week. 4 a month. 48 a year.

This time, a whole lot more honest.

Coffee Shop.

2007-08-22T17:52:00.000-06:00

My dirty green SUV, with dog toenail scratches on the passenger side door and greasy, light-brown grime from the previous blizzard of more than five months ago, eases slowly into the most appropriate, almost-closest parking space in the cramped lot. Nestled between an SUV and another SUV, the reflections of a yellow building on a developing hill blind my eyes. I squint and fall out of my trusty steel, grabbing my Mountainsmith Man Purse before I clod my way up the newly laid pavement to my new local coffee shop. The eager-for-business Veterinarian inside the new building, made of glass windows and doors, waves as he relaxes in his office chair with the very cup of cold java that I intend to sip on while I write this narrative. I love the suburbs.

You see, I'm back from a month’s vacation and have some writing to do. And what better place to pen a story than from the hip, beatnik inspired, soulful coffee cafe. The sad thing is, I don't like coffee.

That yellow building, soon to be a fitness center or organic grocery store or locally owned incense store, ricochets the reflection of that fiery yellow ball in the sky, deflecting the heated rays directly into the large windowpanes of the coffee shop. Giving the cafe the effect of, which really uneases me, a large two-way mirror. The suburbanite hipsters can all see out and assumingly all gather round to "once-over" the new guy approaching from the parking lot.

"He looks like Oscar on that old show, you know the messy guy."

"God, what's he doing here? Doesn't he know this is a cafe, not an outdoor store?"

"Ohh isn't that cute. He brought his laptop. Maybe he wants to be a writer."

I grab the aluminum handle of the glass door and swing it open. Time stands still.

Left foot in, then the right. The door swings closed violently quick and bumps me in the rear. My olive Old Navy cargo pants swat my posterior as the pressure in the cafe, like on a jet plane, is re-established. All eyes on me.

I scan, like the Terminator, to find a reasonable seat. It needs to be small and surrounded by at least two walls. Near an electrical outlet, preferably. No large cushy chairs and no bar tables, I'm here to write and need to be comfortable. My attention need be one hundred and ten percent, for I have written nothing in a month.

In the corner, near an outlet and next to one of those uncomfortably large den chairs is my table. Every other seat in the house is taken, so it has to be my table. The guy ahead of me, probably a poetry major or one of those people that rap text from old school literature books, also sees the one and only remaining table. I cut like A.I. (Allen Iverson) between the green wood chairs and the group of aging women discussing what happened today at their Botox seminar.

I step over a red Mountainsmith bag identical to mine. "Nice bag," I say to myself as I see the owner is a woman, and she is using it as a purse. Three large steps, a wiggle of the waist, and a slow saunter, I put my bag on the table. VICTORY! I may be new here, but I'm a paramedic damn-it! I deal with emergencies.

An evil leer meets my eye as I pass the looser as he seats himself in one of those ginormous leather chairs, not conducive to a laptop. Even though they are laptops.

I'm greeted at the counter with a smile. "Welcome, what can I get you to drink?" The young girl smocked in a large black apron asks.

"Uhm, well I don't reaqlly like coffee," I say out loud. "I'm really here to use the atmosphere to ignite my renewed fury for writing." I say to myself.

I grab my twenty ounce, venti, iced, chai, latte, no frills, no whip, no coffee drink and take my winner's lap slowly back to my table. The spoils have gone to the victor! And those spoils are one cold, non-coffee drink and a nice, little, wooden table in the corner. Next to an outlet.

I pull out from my man purse my white laptop -actually it is my wife's. But, regardless of the true owner, the white color of this laptop alone billboards the fact that regardless of how I dress, that I have fashion. The transparent apple on the lid illuminates as it "wakes up."

With my chai to my left, my Blackberry to my right (in case my wife calls), and my computer center-stage I prepare to write. Dave Matthews sings about some American Baby and my mental groove is set. Let the stories begin.

My eyes wander to my left. The looser of the chase sits sullen in that large, leather chair. His 20-pound Dell bobs up and down rhythmically on his Polo'd shirt belly. He can't focus. He can't type. He has no place to sit his drink and his knees are aching to scratch his chin, they're so close. His hair is reminiscent of that old poster from the '60's, the one with John, George, Paul, and the other guy all wearing black suits and standing in an English street. Bowl cuts must have been the fad back then. I look at the looser of my recent, non-televised Amazing Race and begin to feel sorry for him. "He should have been faster, smarter, stronger." I say to myself.

My laptop screen in white, as white as the plastic cover advertising it's sought after brand.

My eyes are caught once again. It's the commuting community college kid wearing a black tee with silver writing on his chest stating, "zero." At first glance, his white ear buds tucked into his large, round ears lead all to believe that what is being pumped into his head are downloaded tunes from his iPod. This is not the case. He, the man sitting in front of me, is a complex riddle of assumptions. I can see his screen and notice little boxes scattered throughout his desktop. As confusing as he is to me, he is very popular with others. And in each little box he types feverishly, conversations with possibly people from around the world, or just across the cafe.

Back to my screen. Nothing. I don't even have any friends to fill my screen up with little chat boxes. I sip from my disappearing Chai and Sheryl Crow strums her acoustic as she wails about every time she hears the rolling thunder.

Again, mine eyes are distracted. This time it's the red-capped lesbian sitting in the adjacent corner looking at all the girls as they pass. Mr. Zero and Ms. Red Cap scan the room simultaneously, both locking onto the same targets -the girl with the red bandana on her head, the girl crouched over a table with her bosom hanging out, and the black-smocked apron girls gallivanting about the cafe. Another Amazing Race is about to begin.

Back to the screen. Nothing. Miles Davis croons on his horn as Herbie Hancock tickles the ivories. Impromptu jazz at its best. My mind wanders up and down as the walking bass line hypnotizes me into another lull. I shake it off like a punch from George Foreman and steady my mind. It is time to write.

The sun is now setting behind the blue and white mountain tops to the west. The air is clean and my chai is gone. I came her to relax and have been distracted at every attempt to tap on my keyboard. Ray Charles is now singing the blues. I have lost all motivation to write. I want to be an old, blind, bluesman.

I close the lid to my laptop and shake the beads of water off the bottom of my clear plastic cup. My Blackberry is tucked back into the front right pocket of my cargo pants, the wife never called. I grab my man purse, slyly looking about for other women misusing the same bag for its unintended purposes -a purse. I stand, turn, and slowly walk out from my corner of this passing, frenetic world.

As I exit I turn to make sure I retrieved all my items, it's the OCD in me. And already sitting in my seat, laptop open and drink on the table is the bowl-cut Beatle wanna-be. I nod to him as I exit.

Maybe it wasn't he who lost the race. He is a professional cafe-goer and can confidently sit in that same seat and accomplish his goals. His fingers dance on the keyboard as I exit, my rear once again being slapped uncomfortably as I exit the building.

This is only a job.

2007-07-22T14:45:00.000-06:00

I slide my new black shoes onto my warm, damp feet. The cotton from my socks stick to my sweaty feet and makes it even more difficult to easily slide them into the steel-toed shoes. I'm already wearing my blue cargo pants and a blue, cotton tee. My black belt already interlaced between the small loops encircling my waistband and supporting two leather items; a holster for my flashlight and a mechanical metal and leather contraption created to hold my portable radio. That is all that is on my waist. I am no superhero with a hidden identity setting out to save the world from deranged villains. I am just a paramedic.

The hot sun is already unbearable this morning. It shines through the tinted window of my elevated rear lift gate, canopied open so as to protect me from the elements as I finish putting my uniform on. In the back, in a bag, are the tools needed to successfully manage my ten-hour shift. Tools only. Enhancers allowing me to more easily do my job. A stethoscope, tangled in a knot from my previous shift. A pager, allowing me to recall where we need to go and giving me pertinent billing information. And a little green book. My diary of drugs and drug names.

Finally, before putting on my white work uniform shirt, I secure over my thorax a bulletproof vest. Again, not because I am there to heroically protect a damsel in distress as a speeding bullet courses it's way towards it's objective, but because I am scared. Scared I may be the one who gets hurt. Scared that someone more powerful, much meaner, and with a lot less to loose might take out his life frustrations on me. I am just a paramedic. This is only a job.

I shut the gate and push the green button on my remote to lock the doors. The yellow lights flash and I turn to cross the street.

I walk into the moderately climate-controlled garage and swipe my badge. I clock-in. It's a blue-collar job guised by white shirts and bright lights. I am going to sweat, lift, poke, carry, and physically work my way through this ten hour, hourly-waged day. There is nothing intoxicating or mysterious about that.

Orange handles of trauma sheers are tucked in the waistbands of others. Trauma sheers not placed there for their physical purpose to later cut and expose, but for their mental support and reassurance. Their tactical belts securing their tactical BDU's full of tactical toys. Hundred dollar flashlights, the size of an index finger, originally created for gun-yielding SWAT members, are showcased around the waists next to the little black pouches, multiple pagers, cell phones and other trinkets not to be used for the remainder of the day.

I exit into the bright light of the sun's heat and quickly begin my day.

I'm sent to my destiny at the discretion of the dispatchers. I am just a bleep on the computer screen, a hypothetical tool on their arsenal around their waist.

Thoughout the day I encounter multiple paramedics with multiple agencies. Some wearing only T-shirts with stenciled white lettering, some in blue, button-up polyester shirts, and some more formally dressed with a badge on their breast.

All of them, though, tell misguided stories of mishap that float suffocatingly in the air. The feelings of the true hero that recently lay on their bed ignored. Memories of familial and patient respect are quickly treaded upon as the ego-stroking stories are swapped between staggering paramedics. One story always better, and one more unbelievable than the next. Like roosters in a pen, tail feathers plume wildly.

And all the while, the elderly one who called, and is slowly loosing his battle, sits quietly on the bed. Another notch on their belts and another story to exaggerate, he sits respectfully and honorably.

He has stories to tell, but doesn't. He remembers storming a beach, or jumping from a plane, or being shot, or working two jobs twelve hours a day, or standing in line for food, or having to walk -not ride. He, the quiet one before them, to me, is the truly better man, for he doesn't reminisce or tell tall fables, he just lives his life, honestly.

So, I am no hero. Don't call me a hero or even think that I may be. I am not better than you and my job does not elevate my standing in this world. I am no superhero and have no intention of being one. Just because I wear a uniform and drive around the city with flashing lights does not make me better, or truer, or more deserved than you. I whine and cry and am scared of things to come.

And although I may wear that white collared uniform that others stain with grandeur, I realize that it’s only a blue collared world we live in. And all the tall tales, large egos, and staggered gait doesn't change that fact.

I am better than no one.

Thank You's are in order.

2007-07-21T16:11:00.000-06:00

I've been nominated for a blog award.

And in this blog world, this is actually very suprising to me. I feel like the geeky kid in the corner of gym that was, suprisingly, asked to dance with the hottest cheerleader in the school. No one saw it coming, especially me.

So, thank you.

OH, by the way, I was asked to dance by Monkey Girl, at Musings of a Highly Trained Monkey Read it. It's good!

Here is what she said:

Rocky Mountain Medic. This is one of the best written blogs out there. He is an incredible writer, and I can literally picture whatever he's writing about. I wish he had time to write more, because I could read it all day. Some of the things that he writes give you goosebumps, some just make you think, some make you laugh. He's multi-purpose.

Below, is an explaination of the award.

"This award should make you reflect on five bloggers who have been an encouragement, a source of love, impacted you in some way, and have been a Godly example to you. Five Bloggers who when you reflect on them you get a sense of pride and joy… of knowing them and being blessed by them.”
Here are the rules for this one:

1. Copy this post (meaning the rules).
2. Reflect on five bloggers and write a least a paragraph about each one.
3. Make sure you link this post so others can read it and the rules.
4. Go leave your chosen bloggers a comment and let them know they’ve been given the award.
5. Put the award icon on your site.

So here are my 5!

1) Random Acts of Reality.

It was this site that got me started. I had never been a big blog reader, but when I read about the life and times of this London-based EMS service, I was hooked. It's amazing that across that large pond of ours that the same type of experiences are occurring with someone else in my same profession. Differenct accent, same ole crap! Check him out here!

2) Musings of a Highly Trained Monkey.

Of course, even though she nominated me, this site is on my list of favorites. She is ABSOLUTELY hillarious. I love the wit and sarcasm and am jealous my tongue is not as sharp. I promise you, once you start reading, you won't stop. Musings of a Highly Trained Monkey

3) A day in the Life on an Ambulance Driver.

This guy is a great writer. It was the Englishman that got me started, it was the Ambulance Driver that kept me going. In the beginning, he supported me and the majority of my links and readers came from him. He tells wonderful stories and is sure to impress. Ambulance Driver

4) Mr. Hassle's Long Underpants.

A doc with his ear to the gorund. Great stories. I love going to his site. Plus, he's from the Rockies. Mr. Hassle's

5) Street Watch: Notes of a Paramedic.

Wanna learn something? And enjoy it? Go to this site. A great mix of personal essays with CE quality lessons. I enjoy reading his posts. He is a very informed and intelligent paramedic. Street Watch

Baptism.

2007-07-09T22:14:00.000-06:00

The stained, dust-ridden, electrical glass doors whish open, inviting the new out-of-towners into a world they never knew existed. A world they won't be able to wait to leave.

The wheelchair pushing the initiate, graffitied with white paint on the back and advertising the name of the hospital, is cautiously wheeled over the metal door frames into the foyer of this altered world by the close friend of the unfortunate one seated.

A silver, rectangular-boxed wall fan circulates the stale, urine-soaked air in this suffocating entryway. It's the doormat of this amazing underworld that passerbyers wipe their feet on. And, like the blessed holy water in that marbled pedestal, all that enter are baptized into this new, dream-like, chaotic world.

The tracks of the electronic door scratch as the glass doors close behind them. Like a book falling from a shelf and slamming onto the aged, wooden floor, a loud thud advertises those who have passed through have now come forth.

The two women jump uneasily as their arrival is announced.

"Lighters? Matches? Knives? Guns? Do you have any of those?" The security guard, gloved in sea-blue gloves fondles the pockets, waistband, and ankles of these new initiates. A glance at one another and a furrow of their brows initiates a quick, justifying quip by the security guard, "You can never be to safe, ladies."

Another whish, scratch, and thud.

Longhaired and greasy, with his hands cuffed behind his back stands a mediocre man in jean shorts and a striped, Izod crew. No socks and untied shoes. No belt. Stains of tears chalk his red cheeks. Two men, badged in green short-sleeved polyester shirts flank his sides. Pressed and tucked, official and important, these two chaperones of justice are but transient visitors in this chaotic world.

An oversized wheelchair strolls backwards from the triage desk. Backwards, and with disregard, it forges its way into the ever-tightening lobby of the women's altered world. Its grey handle pokes the pleats of the cotton skirt of the friend with the friend. Her eyes bulge and her body stiffens. She steps closer to the resemblance of the world she once knew and squeezes her hand.

"Say my brother, what happened to your feet?" His IV tubing filling with blood as he holds the bag shoulder level like a tray of hors d'ourves. He is strolling the linoleumed floor crammed with beds. His eyes are on the exit.

A grunt and a miff. The bloody-faced transient with matted hair stares emptily into the inquisitors face. His amputated feet are gift wrapped in the full-length red sweats, knotted at the cuffs. He turns and rolls onto his side, pressing his face into the stains of blood on the sheet.

The two women from out of town clutch one another as though walking down a dark alley in Gotham. One, confused as to exactly what is happening in this world, quietly exclaims justifications as to why she doesn't feel she belongs here.

"We're from out of town. Our friends are shopping."

Whish. Scratch. Thud.

"Excuse me, sir. EXCUSE ME, SIR! Have you been discharged?" Security amasses the fleeing, IV'd patron and corals him back into the world that he obviously belongs. His IV tubing now full of blood. The bag, resting on his shoulder like a wool scarf in fall, pinkens with the mixture of blood and saline.

"Ladies," he says with a tip of his imaginary hat.

They clutch one another. And with the obvious bond like those on a sinking ship, or a crashing plane, or a burning building, they move sure-footedly forward into the center of the triage area, next in line for the hurried triage nurse.

"Medical Assessment triage, medical assessment triage!" Crackled overhead by a tired guard, this welcome summons the charge nurse once again.

They take some deep breaths and hold one another tight. They can see the depths of this frightening world. Clocks drip from the wall like Salvador Dali's imagination and people's faces silently scream like the expressionist painting by Munch of the man screaming affront a blood red sky. All seven layers of hell are visible from where they stand.

The charge approaches and mumbles with another nurse in the tight quarters. The look at one another, then the foreign women, then at one another again. Their future is determined and like the gavel of a courtroom judge on his wooden bench, their room number is assigned with a loud rap. "Room number 11, please."

The wheelchair is unlocked and its occupant is once again pushed farther into the underworld. And, with the loyalty of a Golden Retriever, her one and only friend, the one who could be shopping now with their other friends, clutches her hand even tighter and shadows her down the hall.

"We're from out of town. We could be shopping, now." She says, as they slide deeper into their own nightmare.

6 days.

2007-07-03T22:49:00.000-06:00

Discolored beads of sweat created chalk lines down his furrowed, brown forehead. His eyes, twitching at the ultraviolet rays bouncing off the windshield of his old, blue van, were stained red and blinked frantically, trying to keep the figures leaning inside his van in focus.

His white tank-top T-shirt was stained brown under the sweaty armpits. His jeans stained with sweat from the 100-degree heat. His brown palms, dusted with the white powder of the peanuts he had been selling on the street to wandering baseball fans, held the polyester fabric of the front seat he was struggling in.

He shifted left, then right. Forward, then back. As if he were sitting on a bed of hot coals, he repeatedly adjusted his body in the cramped front seat, looking for that one perfect, comfortable, forgiving position.

The roar of the cars on the street passing by became louder and louder. The chatter of the near-intoxicated baseball fans chewed at his consciousness as the barrage of questions from the sweaty, bunkered firemen assaulted his mind. The oldies on the am radio in the van became up-tempo and louder; the symbols of the drummer crashed every fourth beat and rattled his brain like a bird in a cage.

The sun's heat boiled his blood, dried his skin, and suffocated his breathing. The radiant heat off the blinding concrete singed the hair on his arms and dried his mouth. It became harder to swallow and the warm drool from his mouth dangled off his lower lip and hung over his heaving belly.

The questions got louder and faster. His heart raced and his hands twitched. His eyes bounced back and forth like that white plastic ball on a ping-pong table. The blood in his wrist pulsated. And as he glanced down at his damp skin, he could see the tidal waves of red blood coursing through his arm. Time slowed as his surroundings sped up.

Words became noises and the faces of the responders blurred only into colors. He felt as though he was suffocating and drowning at the same time. Alive, but dead. Awake, but asleep.

He stood, after pouring the chilled remains of the glacier-captured water down the back of his neck. His legs wobbled and buckled and he felt as though he were floating. The chilled water ran down his sore back and evaporated by the time it made it to his waistband. The cotton from the T-shirt fought with the dehydrated body for the rights to this refreshing oasis.

The clouds swiftly streamed across the sky and left white, hypnotic tracers. The flashing lights of the emergency vehicles merged into one kaleidoscope of color and the background voices of the portable radios, affixed to everyone’s waist, surrounded him and assaulted his senses. As if he were falling down a tunnel, he sat himself down onto the stainless steel bed.

The plastic from the seatbelts seemed to suffocate his breathing. The ones loosely tied around his legs grabbed him like a hungry python and tried to squeeze the life out of him. He felt as though he was floating and the world was 100 feet below him as he was slid into the back of the ambulance.

The box grew smaller and smaller and the red and green lights on the control switch to his right blinked with the intensity of the sun. The handrail grew hands and sank from above, trying to push him further into the bed. The oxygen was noxious and loud and the clear plastic tubing seemed to be transforming into a rope around his neck. And the slow, slurred, speech of the paramedic trying to reassure him drifted slowly off into the distance, eventually becoming only an echo.

He sat there wrestling with his mind. Deciphering reality from fiction, truth from hallucination, he struggled to maintain his sanity. What was real, what wasn't? Was this even happening? Was this a dream, or a nightmare? If it was, should he wake or remain asleep?

For he hadn't slept in 6 days.

Watching the world go by.

2007-06-24T22:33:00.000-06:00

I sit on the uncomfortable, white-sheeted, black mattress and remove my blue, bloodstained gloves. Sweat, pooled in the fingertips, pours out of the reversed, disposed gloves and drips off my fingers onto the floor. I run them across the side of my pants and waft them in the cool emergency room air. The pads of my fingers wrinkled like bloodshot eyes squinting at the sun.

My feet dangle off the side of the mechanical hospital bed. Evidence of dried blood is crusted on the hinges of the chrome rails; bleach radiates from the mattress pad and mixes itself with the other smells of urine, vomit, and sweat. My scuffed black boots float above the stale linoleum floor. It's hot outside, and I sit here at the proverbial fork in the road, typing my report and watching the world go by.

In front of me, a yellow plastic sign warning all passerbyers that the "piso es mojado". The streaks of the overused, infected mop radiate from under the fluorescent ceiling lights. Crocs, tennis shoes, boots, and dress shoes hurry pass the sign with indifference.

A look to my left reveals a row of beds like the one I'm sitting on. Like cars in a mid-day traffic jam, they sit their eagerly awaiting their purpose. Their patched, black mattresses lean against the wall showing the skeletons of the beds. Green oxygen bottles are tucked beneath the heads of the beds and wire baskets hang haphazardly under the sides. Large, white foot pedals with red and green ends protrude from the feet of the beds. Collapsible black handles are their imaginary headboards.

To my right, security and triage. A rectangular cubbyhole with scrubbed nurses, rolling blood pressure cuffs, a pediatric scale, a sink and some out-dated computers funnel the walk-in traffic of people's emergencies. Blue, plastic chairs with chrome, triangular legs attempt to contain the hysterical patients sitting in them. Swollen eyes, bloodied lips, and destroyed lives all pass through this gateway. Each, like the summer run-off of a mountain reservoir, are released in their own good time.

Another hole houses men in pale blue polyester shirts. Leather gun belts packed with tools of the trade rest on the hips of the uniformed security guards. A door to their left and a desk in front of them, they juggle the demands of the patients and family in the waiting room and the urgencies of the paramedics entering the sliding glass doors.

Those doors whoosh open and close with each motion detected by the electronic eye. In comes in a steady stream of paramedics from every agency in the city. Some, sick and in need of immediate attention, quickly bypass this area and scream down the hall, firefighters and paramedics in tow. Some, more often than not, await their inevitable passing of judgment by the ED charge nurse.

And with all this in front of me, I sit and type as the world creeps by. Restrained, crying teenagers spit at the authoritative police figures. Handcuffed inmates in bright orange jumpsuits shuffle their shackled feet towards their rooms. Wheelchair bound, homeless men with plastic walking casts berate all that pass. And, more often than need be, someone fighting for their very life, breathing either way too fast or way too slow, passes by my personal voyeur window of this world.

And there I remain, feet dangling and fingers typing, waiting to be called out on the next one. So I can bring them here and start the process all over.

That peach colored box.

2007-06-15T23:22:00.000-06:00

There he rested. On his back, white belly sunny-side up. The zipper on his 501's halfway down, the metal button carrying the stressful burden of keeping his blue jeans on. White socks, stained by the dirty concrete parking lot, peeked out from under the frayed cuffs of his dirty jeans. One foot crowned yellow, the other stamped with the Hanes logo.

Thick, black hair crowned his head like a Halloween costume. Sideburns, thick and reminiscent of Elvis, crawled down his puffy cheeks, in front of his sun burnt ears, to his thick jaw line. Chapped lips and a pot-marked nose with large hairs crawling from each nare sat atop his puffy, round face. His eyes squinted at the sun as he lay resting, trying to stay awake, on the graveled lot of the bar-b-que joint.

I approached the vision and saw his fat belly slowly rise and fall. He was flat on his back in the parking lot, next to someone else's car, overdosed on heroin. Another two steps, and I saw his drunken eyes floating back and forth at all the towering uniformed people standing above him. His superferlous nipple greeted me as I bent closer to speak to him.

Beads of sweat framed his hairline like dimples on a baby. I bent down close to him and talked forcefully.

"If you're nice to me, I'll be nice to you," I said as my shadow casted authoritatively over his poor soul.

"Where are your needles? I don't want to get poked. That makes paramedics very angry when they get poked."

As he slid his worn hands down his body towards his pocket, I reminded him once again.

"If I get poked, I'm gonna be mad," I said.

He rummaged around his tight blue jean pocket. Out came a red lighter, some gas receipts, and more folded papers.

"I don't have any," he slurred trying to keep his eyes open.

I patted him down like a cop in a dark, back alley. I pinched his pockets and rolled him from side to side, scanning his back pockets as well. I grabbed his ankles and pulled the frayed cuffs up, looking for needles tucked into his socks. I moved to his waistband and pulled the belt loop from his sweaty belly, keeping an eye out for needles tucked around his waistband and in his groin.

I grabbed his ankles, the firemen grabbed his arms, and like a burlap sack of potatoes, we lifted him onto the bed. He slept peacefully in the suns heat as we exerted ourselves to move to lethargic 250 pounds of overdosed flesh.

"Thanks guys," I said to the firemen as they closed the back doors.

"Don't give me any of that narcun," he slurred as I grabbed a sweaty arm for a blood pressure.

"My friends overdosed and you guys gave him some of that stuff, and he looked horrible because of that."

"I tell you what," I replied. My mood was surprisingly patient. "If you stay awake, I won't give you any."

The metal box bounced down the highway, the sun setting as its rays made last attempts to shine through the snow-covered mountains in the distance. I sat with my laptop and punched buttons as we bounced down the highway. Then, from the front of the ambulance, my partner turned the black dial on the am/fm radio. The volume increased and George Thoroughgood's voice rasped an old blues song about whiskey, scotch, and beer.

"I love this song," he said as he laid his head back, closed his eyes, and began to enjoy his high again.

His mouth moved sluggishly as he worded the lyrics of the song to himself. He had forgotten that he had overdosed, that he was under arrest, and that he was going to jail. He had forgotten that, under these circumstances, the ride in this ambulance was not supposed to be a high-enhancer. We weren't there to safely transport him from one place to another so he could remain high on heroin.

I grabbed the small black, metal box. Popped the silver hinge and thumbed my way through the colored boxes. Finally, in a row like soldiers, were the peach colored boxes I was looking for. I grabbed the small, rectangular box, popped the cardboard top, and slid the small, glass tube out. I popped off all the red safety features and screwed it into the plastic administrator.

He tapped his fingers on the railing and, like Jimmi Hendrix, visualized the music in his head.

I screwed the Narcan into the plastic IV port, straightened out the IV tubing, and shot 1 milligram of the life -saving liquid into his veins.

I sat next to him and waited.

Thirty seconds later he opened his eyes. He gasped a couple of times and turned pale in the face. He sat bolt upright and squeezed the handrail with his restrained hands. Then, he looked at me.

"What the f*ck did you give me!" he screamed.

"You broke our deal," I said.

"What the f*ck did you give me!" he screamed.

And with sobriety slapping him in the face, he gradually pieced everything together. Thoroughgood had stopped singing and the colors of the music had disappeared. He had stopped taping his fingers and had returned from wherever he was. He closed his eyes and began to cry.

He was not high anymore. And he was not enjoying the ride.

I discarded the peach-colored box and went back to typing my report.

The men in blue!

2007-06-13T09:34:00.000-06:00

Rain drizzled from the sky and the sun's last rays reflected off the mirrored walls of the downtown high-rises. Approaching the intersection, sirens and horns echoing through the downtown streets, the two emergency vehicles met. I, sitting in a rather large box of an ambulance still realized I was the smaller of the two, flipped my right hand along the emergency switches and extinguished the rotating strobes of my light bar like a flame between two fingers. The fire engine roared through the intersection.

We tucked in behind the large white truck and drafted ourselves the remainder of the way to the call. We pulled around the truck and parked at an opposing angle, creating a safe little box for all the emergency personnel from the slightly intoxicated, road-raged, curious drivers of downtown.

A man with wafty hair ran towards us all, shouting nonsensical words. His advancements halted with the verbal leash of a friend inside the bar. He stopped, smiled, turned, and ran back into the bar.

On the ground, wrestling his ripped shirt, was a bloodied man. A diamond studded belt buckle held up tight blue jeans. His white oxford was half on, half off. Buttons popped off the stitching and rolled like marbles on the wet concrete sidewalk.

We approached, and I quickly turned back to the ambulance, knowing that this vision of inebriated chaos was coming with us.

"He's beyond detox," said a fireman.

The man shouted slurred obscenities and waved his tangled, bloodied hands.

I returned with the bed, a backboard (because they are more or less disposable and we can leave them at the ED for them to clean), a cervical collar, a blanket and a sheet.

"The sheet is because he is so bloody," I hinted to the fireman helping me unload all this gear.

"Optimistic, are you?"

We wheeled the bed past the diner's windows. Patrons inside strained their necks as they looked over their shoulders. The waitress, with mouth wide open, held a steaming pot of coffee. Their world was on pause.

I approached and all I saw was blood. Hands covered in dripping clots of red. Hi mouth bubbling bright red as his jaw bounced up and down with every slur. His white shirt stained bright red. And little pools of diluted blood ran through cracks in the sidewalk down into the street.

I "net" him with the white sheet and everyone grabbed a hand. Another gloved the mouth that spat blood with every obscenity. And like a frat boy holding a baby, we awkwardly, and uncomfortably, lifted him onto the backboard and placed him on the bed. Hands were Velcroed and his knees and chest were seat belted in. The streetlight framed his face and everyone was now able to see the reason for the bleeding.

We all stepped back and asked one another questions.

"Do I have blood on my face?"

"No, do I?"

After self-inspecting, we get back to work.

"What happened?" asked my partner.

No response.

"What's your name?"

No response.

We wrapped his head with gauze like a combat soldier and held pressure at the point of bleeding.

As we wheeedl him past the fishbowl of Diner patrons he finally decided to coherently talk.

And like a zombie in a B-flick movie, he thrusted his bloodied, bandaged head upward to the sky. Spitting foamy bubbles of blood, he turned his head towards the frightened crowd within and screamed. Everyone inside flinched, coffee was spilt and coins were dropped. The waitress turned and briskly walked away.

"THE MEN IN BLUE!"

"THE MEN IN BLUE!"

"THE MEN IN BLUE!"

Dream Catcher.

2007-06-04T22:50:00.000-06:00

He pulled the dented car over onto the side of the highway. Rush hour traffic screamed by him in the other three lanes. Horns whistled as the irate drivers raced dangerously close to his driver's side door, angrily flipping him off as he sat in his car weeping. The trashy small sedan reeked of cigarette smoke and the front windshield was stained with the yellow fog from every nicotine-laced exhalation. A dream catcher hung religiously from the bent rear view mirror. It hadn't worked in years.

The sun was at 2 o'clock. It's warm rays reflecting off the chrome gauges inside the piece of shit car. The car that he hated, but had to love, because it was all that was left. It was all he had in this world, and even though it stalled at every red light and sputtered along at 45 in the 55 mph zone, it allowed him what freedom he felt he had left.

Hands clutched to the steering wheel his mind raced. Bills, women, family, hopes and dreams all flashed before his eyes like a mirage. Good memories were shadowed by bad. The sun shining everywhere but on him. It was a warm spring day, yet he felt so cold.

He opened the driver's door recklessly, swinging it wide open into oncoming traffic. He didn't care. Maybe a car would hit him and save him from having to talk himself into doing what he was about to do. The cars veered, still honking and cursing him, as they maneuvered around the obstruction on the shoulder of the highway.

He placed his left foot out. Puffed fanatically on the burning cigarette in his hands and tossed the glowing-embered stump out the door and onto the warm, white pavement. He swung his other boot out from the rotting foot well and twisted its heel into the smoking cotton filter of his cigarette. The knobless radio still played his favorite cassette as he stood and exited his vehicle, leaving all his personal belongings inside. The engine misfired irregularly and the keychain with only one key rattled in the ignition.

The sand from the previous winter had all drifted to the side of the highway. It crunched with each step under his black boots. He made his way to the front of his car, stepping over blown-tire remnants and broken glass. He paused as the clouds framed the mountains in the west and the rays from the sun reflected off the broken glass near his feet. A gust of wind pushed through the open driver's door and rattled the dream catcher. He stood and watched it spin. Everything seemed as though it were underwater, his eyes floating in tears.

He grasped the concrete barrier and felt the coarseness irritate his hands. The black dirt under his fingernails contrasted the white, newly painted barrier. He knew what had to be done. He had every intention of following through.

He swung one leg over the barrier and straddled it like Clint Eastwood in a Spaghetti Western. His heart raced and his mind cleared.

He swung his other leg over. Now, he was sitting with his back to the highway. His butt securely planted on the concrete barrier with his heels wedged into a small lip of the outer-side of the bridge. His palms steadied him on this tight wire as his legs dangled over the side of the bridge. It was already as though he was floating, he could only see sky before him.

Behind him, the world raced by. No one cared about what was going on on this ledge. No one cared that a life was about to be destroyed. No one wanted to notice or even had the time. Alone, with his feet dangling 70 feet over a concrete sidewalk and paved rode, sat a crushed man about to end all the misery in his miserable life.

Then, sirens. From the distance and approaching fast. The wail seemed sharper and louder the closer it got.

He wedged his heels into the side of the bridge. He stood and his outstretched arms secured him as he neared death, his knees shaking.

The siren was here. He could see the light from the approaching ambulance. Flashing back and forth, the headlights of the boxy ambulance announced its presence.

And one last time, through weeping eyes, he looked back at his car. The dream catcher from the rearview mirror, spinning in the wind, had failed yet again. His dreams were lost and so too were his hopes.

He looked forward. Closed his eyes. And jumped.

You were dead, you know!

2007-05-27T21:13:00.000-06:00

As the rain fell from the large, white, ominous clouds above, we weaved in and out of traffic. The oily streets created soapy puddles in the intersections as we crossed. The large wiper blades worked overtime, slapping the windshield from left to right. As I floored the accelerator peddle on the stained, carpeted floor, the turbo diesel engine pulled the large box forward. The large disc brakes reined it back into control.

It was a straight shot down the Avenue. Drivers, still confused by the sudden rainstorm, debated with themselves whether to pull over or not. Most, although in a large, congested, traffic jam, isolated themselves from every other driver on the road. Radios played loudly inside some of the sedans. Some drivers chatted on the cell phones propped precariously between their necks and ears, and some, with both hands clasped onto the leather steering wheels, focused straight ahead, hoping to maintain their course in this worsening storm.

The lights of the ambulance deflected off the falling raindrops. A prism of colors reflected off the newly dampened streets. And the siren echoed off the large, glass windows of the downtown buildings.

We approached the scene and I slid the ambulance to a stop in the number one lane of the one-way street. Already tending to the patient was a group of helmeted firemen, deflecting the drops of rain off their large brimmed plastic hats. Their bunker gear beading the raindrops on their lapels like a newly waxed car.

Outstretched on the pavement of the sidewalk, resting flat on her back under a public payphone, was an unconscious female. Like the Wicked Witch of the East, her black boots protruded from the round, reflective huddle of firemen. Her black leggings soaked the rain drops like a sponge, her knee high maroon skirt and velvet top looked straight from a Steely Dan street vendor. She had a hand woven bag interlaced between her arms and sterling silver rings matched her bracelet and necklace. If you were standing next to her in line at the grocery store, as I'm sure many people have before, you would have never thought she was high on heroin. She looked like an aging hippie from the seventies.

As we approached, I saw she was barely breathing. The plastic mask pressed against her face billowed oxygen into her lungs with each forceful squeeze. The bag providing the oxygen, manned by the fireman, whistled each time the large bulb reinflated.

Next to her, in the small stream of water creating its own eroding force down the sidewalk into the gutter, were some broken sunglasses, a saturated cigarette swollen twice its normal size, and some various papers.

We loaded her onto the bed and wheeled her into the back of the ambulance. Rain danced on the square rooftop with the rhythm of a Vaudeville tap dancer. The side door remained closed and at the open back doors firemen stood sopping up the rain from the slow-moving rainstorm.

I moved the handmade Santa-Fe jewelry up her forearm so I could palpate a radial pulse. Her wrist was wet and her hands cold. As I felt around her radius I noticed bruises on her wrists and arms. One, close to where I was searching for a pulse, was grape-purple in color and seemed very fresh.

We restrained her arms and began our work. Both, my partner and myself, began our duties as we talked with one another. I agreed, it had been a long time since I've run a decent call like this.

IV's were started, blood pressures acquired, heart rates counted and blood glucoses registered. As my partner worked his way down his "unconscious / altered mentation" protocol, I rummaged through one of her three handbags.

I unzipped the large, black, faux leather bag and carefully examined its contents. Like a child searching for the right colored M&M, I shuffled papers, compacts, and condoms around the inside. Then, tucked under a pair of worn, soiled, K-mart panties, I found a small black, zippered bag. Without looking inside I knew what I had found.

I pulled it out and sat it on the bench next to me. Like a NBC game show host on a Friday night, I dramatically announced that this could be the million-dollar case. My partner paused drawing blood from the hub of the IV in her neck and smiled.

As if booby-trapped, I unzipped the small black case. Inside was a businessman's card, folded haphazardly upon itself so it could carry her precious recent purchases. Black, chalky residue imbedded itself into the raised font of the unknown businessman's card. It was what was left of the heroin she had just bought from some shady, downtown corner, drug-dealer.

I poked around more. A couple of lighters, a small plastic bottle of clear liquid, the cotton from the filters of cigarettes. And then, hidden at the bottom of this small, black case of paraphernalia, was a loaded syringe of heroin. The small 1cc syringe was, thankfully, capped and tucked into a plastic wrapper. I pulled it out carefully examined it closely. The black heroin floated like the lava in a lava lamp in the clear, unknown liquid. It sat there, its toxins prepared to alter her consciousness, ready to be injected into her blood system.

As I made this discovery she was steadily awakening from her comatose state. The medicine in the peach-colored box had worked its magic and taken away her high. Her pupils dilated, her breathing increased, her color pinkened, and she slowly awoke from the cold clutches of impending death. Her stomach turned, and as she became nauseated, she instantly went into withdrawals.

I leaned in front of her and asked her to pay close attention.

"How much heroin did you do?" I asked.

She, like every other addict in the world, adamantly, and expectedly, denied that she had used any drugs at all.

Again, I asked her the same question. This time producing the capped syringe found in her bag.

"How much heroin did you use?"

"You were dead, you know!" reinforced my partner sitting at the head of the bed.

She fell silent. Shaking and shivering, as she vomited into the yellow basin, she repeatedly denied that she had used.

I opened the back doors and exited the ambulance. The rain had stopped. Sun broke through the dense clouds above and illuminated the wet streets. I closed the back doors, walked to the front of the ambulance, and drove us all to the hospital.

The Fax. (part one)

2007-05-20T16:38:00.000-06:00

I sit, again, cramped in the front of the ambulance. A red light at the large intersection steadily pulsates its constant amber glow at the impatient, eager, road-raged drivers. Engines idle and clutches burn as cars position themselves at the thick, white pedestrian crosswalk on the street. Tethered like fighter jets on the deck of an aircraft carrier, they are cocked and ready to race to the next bright, red light, to start the process all over again.

I squirm in the uncomfortable seat of the ambulance and watch every one of God's little creatures scurry about in the radiating heat of the glowing sun. My left knee aches. Not hurting, but constantly reminding me that ten hours cramped in this box is going to be a chore, both for me, and my joints. I try to outstretch and hope it pops, relieving me of the mildly uncomfortable feeling of a sore joint. No luck.

The solid white, two-inch man on the crosswalk light disappears. Replacing the pleasant action figure is a bright red, flashing hand. The pedestrians, only a quarter of the way across the street, are in absolutely no hurry. The majority of them have no idea what those benign figures on the pole mean, they just watch the crowd they are with and do what they do.

As the slumped, disgruntled, silhouettes of humans shuffle across the street, my ambulance slowly eases into an appropriate lane on my favorite street in Denver. The street that runs all the way across the city, east to west. The street where on one corner you might be witness to a suit-clad politician carrying a briefcase to the capital and then, not but a block away, an unconscious homeless man, incontinent of all bodily fluids, resting peacefully on the concrete next to a tipped over garbage can.

Colfax Avenue. The fax. Where with one simple trip along a latitudinal traverse you can quickly witness how beautiful life can be, or how beautifully cruel it actually is.

We are heading to our post. And instead of taking the more direct, efficient route, we chose to slowly motor up this avenue. Windows rolled down and eyes wide open, we begin our trek through the kaleidoscope of life.

The gold dome of the capital is to my right. The beautifully manicured lawn slopes downward towards the row of yellow school buses. Children climb the concrete steps, not interested in what all the poster-board signs say and why those people are shouting. Suits scuttle around the grounds and each follows one another like lemmings on a field trip.

The rows of lights ahead are all red. This is the only street where one hopes to get caught at a red light. Because at each block, something new is sure to astound.

We sit. Crossing the street in front of us, heading towards the bus bench in front of the McDonalds, are figures clad in every outfit imaginable. Some wear coats and hats and have bundled themselves up on this warm spring day. Some barely wear any clothes at all. Tattooed backs and chests clothe them as their baggy pants hang precariously from their lower buttock, of course their boxers visible to the entire world.

Like zombies, they all shuffle across the street. I wait for the moment for one of them to turn and look at me with their empty eyes, grunting and slobbering as they rigidly walk to the ambulance with outstretched arms.

Green light.

We continue east. To my left is a line wrapping around the block. Pre-teens, with painted faces, stand on the sidewalk shuffling their newest pairs of skater shoes. Black shirts and black pants. Black hair and piercings. The motley crew has been standing on the soiled sidewalk for hours hoping to catch a glimpse of one of their favorite members of the band. Insane Clown Posse seems to really like this venue. And not but a block away, greasy-haired men exit a concrete building with black plastic sacks. The porn magazines they just bought secretly secured under their arms. They melt back into the scenery and are gone in the blink of an eye.

To my right, Volvos and Saabs enter the congested parking lot of the local liquor store. High heels and jeans click on the stained pavement as women from the other side of town fill their trunks with expensive bottles of wine and scotch for their dinner party that night. On the corner, with an outstretched hand, sits the alcoholic hoping to get enough change so he can too enter the same store and exit with a bottle of Night Train.

Red light.

A cop sits in his running car, the windows down as he fills out paperwork from the arrest of the drug dealer in the 7-11 parking lot. Congregating behind the car wash are the remainder of his crew, waiting for the moment that white squad car pulls out of the parking lot so they can continue their business.

A stain runs from the bus stop bench to the curb. Connecting the dots, I see a homeless man curled up under the wooden bus stop bench. Urine soaked pants are obviously the source of the already evaporated urine on the sidewalk. His buddies continue to slur at one another and work as hard as they can to get as drunk as possible.

Green light.

The street opens up. A hole in the wall chicken joint, Arbys, another 7-11, and bar after bar line both sides of the street. At this intersection, children play with one another as they cross the street. The church's basketball court is packed and skins versus shirts are running back and forth, full court. The chain net rattles as the jump shot bounces of the doubled-casted iron rim onto the metal backboard. Teens do their hair and talk on their phones as the world passes by them.

Moving from hole-in-the-wall bars and fast-food joints, I now witness more restaurants and pubs. Places that, with their neon beer signs, entice all who pass to come in and try the new fare. Catchy names and valets are now becoming more and more.

Miles away.

2007-05-12T14:14:00.000-06:00

The cool, crisp wind blows on my warm, sunburned face. High above the peaks of the Rocky Mountains, the warm glow of the sun creates shadows that fall behind the large Aspen trees like toothpicks scattered on a dirt floor. Above my head an eagle, with its wingspan fluttering in the current as it circles the tree tops, soars in the distance. Birds sing and chirp at one another as ripples on the blue lake float peacefully towards my feet submerged in the cool, clear, river water.

My orange fly line whips behind my head, the tiny handmade fly following the arc of my line as it passes my brow. The river is flowing slowly, and although it is murky from the runoff of the peaks in the Continental Divide, it slowly streams past my feet and invites me to wade in deeper. The air is clean and crisp and my breath seems at ease. Everything slows down into a dream-like trance.

"F*ck you! Untie me, you a**hole! You're only doing this because..."

"Because you're drunk and mean"

"I am not," is slurred from the bearded, crusty mouth.

In front of me sits reality. Black shoes, untied and knotted, have been slipped on over multiple layers of socks and plastic grocery sacks. The uncoordinated colors of the stained socks carry pieces of feces and vomit from nights before. Multiple pairs of waxy jeans, encrusted in dirt and grime, are secured at the waistline by an oversized, woven brown belt. Its tag end dangles from the loose knot at waistline down to the groin. Under the heavy, black sweatshirt rests a couple of undershirts. Soiled patches, like half moons, show evidence of dripping sweat rings turned white over time. A bearded chin, with various street artifact embedded deep within, attempts to overgrow and overtake the pot-marked, scarred face.

"I'm (slur) kill you! You (slur) (slur) man. I am not (slur) (slur) detox! I'm gonna (slur) (slur)."

I lean my head down.

And open my eyes. The green leaves whistle in the breeze and small mayflies chase each other on the surface of the water. My orange fly line floats slowly down the river like Huck Finn's homemade raft on the great Mississippi. At the very tip, laced to the hair-thin tippet, floats my handmade fly. It's white parachute wings bobbing up and down with every bump in the current. It nearly floats out of site, and with no bite witnessed, I reel the line, and the fly, back towards the rocky bank I'm standing on. Another attempt will shortly be made.

"I was in Vietnam. I'm a SEAL!" slurs more lies from the aging face in front of me.

"I can kill you with one hand," he threatens as the pungent odor of digested alcohol wafts from his chapped lips.

"Talk to me, you a**hole! I'm sick and you have to take care of me."

"You're not sick. You're drunk. And you're wasting my..."

I stop midsentence. I almost took the bait. Like that fish in the river, he casted his trap and dangled it in front of me. I swam near and was enticed by the colorful language, ready to bite and stoop down to his level and start exchanging profanities. I nibbled and quickly realized what it was, a trap.

He was too late to set the hook and my mind, again, resumed wandering.

I'm sitting right next to him, but I am miles away.

Speechless.

2007-05-09T22:35:00.002-06:00

The click click click of the rotating sprinkler head sang a welcoming song as we made our way from the ambulance to the opened front door of her house. I walked up the paved driveway, spied a deragotory bumper sticker in the back window of an aging Buick, and turned left behind the large pine tree being soaked with water from the automatic sprinkler system in the front yard. Three large flat rocks, resting peacefully on a bed of smaller pebbles, led the way to the front door of the small, yellow house. The crooked house numbers above the screen door welcomed all who entered this warm home.

Inside, directly in front of me, sat a woman in red shorts and a white T-shirt. Red blood, matching her shorts like a paint sample from Home Depot, polka-dotted her white T-shirt with a remarkable style. The elevated hand had been cut while doing the dishes. And the blood seeping from the small gauze provided by the fire department was doing little to prevent its path down her arm and onto her shirt. Soap bubbles still perched on her fingers as if she had been blowing bubbles with a grandchild.

I knelt beside her and introduced myself. She awkwardly attempted to shake my hand. Behind her, and out of her line of sight, the firefighter gave me a brief report. Like in a game of charades, he contorted his face and his fingers to relay a point contrary to what was coming out of his mouth. How many syllables? I thought to myself.

"She said she had a stroke eight years ago," he said clearly expressing only four digits on his hand.

"She said she is 78," he articulated like a robot as he shook his head back and forth in dramatic disagreeance.

Being as sharp as I am, most of the time, I did my best "I understand what you are saying" look and made him feel like the grand prize winner of the family game of charades.

I knelt beside her and started talking. I asked her to explain what had happened and how, exactly, she cut herself.

She took a few small breaths and began speaking. Choppy sentences, like a two year old repeating the cuss words Dad said earlier with his friends, fell from her mouth. She, like the fireman, resorted to body language and began moving her arms and coiling her lips as she tried to express what was happening. Her mind was working, her lips were not.

I immediately slowed down my questions. Someone from the corner of the room shouted she had had a stroke before. I gently touched her knee and had her look only at me so she could reset, so she could calm down and start over. I began talking to her as though she were trapped in a well. I saw a person, and I saw she wanted to communicate, but the exterior shell wouldn't allow her.

"I know you can understand me. I know this is frustrating and very scary. I promise to take good care of you," I calmy told her as the firemen and my partner scurried to get the bed.

"Do you hurt anywhere?" I asked.

She nodded no, then yes. She stammered a few seconds and then blurted out "hand".

She began crying and as tears filled her swollen, red eyes I moved her to my bed and told her what I was going to do.

I barraged her with questions like a nervous prom date and slowly came to the conclusion she was not having a stroke. Her eyes desperately wanted to tell me something and her brain wouldn't allow it. Her words were being held hostage and no amount of ransom could set them free.

As the firemen closed the two doors on the back of the ambulance I sat next to her and did nothing. Everything came to a halt and the hurried actions of everyone around her seized. She slowed her breathing down and attempted to talk, stuttering more than before but successfully articulating words.

"I don't think you are having a stroke," I said as I nonchalantly put the stained blood pressure cough on her left arm, hoping my poker face would work. "I think this is a defecit from your previous stroke."

She nodded emphatically up and down. Her eyes swelled even more, like a teenage girl realizing she got a brand new car for her sixteenth birthday.

"Becuase of all the excitement, you cutting your hand, the firemen coming to your house, the paramedics putting you in their ambulance; your difficulty speaking is more pronounced than usual," I guessed outloud.

She grabbed my hand and squeezed it. She rested her head back and visible weight off her shoulders disappeared. She closed her eyes and slowed her breathing. Words were beginning to form.

"We're just going to sit here for a moment and see if it clears up. I want you to relax and use the oxygen in your nose."

My partner shifted uncomfortably. I knew what was being processed in that other paramedic mind and quickly doubted myself. What if she is having another stroke? What is what I'm doing is wasting time and hurting her even more?

I removed the blood pressure cuff with a quick jerk and tossed it behind my back. I leaned forward and was about to speak when I was interrupted.

"Thank you," she said.

I stared at her and took that opportunity to quiz her more, making sure this wasn't a transient blood clot in her brain and that I was actually correct in my medical assumption.

I asked, she answered.

My suspicions were right on. She told me that due to her stroke she has, at times, difficulty speaking. When she is tired, it is much worse. And when she is scared, it is really really bad. And when she is tired, scared, and overwhelmed with firemen and paramedics in her house, her speech just shuts off.

We pulled into the ambulance bay of the ED and she grabbed my hand.

"Thank you," she said. "Thank you for taking a little time and slowing everything down. If not for that, I'd still be stuttering to you, trying to tell you this is normal."

I stuttered.

She smiled at me, "You see, now you know how it feels."

I was the one that was speechless now.

Rat in a cage.

2007-05-02T01:19:00.000-06:00

Sometimes I feel like a rat in a cage, with the world peering over the cardboard sides of the shoebox as I run frantically, and furiously, on the revolving wheel of life, only to break a sweat and end up where I started.

It ain't easy, sometimes. And it's even harder when you least suspect it.

The best way I can explain it is like this:

Go find yourself a large clear, Plexiglas box six feet wide by twelve feet long. In it, place yourself and two assistants. These two assistants need to have less training than yourself and should be half asleep, but will have the loyalty of a Golden Retriever and the eagerness to help like a excited student on the first day of his first clinical.

Strategically place in this box all the tools you need in awkwardly arranged cabinets. Then, as you attempt to perform possibly life-saving maneuvers, have an intoxicated loved one leer through the thin glass screaming at you to save her life. Have it shake and rattle violently, tossing you left to right, front to back, up to down as you attempt to interview the medically uncooperative, extremely short of breath patient restrained on the bed in front of you, doing her very best not to die in front of you.

You have no idea what has happened. And no one around you has the ability, or the faculties, or the breath, to explain the circumstances leading up to this event. All you see is a woman struggling to breathe, an intoxicated husband who won't let you do your job, and five other guys not realizing the urgency in your step; but want more than anything to help the best they can.

What do you do?

What is it? Is it asthma? Is it hyperventilation? Is it an assault? A choking, and the bruises on her neck are from the forefinger and thumb of the angry assailant? Is her throat crushed and her vocal chords spasming? Is it nothing? Or, is she dieing in front of you?

Quick, you need to make a decision.

But don't make the wrong one. You have a reputation to uphold, you know.

You can put her on continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP); an oxygen delivery device reserved for only the truly sick that forces air into her lungs like a jet turbine. Then give her subcutaneous epinephrine and nebulized medicine mixed with the oxygen, as you quickly start large bore IV's and think of the next line of drugs to give her.

That is if it's asthma.

Or do you hold off, and wait on the sideline to see if it's anxiety and she is severely hyperventilating?

You don't want to make the wrong decision. If you sway to the extreme; do all the invasive medical procedures and nothing is wrong, you look like that new guy in the corner with the white, pressed shirt and new blue cargo pants. The one with too many tools on his belt and pockets full of medical guides. The guy who wants to be a hero but has yet fought a day in the trenches.

Or, you can do nothing. Let your years of experience and nonchalance influence everyone into believing that this is no emergency and that you know exactly what is going on with her -you hope. You can go with your gut reaction and hope she is hyperventilating, praying it isn't a fatal asthma attack, or reactive airway disease, induced by the trauma of prolonged hyperventilation.

You can't calm her, if you can't calm yourself.

So, if you're like me, you think of the worst-case scenario and try to fix that problem. Toss the ego out the window and hope that you're making a wise decision. Better to over treat someone than let them die right in front of you.

And all this happens in a span of three minutes.

On a good day, it takes me all afternoon to decide what to eat for lunch!

What else could we do?

2007-04-30T23:50:00.000-06:00

The headlights danced on the oil stained concrete like silver dollars. The welts in the road shook the old ambulance as we bounced down the street, shaking the large, rectangular silver mirrors. The fisheye mirror, sitting squarely atop the larger, side view mirror, distorted the peripheral world as we passed it by.

The moon was full and round, like a baby's belly, and was floating effortlessly in the starry, blue sky. Thick, hand-drawn clouds lounged in the sky, floating from the mountains and drifting towards the towering, glass buildings of downtown. And harmonizing music, a relaxing backdrop to all the radio chatter of our dispatch coming from the small, plastic speakers bolted to the ceiling above our heads, soothed my ears of the nonstop madness being dispatched in the city.

My arm rested on the well-worn armrest. My head fell back into the top of the seat and the restlessness of my legs calmed. My mind began to relax from the previous call and I looked forward to the post we were headed to, a post where an evening could be spent with your feet propped on the open door, dangling in the warm breeze of the night air. A post where one could enjoy a book, or a movie, or even a quiet little nap. Things were looking up.

Then, like a snow leopard chasing it's prey on the rocky preface of a mountain, a large, red, pickup truck pulled along side of us. It's old, stained, yellow headlights ominously bled into our lane. It's engine growled as they accelerated and barked as they slowed. It smelled of gasoline and tequila and it's black, tinted windows masked the souls within.

I subconsciously took note. The milky white beams of the moon breaking through the thick clouds above intoxicated me and lulled me into the peaceful state I sorely hoped to maintain throughout the rest of my shift. The music in the background calmed me and the anticipation of removing myself from this world with my new, used paperback book in my backpack eased my sharp nature.

Lurching forward, then falling back again, the red pickup begged for our attention. I glanced to my right and the black, opaque window was rolled down. Inside, a man with a cowboy hat, black mustache and large, cauliflower nose cursed into the moving air. His angry red eyes squinted as his lips spewed defamatory phrases in multiple languages. The shadow to his right remained that, always a shadow.

My partner increased our speed. Sixty in a forty-five. The truck mimicked and sped up. My partner braked, slowing the awkward emergency box to an uneasy fifteen in a forty-five. The evil, blood red truck reciprocated. It remained by our side, to our right, always within arms reach.

The calmness of the music had disappeared and the restlessness in my legs reappeared. The chatter on the radio seemed even more overwhelming and the clouds cooled the warmth of the moon hovering above head.

A side view mirror, small and black pushed itself into my frame of reference. It almost hit my window as the swerving truck tried to force us off the road. Inside, still, an angry, sunburnt face of a man I had never met before. His left hand at twelve o'clock on the worn steering wheel. His right hand, hiding something in his lap.

We continued down the road, playing cat and mouse with the seemingly fictional characters to my right. Each block I thought, I hoped, they would break off and speed away into the stifling darkness. They didn't.

I reached for the black microphone wedged into the silver clip on the dash. I pulled it out, it's tangled cord stretching into my lap. I lifted it close to my mouth, and without pushing the button, talked to my partner about the situation under the pretense of me reporting them to the police, a trick that normally frightens angry citizens into believing we are calling the police.

And like a seasoned Texas Hold-em champ, my bluff was called. The red truck continued to attempt to hit us and run us off the road. It's engine intimidating us with every revolution.

The slurs got louder and more intense. The mustached character driving this angry beast was clearly getting angrier and angrier. The shadowy figure next to him became more animated and seemed to feed fuel to the fire.

This time, I actually clicked the button. This time, I gave a description as clearly and calmly as I could and tried to remember where I was. I tried articulating the series of events and nothing but stutters broke my lips. My partner grabbed another radio and switched it to the police district we were in. He, holding the portable radio in his lap, hiding it from the character next to us just as he was hiding something from us, talked clearly into the stale air now filling the ambulance.

Units from every part of the city began responding. The mention of a possible weapon sounded through the airwaves like an air raid siren of World War II. Engines screamed and sirens wailed as police officers told dispatch they were enroute.

The whites of my eyes thinned as my pupils got larger. I began breathing faster and rehearsed in my mind what I was to do, and say, if a weapon was brandished and pointed in my direction. And as I finally came up with a logical answer to this hypothetical question, the red, dented truck sharply turned right and sped off into the darkness, it's engine howling into the night.

We got back on our radios and cancelled all the cover. We cancelled the four district cops, the sergeant, and the other ambulance speeding our way from their far away post. We slowed down, took a breath, and looked at one another and laughed. We laughed not because it was funny, but because we didn't know what else to do.

As we pulled into post, the one I had previously been dreaming about, the phone in the ambulance rang.

My partner nodded, yes'd, and uh-hum'd the person on the other line. I sat next to him like child on Christmas morning waiting to open his presents, waiting for him to hang up the phone.

He clicked the red "end" button and tossed the phone onto the floor.

The police were looking for those two people fitting the very description we aired. The police were looking for a red, dented truck driving up and down that street all night.

The ones that had been shooting innocent people as the rumbled past them.

We parked the ambulance quietly in a dark, hidden parking lot and look at one another. My partner laughed, uncomfortably, and so did I.

What else could we do?

Zero to ohh crap.

2007-04-25T01:36:00.000-06:00

It seems all I run, everyday, every shift, every week, on every street, in every abode is chest pain or shortness of breath. While all the other ambulance are waiting for cover on the suicidal party with a gun, or returning emergently back to the hospital with someone fighting the clammy, suffocating grip of near death, I sit in my ambulance waiting for one of the only two types of calls I ever run.

The seventies male with chest pain, the thirteen year girl old with shortness of breath, the thirty-one year old male with chest pain or the guy standing at a phone book in the 7-11 parking lot, in the rain, with a touch of both, are just samples on my recent playlist.

There I sat cramped in a fogging ambulance with rain and white clumps of snow melting on the heated front window. Claustrophobia, allowing the warm spring weather to tease me briefly, had returned with a vengeance. The small DVD player sat propped on the dash with a box of tissues under the right corner to compensate for the slant in the dash. Donnie Brasco was burying himself deeper in the underbelly of wise guys, teasing me with his excitement of being an undercover FBI agent.

On the ambulance radio, calls were being dispatched all throughout the city. Auto vs. pedestrian, rollover accident, cardiac arrest, uncontrollably violent suicidal party, and a car in a lake -parties trapped. I shuffled back and forth in my seat fighting with the growing aches in my restless legs.

They called me on the radio. I answered with my location and briefly, just briefly, hoped for something more than the usual. Maybe a shooting or a stabbing. I'd even take a status seizure or a multiple casualty car accident. Please lord, anything but chest pain or shortness of breath.

I was wrong.

Chest pain. A seventy-one year old male with chest pain. Again!

We zipped through the wet streets not breaking any land speed records. I complained about the nature of the call. "Chest pain, shortness of breath, chest pain, shortness of breath, that is ALL I ever go on!" I whined.

I started my report, knowing this would be like every other chest pain call I had run over the last month. Someone felt a tinge in their chest, got scared, and called 911. I would get there, talk to them and receive uneducated and evasive answers and quickly determine it wasn't worth continuing to question the patient. I would load them up, check their vitals -all of which would be fine, and hook them up to the heart monitor -again, all of which would be fine. A little O2, a little aspirin, and the obligatory nitro under the tongue would fill our time on the way to the ED. Another chest pain call under my belt. Another false alarm.

We walked into the apartment and the short man sat laughing and smiling with the fire department. He wasn't sweating and wasn't white as a sheet. He wasn't having any difficulty breathing and his anxiety level was less than mine. His knees were crossed and he nonchalantly complained about some nondescript pain in his chest.

"What does it feel like? Can you explain how it feels?" I questioned, going through my flowchart of cardiac questions.

A long pause, a smile at a fireman, and a wink to his toothless girlfriend shouting in the hall. "It just hurts."

Of course it does, I think to myself. "Well, lets get going then."

He takes two steps to my bed, the oxygen mask tethering him to the blue canvas bag holding the green oxygen cylinder. He sits and worries about everything else. My mind wanders and I shush the screaming woman in the hall. "We can here you just fine. There's no need to yell," I said.

The elevator lurches floor to floor and I take this opportunity to interview the patient more thoroughly. He doesn't really want to play this game. He'd rather talk about something else. I feel his heart pumping thick blood through his circulatory system with my two fingers on his flaky, white-skinned wrist.

We load him into the ambulance and the firemen return to the meal simmering on the stove. I shut the doors and cover him with a blanket. "Let's do it all," I said to my partner.

I go through the motions like a robot. Lean and grab the blood pressure cuff. Stand and open the clear cabinet holding all the IV's. He sits there chewing the aspirin I gave him in the elevator.

My partner hooks him up to the heart monitor and out of the corner of my eye I see an abnormality.

"Maybe we should do a 12-lead?" my partner says as the dieing tissue in the patient’s heart makes itself known.

My partner unbuttons his shirt as the short man declares he is feeling much better. Six white, square stickies are placed strategically along his chest. From his right nipple all the way around the left side of his chest, wires are dangling from his hairy chest. We beg him not to move so we can get a clear picture on the print out.

He's having a huge heart attack. The anterior and lateral aspects of his heart are dieing rapidly in front of me.

"How's your pain?" I ask with a little more urgency.

"It's down to about a zero," he laughs. "Why? Am I sick?"

I explain what is going on with and tell him things are going to move a little faster now. We are going to go lights and sirens to the hospital and I'm going to need to do a whole lot more. "You're going to need to answer all my questions the best you can," I shouted over the loud sirens.

And with that, my luck turned drastically. Sitting in front of me was the acutely ill person I had been hoping to help for the last few weeks.

The ambulance his sixty, in twenty seconds. And I went from zero, to ohh crap in half as many.

Tears.

2007-04-24T01:33:00.000-06:00

The rain danced on the windshield between sweeps of the large wiper blades. The emergency lights reflected off the falling drops as they shattered into the large, clear window. The water, asleep on the street, trapped all the flashing colors of the light bar on our ambulance like a prism and disoriented me. I eased off the gas, gripped the wheel tighter, and squinted my eyes from the rainbow of colors reflecting off the wet surfaces passing by my driver's side window.

The siren seemed louder. It reverberated off the large glass pane windows of the Starbucks and echoed between the brick walls of the restaurants closely packed next to one another. The wiper blades slapped back and forth and made every image seem like animation, as though they were drawn on index cards and flipping through the palm of my hand.

We were on the way to a possible stroke. It was a nice neighborhood, one where people only call 911 when they really need it. A neighborhood that apologizes for interrupting our imagined busy lives and is embarrassed by all the decorative, flashing apparatus outside their manicured lawns.

I walked up the driveway, rain defying gravity and dropping upwards from beneath my hat. A freshly paved drive was surrounded by manicured lawn. At the top of the hill, next to the steps that led inside the brick home, was a four-door Cadillac. It was silver, and clean, but certainly not out of date. A car that was probably paid for by a social security check and a pension from 30 years with the same company.

We opened the glass-paned front doors and dripped cold rain onto the warm wooden floors. Our shoes squeaked as we traversed the living room to the ornamental couch. A stand up piano sat in the corner next to the gas fireplace. On its mantle sat framed pictures of generations of loved family.

My partner turned and started out towards the ambulance. "I'm going to see if that hospital will take her," he said. "She's within that window for a stroke alert.

I stepped forward, raindrops freckling her face as I blinked at her through my glasses. Her shirt was tucked in, her hair was combed, and her pants had evidence of incontinence. She lied on her back with her eyes wide open and her mouth closed, drooping significantly on the left side. As though someone had flipped a switch on the left side of her body, all motor skills and means of gesturing were on pause. I raised her left arm, asked her to hold it in the air with her eyes closed, and let go. It dropped like the electric ball in Times Square on New Year's Eve.

She closed her eyes. A tear formed only in her right eye.

We picked her up and placed her on the bed with damp sheets from the rain. The firemen coordinated buckling her in as I found a blanket to cover her up. The plastic oxygen mask rattled on her face and fogged with each breath. "We're going to be doing a lot of things at once when we get outside, okay?" I said as we began wheeling her out the door. "We're going to take good care of you."

In her mind, she spoke clearly and eloquently, like her favorite author from the book club she had recently joined. I heard nothing but slurs and broken sentences. It was as though she was speaking a foreign language and no one around here could translate.

"I know it's scary, and I know you're trying to say something to me," I said. "We can figure this out together."

The night's sky sifted water drops on us from the sky above like a baker over a cutting board. We opened the double doors of the ambulance and slid her, and the metal bed she was uncomfortably resting on, into the two locking mechanisms. My partner sat on one side, and I crammed myself on the small square seat to her right. Both arms were grabbed and as I strapped a blood pressure cuff on her right arm, my partner poked a green-hubbed needle into her other. We talked medically to one another as she sat below the yellow lights listening to rain drops burst on the top of the ambulance.

I crawled out from my cramped hole as my partner talked to her softly. He did more neurological exams and explained what was going on with her. She attempted to smile, crookedly, and still cried softly from one eye.

We arrived to the ED in four minutes. It had been 14 minutes since she called 911 and 24 minutes since the onset of all her stroke symptoms. We pushed her down the hall and into a large room where a young lady sat in the corner in pink scrubs with a brown clipboard in her white hands. The doctor followed in behind us.

The story was told quickly and precisely. Medical terminology lofted back and forth in front of her like a heated tennis match. Her eyes, flinching left, then right, bounced back and forth. Monitors beeped and techs spoke in code to one another. They talked about her as if she wasn't there.

"Let's send the blood and get her off to C.T.," commanded the doctor.

No one had talked to her yet. I removed our bed from the hospital room and push it into the crowded hall, next to an elderly man in a wheelchair watching the commotion in front of him. I leaned my shoulder on the metal frame of the large double door and watched and listened.

The doctor asked her some quick, cold questions and she attempted to respond, but was unable. The doctor, already mentally twenty minutes in the future, abruptly attempted to explain what was going to happen. The ED tech unlocked the bed and grabbed the two black handles at the head. The monitor sat propped to her left and the blood pressure unit rested to her right.

Everyone was doing what they were supposed to be doing. And everyone also forgot the most important thing they should have been doing. As they wheeled her past me I grabbed the black rail to her left. "Everything is going to be alright," I said.

She blinked twice and tears ran down her cheeks. Tears, like raindrops, fell from both eyes.

Old and cranky. And rightfully so.

2007-04-23T02:02:00.000-06:00

The narrow downtown street was framed with parked cars. Bumper to bumper they sat crowding the passing traffic along the one-way street. Trees, developing new, green leaves, sat majestically along the uneven concrete sidewalk. The hilly front yards were turning from patches of brown and rust, to a dark, green luscious grass. Spring had arrived and, as the sun shined through the thick cotton-ball clouds above my head, my partner parked the ambulance behind the old fire engine sitting in the middle of the street.

The one-way street was cluttered with brownstones converted into multiple occupancy apartments. Each had their own set of worn steps that broke away from the city concrete sidewalk. Inviting names like "Aspen Home" and "Mountain Place" hung above the double-entry security doors. Some in neon, some formed out of ornamental iron.

I slowly exited the ambulance and took in the view of the mountains. This was my first call on my first day back from my three days off, and my mind was elsewhere. I could see the apartment building, the double doors propped wide open by fire's wooden wedges, and figures inside the long hall shuffling around. I rounded the corner and narrowed my thoughts.

Four steps up, a small landing, and another four steps and I was standing in the entrance of the aptly names apartment building. The white doors, three on one side and three on another, sat invitingly to all those who entered. Numbers nailed to the center were accented by personal affects of the residents inside. Stickers from local bands, flowers from their garden, and grease stains from a hard days work all forecasted what may be inside that white door to all those who passed.

The door I saw had nothing on it.

Lying on the worn carpet, wrapped in a white blanket with two blue stripes, was an elderly man. Firemen stood wiping their brows over the elderly man struggling to get comfortable on the dirty, uncomfortable floor. They had just carried him out from his apartment that reeked of urine and feces. The naked man was wrapped like a butterfly in a cocoon and squirmed as he cussed everyone around him.

I approached and was greeted by a pungent smell. One that smelled like sour eggs boiled in gym socks. A smell that was sharp, like a French cheese, and assaulted your senses like a car salesman on crack. I choked back my attempts to gag and quickly took report from the firemen. As he talked, my mind reminisced about the last few days away from work.

"Do you want to see?" asked a fireman.

"Well, not really. But, I suppose I half to."

The fireman opened the blanket and the grumpy, naked man grumbled obscenities. I looked down at his waist, where his legs met his hips, and saw a gaping, infected, hole-dripping white clots of infection. The hairs on my arms stood at attention and my mouth quickly lubed itself with sputum in preparation of me vomiting. The hole seemed bottomless. It was at least 6 inches long and was cavernous as a spelunkers dream. I quickly covered him up, I had seen enough, and he continued to slander all standing near.

"I hate paramedics and I hate doctors," he spat as he tried to make himself comfortable in the makeshift swaddle.

I attempted to talk to him but he continued to berate me. "You killed my mother," he argued.

We loaded him into the ambulance and the firemen fled like immigrants crossing the border illegally. I opened all the windows in the back and attempted to circulate the stale ambulance.

"You killed my mother!" he screamed.

"Did I kill her?" I asked. "Was I the one personally responsible for the death of your mother?"

"No, not you specifically, but it was you paramedics. You guys, and the doctors, killed my mother."

I attempted to talk to him more but he just wiggled under the layers of white blankets. Rotting skin contained bilious fluid that leaked from his groin and saturated the white sheets. The smell lingered in the moving ambulance like lead smoke, reminding me of the disease and infection trying to kill this old man.

We bounced down the road and he grunted with every pothole. Slander dripped from his tongue as his evil eyes stared through my soul. I sat there, with his left arm resting on my knee as I taped the IV, and tried to communicate with him. Anger and hatred enveloped him and despair radiated like heat on a blacktop highway.

"All this anger is going to kill you," I said. "It's going to drive you to your grave."

A snarl and roll of the eyes. A flinch of the shoulder and he turned on his side, his back facing me. His bony, pale white shoulder protruded from the blanket. He quivered a little and grunted under his breath.

"Are you cold?" I asked.

"No response. He closed his eyes in disgust and ignored all of my gestures.

I slid down the blue bench seat and reached into the cabinet where we keep the blankets. He snarled and cussed me once more. I opened the blanket and wafted it over him like fresh linen on a pillow top bed. It landed on him precisely and I tucked in the edges to prevent the draft from chilling his infected body. He continued to ignore me.

As we pulled into the ambulance bay and bounced the rear wheels off the yellow parking block I began unplugging all the equipment from the ambulance interior. I switched the lights off, grabbed my information and made my way to the back doors. I passed on his left and whisper broke the infected air.

"Thank you for the blanket. You were very nice."

If you don't want my help, why did you call?

2007-04-17T01:27:00.000-06:00

It was my seventh call in five hours. And I was tired.

We sped from the south side of town to the north, cutting through lanes like a supped-up stock car. The evening traffic had made its angry way home and only a few, random stragglers strayed along the night streets. The four-lane highway was clear for but a few random headlights bouncing in the distance. My partner pushed the accelerator all the way to the floor and the engine's governor only allowed the ambulance to max out at 95 mph. The bright box whistled in the night air as we flew from one end of town to another.

We exited the highway and made a right on the large boulevard, the traffic seperating like Moses parting the red sea. The opticom above the stained light bar flickered into the future, causing the string of red lights ahead to turn green. We kept a steady speed, people ominously moved to the right, and we arrived on scene with the siren still echoing in the distance and the smell of burning brakes still lingering in the air.

I hopped out the uncomfortable seat and fell to the graveled lot. A black man stood in the shadows smoking a cigarette; it's cherry pulsating from bright red to a cool amber. We approached and he nodded.

We walked into the entrance of the fire department, which was also the entrance to the city's YMCA and the city's library. It was a large business building, tan on the outside with long, rectangular windows preventing any of its occupants from enjoying the nature that surrounded them. It was a peculiar place for a fire department, especially in such a large city, but the spray-painted signs didn't lie. It was just at the end of the ply board walkway.

Firemen in blue sweatshirts and tangled hair stood outside their front door. All of who were just asleep, and all of whom were trying to stay awake. One with a clipboard stood officially under a construction light penning any important history he found relevant. The newest of the crew, the boot, was kneeling beside a large, half-dressed angry man on a stairwell. I approached and with an obvious sigh of relief, the probie stood up, gave me a brief report, and moved back into the shadows.

An oxygen mask was strapped to the irritated man. He sat on the fourth step, resting his large feet on the first. He had no shirt and was only wearing a pair of denim jeans. Like a silk tie from Brooks Brothers, a scar hung from his neck to his chest. Below, like buttons on a dinner jacket, three scars sat horizontally on his large belly.

I quickly determined from his body language that he wanted nothing to do with anybody. He sat cussing and flailing and berated the very people he had walked to for help. I was disgusted with how someone who obviously wanted help refused any courtesies offered.

I approached and introduced myself. Repeated the story to him and he disgustedly agreed. I pointed over my shoulder and said, "Let's walk to the ambulance, then."

He stood, his 6 foot 5 inch frame towering over the sleepy group of people in front of him. He ripped the plastic mask from his face and threw it to the ground. "I don't need this shit, anymore!" he said.

I walked in front of him, he moaned and flailed and like a Broadway Star, exaggerated his condition along the fifteen-step trek. I continued walking. If he really wanted help, he knew where to go and knew how to get there. He cussed the night sky and punched his chest like a giant ape climbing the Empire State building.

"Sit there," I said, pointing to the bed with an already stained sheet on it.

"I need to do a couple of things"

His large frame engulfed the bed and his feet hung from the sides. His body quaked with each defamatory statement.

"Take me to the fucking hospital," he demanded.

"I need to do.."

"I said take me to the fucking hospital!"

I stopped what I was doing and tossed everything into the well of the bench. I was tired, sleepy as the firemen, and was in no mood to deal with this. I briefly thought about barking back but realized it would be a waste of time, like trying to rationalize with an intoxicated person. I leaned back against the blue, cushioned wall and looked him in the eye, "There's no need to be a dick to those who want to help you," I said.

He looked to his left and realized I was serious. He opened his mouth to say something, whether it was something nice or mean I don't know, because I was in the process of standing up and moving to the seat behind him. If he didn't want my help, he wasn't going to get it. And I certainly wasn't going to nestle up next to him and baby him like he probably always wanted his mother to do, but didn't.

So, we drifted from the scene and bounced down the road to his hospital of choice, one I wouldn't have necessarily chosen in the first place. He sat in front of me stomping his feet, wailing his arms, swearing to Jesus as he pounded his chest. I sat behind him, legs comfortably resting on the head of the bed doing my paperwork.

He played his cards early in the game and I called his bluff. A 35-year-old man acting like a 5-year-old child with the vocabulary of a 16 year old. If I was such a bother why did he call us? Why not walk yourself to the hospital? That way, you don't have to deal with sleepy firemen and "inept" paramedics.

I'll never understand why people are like that. They're sick, they call 911, and then they treat everyone around them like an unwanted child.

If you don't want my help, why did you call?

Her nightmare of a life.

2007-04-11T11:12:00.000-06:00

Her black T-shirt was on inside out and backwards. The Russell Athletics tag hung around her neck like a thrift store necklace. Her hair was mated and greasy and hadn't been combed in quite a while. She wore black athletic pants that were, again, two sizes too large. And stains, from who knows what, were the only designer insignia she could afford for her disposable wardrobe.

I heard the toilet flush as I rounded the corner of the beige hallway. Four metal doors sat next to one another with large, square Plexiglas windows. Like animals in an exhibit, the inmate’s privacy and freedom had been revoked. The officers were able to walk down the hall and witness everything the trapped animal was doing. The officer spoke loudly to the inmate through the large window and metal door and finally waved me forward.

The candy bar-sized skeleton key clanked the machinery inside the heavy door. With a twist and a grunt from the officer, the door popped open. Inside you could count the yellow cinderblocks suffocating the inmate from floor to ceiling. Incorporated into the wall, was a concrete bench with a rounded corner. There was nothing sharp in the cell and everything dulled your senses. Bolted into the concrete bench was a round, silver eye of a hook. It was there to handcuff the felon to the concrete bench and restrict any already-restricted freedom of movement. As if the eight foot by six-foot cell didn't already do that.

She sat twitching on the scuffed abutment of the depressing wall. Names of gangs had been scratched into the stained concrete. Gang quotes of defiance stained the bench as if Thoreau had tutored all in the art of Civil Disobedience.

I entered just as the toilet had finished filling the stainless steel bowl. It sat to my left as she attempted to sit calmly directly in front of me. Crack was coursing through her veins.

I approached her cautiously and began talking to her. She, like most ever inebriated felon, began to tell me how today's event was related to something last week and felt it important to detail every event from then to now. I interrupted her, held her intoxicated attention for a few precious seconds, and asked her again what she had told the police was hurting her.

As if she were sitting on hot coals, she bounced up and down, left and right and mumbled something about her belly. I quickly came to the realization that this was going nowhere quickly and exited the cell. She sat flinching as if she were catching fireflies. She stuttered nonsense as phlegm ran down her nose onto her chin. An aging face framed wild eyes. Although she was in her twenties, she looked like she had already lived a life of my nightmares. Occasionally, she looked sharply over her right shoulder as if someone was teasing her in the corner of the cell.

The cocaine, baking soda, Drano, and whatever else the manufacturer of that crack rock decided to put it in was poisoning her body as it coursed through her dirty veins.

I stood her up and walked her 5 feet from the bench to my stainless steel bed. She walked like a newborn giraffe from the cell to my bed, kicking her feet and wobbling her legs. Arms flinched and eyelashes twitched. The crack was circulating.

She plopped onto the bed and attempted to remain still. She couldn't. We wheeled her out to the ambulance and began patient care.

We left for the hospital and the farther we got from that tiny, claustrophobic cell, the more she started talking. The more I started asking questions.

It all started when she was forced to smoke a rock of crack dipped in Pennzoil motor oil with a loaded gun to her head. Her brother was just killed by the same gang members threatening her. She had been high everyday since; her three children were at home with her husband, the one who gives her $100 a day so she can support her habit.

She would have her kids stay with her mother, if they could. But, normally, she was as high on crack as she was. You see, they smoke it together.

I lectured her, tried to make her feel bad so as to break through the fog of nonchalance of the cocaine high. She started crying and said she wanted to die.

And for a moment, I thought to myself. Maybe that wasn't such a horrible request.

If my nightmares were as bad as here everyday life, maybe I'd think that too.

Shattered.

2007-04-05T12:33:00.000-06:00

He loaded the last clear, plastic water bottle into the back of the white cargo van, slammed the metal double doors shut and made his way to the driver's seat. He pulled the black vertical handle on the dented door and stepped up into the cab. The grey, upholstered seat bounced slightly as his full weight rested in the seat. He reached out to his left and grabbed the worn handle and pulled the heavy door closed. It slammed and shook the various papers resting on the dust-ridden dash. The wrappers from his fast-food breakfast rustled under the large, heat magnifying front window. He tilted his wrist so as to allow his watch to slide out from under his coat jacket sleeve; it was 4:30 and Friday. He reached down onto his waist, unclasped the palm-sized phone from the plastic holder and punched 3 buttons; his wife was speed dial #1.

The pink flip-phone vibrated and sang a melody from her favorite sitcom television show. She fumbled in her purse as she searched for the source. Standing in the express checkout line with more than the allowed fifteen items, she shuffled through paper receipts, chapstick, her beige compact, apple-flavored gum, and the bottle of Bath and Bodywork's Magnolia Blossom Body Lotion. She found it flashing colors and lifted it out of her black Coach purse, flipping open the receiver with her thumb.

He spoke into the phone with an angry tone. It was time to go home and yet, on the other end of the line, was his boss who had now ordered him to deliver one more trailer load before the end of the workweek. He couldn't believe it, his horrible week only seemed to get worse. All he wanted to do was to clock out and go to his favorite, local bar and drown the scars of the week in the foam of his favorite 12-ounce draft. He turned over the ignition and the large semi engine rumbled to a start. It was already warm from driving around the city all day from doing deliveries. The rubber on its eighteen wheels was already soft and warm. The semi-truck was quickly loaded to allow him time for one last timely delivery of its important contents. The airbrakes hissed and the cab shook as he shifted the eighteen-wheeler into gear. Just one more delivery and his week would be over with. He floored the enormous vehicle and a plume of black smoke mushroomed into the air. His boss would know that he was mad. He sped through the city streets and found the on ramp to the highway. As he barreled down the ramp and onto the already congested highway, he reached for the radio and found his favorite country radio station.

He pulled his hand back from the volume knob as the talk-radio on AM radio filled the small white van's passenger compartment. His week was long, like usual, but he was happy it was Friday. He had talked to his wife and she was on her way home with a brown sack of groceries that would be his dinner that night. The kids were at his grandmother's house and all that awaited him at home was his wonderful wife and his golden puppy. Both, he knew, would be ecstatic the minute he walked in the door. Tonight was date night, and even though he had to work tomorrow afternoon, he didn't mind having to drive home the company van in rush hour traffic. The sun began to set and shot beautiful rays of white light directly into his windshield, causing him to fold down his visor, causing him to squint his tired eyes. He reached into a compartment looking for his sunglasses.

He placed the black, wrap-around sunglasses over his scared, worn face and slid the semi's transmission into a higher gear. He accelerated and weaved in and out of traffic, the sooner he delivered the trailer's contents, the sooner he could get back home and start his weekend. The sun, stretching from behind him and casting his own shadow in front of him, set behind the mountains. He pushed on the accelerator.

As he eased off the accelerator of the cargo van, because the slowing traffic in front of him, he saw an opening in the left lane. He signaled, looked carefully over his left shoulder, and eased the white van into the number one lane. He was going seventy in a fifty-five, but was alright with that because everyone else was too. He was on his way home. It was date night.

She moved the dial to forty-five minutes. The oven timer was set strategically for her husband’s arrival. She hoped to hear the garage door open, and her husband pull in, as the oven timer began it’s beeping.

The beep from the small sedan bounced off the large semi. It didn't startle him in the least. He didn't hear it because he was moving so quickly and the radio was dialed all the way to max. The sun at his back, he accelerated.

Moving quickly, accelerating to pass the slower vehicle leaking a cloud of white, pungent odor from its exhaust, he grasped the steering wheel with both hands. The roads were becoming thinner, trickier to navigate. He hated driving the white van this fast.

She set the table, put what food was ready on the new table linen she bought at Crate & Barrel. She went to the refrigerator and bent down looking for the chilled bottle of sparkling wine.

He looked up from the floorboard of the semi where he dropped his invoice and was surprised to see the SUV in front of him. He swerved right, but then realized the lane was occupied. He swerved left.

The van braked suddenly. Red lights flashed in the near distance. Why were people slowing? Why were they swerving right?

She stopped, causing her sneakers to squeak on the white, linoleum kitchen floor. She had forgotten the wine glasses.

He turned the large semi wheel to the left, overcorrecting. The brakes locked and the large trailer began to slide away from him, smoke steamed from the burning rubber on the highway.

In front of him, on the other side of the highway divided by a concrete barrier, he saw the cause for the braking cars. Smoke was lifting off the highway like steam. He looked to his right. A car. To his left, the concrete barrier. Ahead, a semi out of control.

He over-adjusted the large semi steering wheel once again, attempting to force the large beast back to the right and away from the barrier and the oncoming traffic. The tires turned but the semi continued on its destructive path. There was no going back.

He slammed his right foot on the large rectangular brake pedal. It felt as though he had pushed it through the floorboard of the white van.

The large left wheel of the semi climbed the concrete barrier. The force of the weight of cargo continued to push him forward. The front cab of the semi was lifted into the air.

It sailed in slow motion ahead of him. A white semi cab aloft in the mountain air, its shadow, from the setting sun, ominously engulfing his field of vision. The sharp rays of the sun were now gone. It was instantly cold. Shadow enveloped his world. His life went into slow motion. Who would tell his wife?

The fragile glass exploded all over the ground. She stood there, momentarily, as she was engulfed with a feeling of loss. She knelt down and tried to pick up the pieces, but couldn't.

Flames from the white cargo van exploded from under the large semi. The driver, afraid of an explosion, climbed out of the passenger door of the semi and fell to the highway tarmac, landing on broken glass and shards of metal. Traffic stopped and he ran across the highway.

She fell to a chair, exhausted. What was wrong? Her stomach turned and her knees weakened. What was wrong?

Behind him, his large semi sat atop a white cargo van. Flames billowed out the shattered windows and smoke poured into the sunset. He knelt on the ground as he watched the trapped man attempt to free himself from the burning van.

He cried for help.

And so did the semi driver.

And as she sat on her wooden kitchen chair she looked over her shoulder into the other room. The television was on and Chopper 9 was panning the wreckage on the highway. It zoomed in on the smoldering white cargo van.

She began crying and instantly thought about picking up the pieces in front of her.

But, she couldn't.

How would she tell the kids?

Man, I love this job.

2007-03-26T10:31:00.000-06:00

The lights slice through the dark night sky, the dispatcher on the radio sharply informs us to "wait for cover". The diesel engine grumbles as the automatic transmission struggles to keep up with the constant pressure on the gas peddle. As we cross over the large eight-lane highway on a small two-lane bridge, my partner turns all the switches on that transform our ambulance into a moving firecracker.

I reach up and turn the interior light off. My seatbelt constantly applying pressure to my chest as we skid left and swerve right. My feet, cramped in the foot well, ache from sitting for hours. I slide my elbow off the windowsill and push the small black button that cautiously rolls the window up. The sirens are echoing off the small, white houses sitting atop the hill that overlooks the highway. I straighten my back, sit up in my seat, slid my other hand down to the radio and gingerly turn up the volume.

The wailing changes from long, drawn out screams to sharp, quick blasts. The sounds reverberate off the artful metal accents of the new, contemporary lofts in the old, beat-up neighborhood. Although I've done this a thousand times before, my senses became sharper and my pupils dilate.

Then, like a harmonizing tenor in a church choir, more sirens approach in the darkness. I don't know where they are coming from and they confuse my senses. I struggle, like a fighter pilot in a dogfight, to look out all our windows and determine their avenue of approach.

We break through a triangle intersection and charge up hill, black smoke from the diesel polluting the mile high air. The new sirens assault our ambulance and are right on top of us. I glance in the side view mirror and my eyes squint as the flashing high beams of the police cruiser illuminate the rectangular mirror. He's going where we are going, and we both are racing down this dark, residential street to someone who has a weapon.

The dips in the road bottom the heavy ambulance out as we try and maintain our speed. The police cruiser, chasing us in the dark exhaust fumes, rides close to our bumper. I can almost make out the face of the officer.

We pull over, slightly, and allow the quicker and more maneuverable cruiser to pass. It's engine screams like a banshee as the transmission drops a gear and it rockets past us. Quickly, the red taillights and yellow flashing lights on the roof disappear into the distance. We try and keep up, but are just to heavy and slow. The large dips in the road seem to launch the cruiser into the night as he speeds away.

He shuts his lights and siren off and skids around a corner like a ballplayer sliding into home plate. We do the same. The fire engine awaits at an intersection, its occupants still fighting to stay awake.

The cruiser's driver gets out and we pull up behind him. He pulls his large mag light out from his seat and approaches me. Together, we begin walking the block looking for the out-of-control, suicidal person. The ambulance, and my partner, creeps behind us as we walk.

Suddenly, the officer begins to sprint. His hand on his holstered weapon, he quickly accelerates from me. I begin running, my hand on my awkward radio slapping me on the thigh. My partner slams on the gas and makes the large ambulance lurch forward. The flashing ambulance box turns the corner, as I cut through the yard, and is abruptly slammed into park.

The officer tackles the suicidal person. My partner, like a ballerina, falls out of the freshly parked ambulance as I hurdle patches of grass and concrete. Together, we land on the crazed person and help the officer restrain this angry person with a sharp putty knife.

She screams, kicks, fights, and spits. The dispatcher on the police radio becomes worried that no one has answered her call and sends out an emergency tone. Officers from everywhere in the city scream into their radios saying they are on their way. More sirens, from every direction, again confuse my senses. Lights illuminate the trio fighting the person on the ground as the other officers and their cruisers come to a loud, screeching halt. Burning brakes waft into the air.

We restrain the patient and load her in the ambulance. Still screaming and spitting and fighting I start an IV. It's like trying to brush the teeth of a rabid dog, but I successfully get one in her hand. The chemical restraint is beginning to course through her blood stream after being poked in her deltoid. Benedryl in the IV quickly makes her drowsy and tired. She fights to stay awake, like the firefighters before, and her screams slowly turn into moans.

I sit back, feet on the pram and blood on my gloves, and take a breather. The lights above my head illuminate the inside to the ambulance as two paramedics sit back and one patient begins to doze off into a heavy sleep.

My partner smiles at me and removes his gloves.

I smile at him and think,

Man, I love this job.

Superman is just around the corner.

2007-03-23T12:08:00.000-06:00

I have said, on more than one occasion, that if people saw the way we acted when we were alone in the ambulance that they would kick us out of their home and drive themselves to the ED. They would cringe in disbelief, slam the door, and call the police.

"Are those the two we saw in that ambulance?" one would ask.

'The one's making those weird noises and crying with laughter? Uhm, yeah, lock the door and call the cops," the other would respond.

When we come knocking on your front door, you see two emergency professionals dutifully dressed in white responding to manage an acute emergency. Bags, monitors, radios, badges, and fancy tools laced between belt loops represent authority and confidence. Both traits, regardless of how we act or look, we all posses.

But, when I step back from that front door, I see an enigma. I see what you see, but in a different light. In front of me, on the exterior, I see the confident intelligent paramedic you see. But, in the back of my head, I also see another person in an arsenal of characters that each of us have.

Sometimes I see the guy who but not 5 minutes ago was trying to make the funniest noise for the longest amount of time. The guy who was just belching Dr. Pepper and is later planning on having a Red Bull and donut-eating contest. The one singing Michael Jackson at the top of his lungs and bouncing in his seat. The one that was honking at hookers and blowing them kisses.

Or, sometimes standing in front of me, is the disheveled guy who looks like he just crawled out of a cave. Beard growth of 5 days, stained coffee teeth and hot breath reeking of spicy sausages. Shirttail bubbling out from under his belt and pen marks on his shirt. Once deep black boots fade now into a grayish white at the toes. Papers in his shirt pocket are reminiscent of the old college professor who could never remember what he needed to do next.

Or, standing next to me, might be the starchly-pressed, muscular man with his hair shaved down to the skin of his skull with tattoos crawling up his forearms and disappearing into his sleeve. He smells like diesel fumes and Copenhagen and his black biker boots look like Frankenstein's clogs. He's assertive and direct, but polite and honest.

This job is one big contrast. We sit for hours on end fighting the tediousness of boredom. We fight to stay awake. We unwind and are lulled into a false sense of relaxation and security. And we all share one common trait, an alter ego.

The alter ego that mutes other personalities and takes over. The one that gets done what needs to be done and does it efficiently and correctly. The one that is confident and quick and regardless if you like the decisions, or not, it does what it believes is beneficial to the patient. The part of us, regardless of how we look or smell, that takes over and does an outstanding job.

I'm sure Superman, when not reversing the polarity of the Earth, had a tendency to belch and fart. And Batman and Robin surely played graba** in the Bat Cave in between arresting cartoon felons. And I bet MacGyver, when not fashioning elaborate means for escape from items in his pocket, acted like a teenage girl when his favorite song came on the radio.

I applaud those eccentricities and am happy they are there. Because if they weren't, and we were all as serious as we needed to be all the time, we would be some boring, uptight, angry, burnt-out public servants.

So, regardless of what alter ego stands before you in your doorway, remember that resting beneath that facade is the superhero waiting to go to work.

If you see Clark Kent, Superman is just around the corner.

Warm and fuzzy.

2007-03-22T13:27:00.000-06:00

Like the ebb and flow of the ocean, my apparent recent biorhythm of life has been on the sarcastic, grumpy side. It's time for something warm and fuzzy.

Speeding down the highway in their $4000 Buick Regal, of which they somehow owed $5000, the father recklessly sped as carefully as possible. It was afternoon, the sun was hovering over the snow-capped mountain range in the west, and his wife was squirming and breathing heavily in the red upholstered passenger seat next to him. It was two weeks early and it was coming, regardless if they were ready or not.

"It's coming! It's coming! We're not going to make it," she pleaded to her husband as they sped through the congestion.

"What do I do? What do I do? Oh, sh*t, I knew we should have left earlier." The husband’s brow beaded with sweat. Although scared and worried, a smile mysteriously appeared on his tan face.

The rays of the sun broke through the peaks of the mountains. Colors, indescribable, radiated from the peaks and were framed by the large, cotton-ball clouds hanging in the sky. And up ahead, in front of a semi, next to a woman in her SUV on her cell phone, and passing a broke down Ford Taurus on the side of the road cruised a police officer in a white patrol car. Hope was near.

Again, rolls were reversed and he speed up to catch up with the cruiser. Never in a million years did he foresee him speeding up to catch and pull over a police officer.

He weaved left, sped past the lady on the cell phone not paying any attention to her driving, punched the gas and made the Buick's engine knock as a cloud of dark smoke erupted from its chrome tailpipe. It lurched forward and he assumed he was speeding, his speedometer hasn't worked since the third day he owned the car. The broken down car's owner sat on the side of the highway, watching the world go by.

The light bar of the police cruiser was directly in front of him. He honked, but remembered the horn would only honk once regardless of how many times he pushed the large button in the steering wheel. Its remedy was normally to turn the car off and reset the unknown reason for why this happens. With his horn blown once, he began flashing his lights. At least those worked. He clicked from low beam to high beam, hoping to shoot the beams into the rearview mirror of the police cruiser.

Nothing. Why was it when he needed a police officer he couldn't arouse any suspicion, but other times when all he wanted to do was make it home quietly and safely, they were everywhere and noticed his every move.

He plodded forward and pulled up to the left of the police officer. He pointed his finger to the side of the road and gestured to pull over. Wow, he was pulling a cop over. He imagined the stories he would have to tell. The officer took note, saw the sweating, moaning mother in the passenger seat and added one plus one. He turned his lights on, blocked traffic, and made room for them to exit off the highway.

He approached the car and was greeted to, "It's coming. It's coming, NOW!"

The officer moved the mother to the back of the car and radioed for paramedics. His dispatcher advised they were on the way.

The dad, still with a big grin on his face, hopped out and climbed in the back seat with his wife.

"Don't push," said the officer.

Sirens from the ambulance where closing in from the distance.

"Don't push, the ambulance is almost here," the officer pleaded.

"I have to," she screamed.

And after one grunt, two cries broke the brief moment of silence. The mother, and the baby, cried as they looked at one another.

The officer grabbed the baby and wrapped it in a blanket. He gave it to dad and exited the back of the Buick. The ambulance arrived, the officer gestured where to park, and he got back in his car and left.

Sitting in the back seat was a new member to a family of three. A baby girl, swaddled in some blankets, crying in the back of a Buick had just started her life.

I looked at her briefly and thought, "Now, isn't that warm and fuzzy."

And the nominees are...

2007-03-21T01:53:00.000-06:00

The nominees for best actress in a drama are:

Mid-life crisis on a flower print comforter:

Starring the inconsolable aging woman writhing in pain in her bed in the one bedroom apartment on the extremely wrong side of town.

As she attempted to do her laundry, she was overcome with Satan’s wrath in the form of abdominal pain. Debilitated, she struggled to traverse the 600 sq. ft. apartment to collapse in bed and wait for paramedics, prayers swimming in her anxious mind, demons attempting to steal her soul before her very eyes.

She wrestled the sheets, half-dressed in a T-shirt and underwear, as the paramedics entered the apartment. Family had already been summoned and the nephew, clad in the light purple shirt, with dark purple pants, purple loafers, and purple socks escorted the way the room of despair.

Snot dangled from her nose as she clutched her stomach. Questions were asked but no responses were given, due to the extreme nature of the recurrent, undiagnosable, incurable disease she had been mysteriously afflicted with. Her stomach hurt and her true despair of why this was happening to her flowed as tears from her eyes.

But, the paramedic had been there before. And so had his partner, multiple times. The cards were placed on the table and her hand was called. She insisted she couldn't stand and walk, but then stood and walked. With the power of Jesus and prayers from the purple man, she transcended human suffering and walked with Jesus to the ambulance.

And...drug seeker dancing on the wood floor:

She was young, she was attractive, she was on her way up in this world and she was addicted to prescription meds.

She had timed everything out perfectly. The cards were falling into place and like a jewel thief cracking a safe, her plan was coming to fruition. The husband was due home soon, the son was fed and playing in the other room, and her story was straight.

She picked up the phone, dialed 911 and sobbed her painful story to the voice on the other end. Occasionally, writhing from the extreme abdominal pain she excused herself as she attempted to vomit. Nothing came up, but the noise was impeccable. She unlocked the door, opened it slightly, took a Valium -her last one from all her bottles and waited for the sirens in the distance.

The doors from the fire engine and ambulance closed and she prepared herself. Dropping to the wood floor she cuddled into fetal position and squirmed like a tortured prisoner. She coughed violently, attempting to produce any bile from her stomach. She wiggled painfully as she evaded all questions. Generalizing her answers, she screamed in pain when, from the corner of her eye, she noticed anyone paying any semblance of attention.

As if she were on a bed of hot coals, she was sternly instructed that she needed to stay on the bed. She was seat belted in and after realizing her game of charades was not working, crawled into her mental cocoon and feigned unconsciousness.

At arrival to the ED she summoned everything she had in a last attempt to show everyone how much pain she was in. The coughing and false dry heaving returned. Moans, and screams at every bump, announced her arrival. She fought the seatbelts and did acrobatics in the bed. She cried, screamed and suddenly passed out.

Report was given. And as her vitals were given, to include a heart rate of 60 beats per minute in this distraught woman, she pleaded for someone to give her something for the pain.

Listen Up, Class.

2007-03-20T12:01:00.000-06:00

I unknowingly allowed one comment to be published on a posting that offended another person/people. I apologize for allowing this to happen. Therefore, in the name of fairness, because the original post has been displayed for a while, I have allowed the retort to be published.

BUT, in the future I will begin moderating all comments posted more carefully. I don't intend to become the moderating God, because although my beliefs may differ from yours, I believe everyone has the right to voice their own opinion. If those opinions become too heated and personal insults begin to be exchanged, I will remove comments from both sides.

This site is NOT about hurting one another's feelings and starting wars with words. It is about seeing what I see and walking through my mental progression on how I deal with these 911 calls. It is intended for enjoying the philosophy that lives within each story. My stories, whether positive or negative, are writen in hopes that they make you sit back and think about your own life.

This blog was started to educate and entertain people and will not become a forum for bashing one another.

I helped an a**hole

2007-03-19T12:05:00.000-06:00

Lying on the carpet, staring up onto the skylights of the ceiling, was a reasonably dressed man being tended to by a paramedic and a lovely, concerned wife. She was peaceful and calm; her hip glasses framed her aging face and allowed room for her botoxed cheeks to move when she smiled. She attempted to hold his hand but was rudely refused that courtesy. She stepped back, wished he wasn't always like this, and allowed us to step forward.

He wasn't old, but he wasn't in his twenties. He wasn't fat, but he had been in better shape in past years. He wasn't disheveled, but his dress signaled he, and his wife, had been traveling for the majority of the day.

He wasn't nice, and I don't know if he ever has been.

My partner approached and his wall went up. He flared his back, puffed his tail, and showed his teeth. The polite greeting from my partner was quickly rebutted with a snarl of the lip and anger in his voice. The twenty minutes the medic had spent gaining confidence with the angered man was lost. The hate inside of him swelled and he snapped at his wife and the paramedics.

He raised his leg and marked his territory as we continued with our job. We, with the firm assistance of his wife, talked him into going to the hospital. Every concession made, every polite gesture given, and every statement said was to keep the volcanic eruptions simmering in his soul from erupting. Nothing was good enough or quick enough to keep his demons at bay.

The fifty-something man with chest pain was loaded up and wheeled out. Anger radiating from him like the rays of the sun bouncing off hot pavement in the distance. I grabbed the front of the bed and wheeled him out to the ambulance, accidentally hitting each corner of each wall and each bump in the concrete path with fighter pilot accuracy.

He crossed his arms, closed his eyes, and feigned sleep. Not saying a word for the thirty-minute transport, he sat quietly screaming in his head. Why was he going? He didn't need to go! He told the paramedics he didn't need to go! The pot was beginning to boil over. Foamy hatred and anger slowly broke the seal and ran down the sides. Each bump of the ambulance made him angrier and angrier. Each bump, accidentally aimed for, and squarely hit, like that concentrated fighter pilot from above.

As I drove I realized his anger was seeping forward like a black fog. It tried to strangle me and made my eyes water. I sat there; aiming for bumps in the already battered highway road, and began hating him. I hated his brown loafers with no socks and his polo golf shirt. I hated his condescending attitude and his sense of entitlement. I hated the fact that I attempted to talk with him on a personal level and he answered like a robot. I hated his whiney affect and his stupid, little face. I hoped he was having a heart attack and I hoped it was the big one.

We unloaded him and gave him to the ED staff. As we exited, his first semblance of speech in thirty minutes broke his chapped lips.

"I didn't want to come. THEY made me. I don't need to be here and I want to go home," he spouted with an evil slur trying to intimidate the nurse.

I, briefly, thought about going back in there and telling him how I felt but decided to leave. His anger was encompassing and too strong to fight.

We left and continued our night. It took me all evening to break those constraints of madness that had lurked from him to the front of the ambulance. But with the help of my partner, I realized that it wasn't worth wasting my time on.

He was an a**hole and will always be an a**hole.

Someday, maybe, he'll realize that all that being an a**hole will get you is an angry death on the carpeted floor staring up at empty skylights.

I caught him stealing my T.V.

2007-03-16T14:07:00.000-06:00

I unclasped the seatbelts on the the bed, unvelcroed his hands from the wrist restraints, folded the handrail down out of the way, and told him to move over onto the white hospital bed sitting to his right. He stopped his drunken ramblings, looked at me, and hopped from one bed to the other. Landing on his swollen, welted back, he screamed in pain. The raised red welts on his chest and back were swelling to the point where they may begin bleeding at any moment.

"I guess everyone's here that needs to be here?" I said, looking around the crowded, white tiled emergency room.

"This is so-and-so. He's a 20's male who has been drinking and smoking all day. Therefore, he's very uncooperative and the history of today's event has been more than difficult to determine."

He had gotten drunk and high throughout the day. After drinking beer, after chilled beer, in the parking lot of his favorite park with his favorite friends, he drunkenly floated away from the pack of drunk and disorderlies to go and make some money. All in hopes of returning to that graveled parking lot, littered with empty glass beer bottles and roaches from their marijuana blunts, to continue partying with his loyal brothers.

"Upon arrival we found him cornered in a yard being detained by neighbors until we, and the PD, arrived."

As he stumbled up the grassy hill of the park, his mind raced. He was having so much fun swapping stories of intimidation with his brothers, he was enjoying slamming 12 ounces of cold, watered down beer, and desperately didn't want this day to end. In all his impairment, he decided he needed to fill his empty wallet with some presidents so he could go buy some more beer. Maybe this time, Coronas. His friends would be impressed.

As he passed the Safeway he quickly thought how easy it would be to just steal it from them. But, he remembered his last attempt and how it ended up with him face down in an alley, choking on gravel, with a knee in the small of his back. He rubbed the still sore lumbar muscles of his tattooed back and decided there was another option.

His uncles house was around the corner. Maybe he could sneak in there and steal some cash. He stood up straight, pulled his jeans up to the bottom of his butt, and started walking in his new white sneakers to the house.

Inside, the uncle was sleeping. He, as soberly as he could, tried to sneak around the house. In his mind he was quiet as a mouse, in real life, the uncle had already been awoken to the bull in the china shop.

He couldn't find any money. Contrary to what he may have believed, it wasn't laying around the house in piles. He scanned the room looking for possible candidates. His eyes locked on the new television set in the corner and dollar signs tempted his senses like a cartoon carrot.

"Patient was caught stealing a television set from a family member. He was detained and assaulted with fists and feet. Patient was struck multiple times in the face, chest, back, and abdomen."

The uncle had awoken and confronted him. Television is arms, he attempted to run. He was quickly subdued and apprehended by family and neighbors.

Sick and tired of being easy prey for this rogue relative, they began to beat him up. Clinched fists struck his face, busting his lip and breaking teeth, causing watery, red blood to explode from the swollen lip like puss from a zit. Boot clad feet kicked him as hard as they could in the chest, back, and stomach. Years of being his victim were now culminating to a violent climax. The steel-toed boots crushed ribs and broke bones.

And blinded by the fury of their disrespectful family member, the uncle found a large, gray, plastic electrical cord on the ground. Rolling in the mud, shirt torn off, the target of his anger beaconed him like a flashing white light.

"Patient was then struck several times with a large electrical cord. Patient sustained multiple blows on his anterior and posterior thorax, creating the large, raised welts you see in front of you. Patient is hypersensitive to touch and has immense pain with palpation."

The electrical cord became an extension of his anger. It whistled in the air as it was raised above his head. He then, with all the force he could ever imagine, brought that cord down as hard and fast as he could. It slapped his nephew's skin, echoing into the night sky. The moans awoke the neighbors. Whip after whip, the uncle released all his anger. Welts instantly formed and were raised with blood. With the passion of a Roman soldier, the uncle repeatedly whipped his nephew until he could no longer raise the cord.

"Patient complains of anterior and posterior thorax pain, left lateral chest wall tenderness, and difficulty breathing."

As we arrived, before the police, he sat kneeling in the corner of the muddy yard like a scolded dog. He was screaming and talking chaotically. I approached, he stood, and I yelled that he sit back down. He complied.

The uncle approached, winded, and said, "I caught him stealing my TV."

I shined my light on the cowling person in the corner and immediately noticed his chest and back. As if he were an extra from the movie Roots, he stood, knees buckling, and began crying. He was in immense pain.

"Patient, and witnesses, deny loss of consciousness and have full recall of event. Patient otherwise atraumatic and has no other complaints. No allergies, no medicines, no medical history. Blood pressure 140/80, heart rate 92 radially and regular, and respiratory rate 26 with difficulty breathing."

"Any questions?"

I wish I were dead now.

2007-03-14T02:06:00.000-06:00

We approach this 10-story apartment complex on the wrong side of town. I've never been here before, so I don't want to make any predetermined judgments, although my Spider-senses are going crazy.

We were sent on abdominal pain. So, on one end of the spectrum I foresee an elderly lady with a history of high blood pressure sitting in an antique chair clutching her stomach, keeling over onto her own lap, complaining of the worst pain imaginable. And on the other end of the pendulum, is the dollar store clad addict fidgeting uncontrollably in a sparsely furnitured apartment coming down off of a 3 day crack high.

Man, maybe I should get a red spandex outfit and sling webbing from my wrists, because my superheroic powers of premonition were right on target. Kind of like Robin Hood's arrow piercing the shank of his competitors arrow in the bulls eye.

The apartment manager buzzes us into the lobby, through the plexiglased front door. This door has more than the normal wear and tear and is tattooed with names of people and gangs. Bits of blood stain the handle.

As we enter, we are approached by the small woman whose life is a probable constant up-hill battle. Given every short stick in the bunch, she still continues to trudge up that unbelievable hill of defeat and sorrow. Her aged face sags as she speaks. Her Velcro shoes stick to the floor as she returns to the office, her movement fluttering the paper warning signs and notes of revocation of tenants that collage the tiled wall next to her office. One hangs faithfully at the elevator doors informing everyone who passes "This is a Drug free zone." The crack users and dealers ignore it as they wander the lobby in their drug-induced fogs.

She asks what room number and we vaguely answer. We don't like telling people exactly where we are going because it is none of their business. We say, "5-oh-something."

"Is it 505? Because someone was here and wanted to go to that room. But she's on restriction and I told him "No". He intimidated me and raised his fist to me," she mumbled.

"Why, yes, it is. Are there a lot of shady people in and out of that apartment?" I ask.

She, again, nods her head and then is distracted by the little girl playing in the corner of the lobby. Her playground, secured by Plexiglas and tile, is uncomfortably similar to the prison exercise yard for convicts. Just an hour a day they, and she, are allowed to get some "fresh" air and stretch their legs.

We enter the metal crate that will lift us to the fifth floor. Polished metal surrounds us as new graffiti is gradually being scratched into the walls. The old stuff has been buffed out by maintenance with a Black & Decker sander. We exit the box and are welcomed by a lime green wall, one window -the only one on the floor, shines sunlight from the east.

#505 is found, between #507 and #503, just across from #502. The keys are still dangling in the lock from when she last unlocked the door, probably living life in third person -watching herself and her every move from a drug-filled hallucination.

I knock forcefully and she answers, "Come in."

I turn the knob and slowly push the door open, both myself and my partner framing the metal door. We enter like SWAT and slowly advance to the living room.

"Is there anyone else in here?" I demand.

"No, there's nobody else f*cking here," she slurs. She sits in front of a full ashtray, smoke penetrates everything. The walls seem heavy with nicotine.

I scan the room while she rambles. On the table a shard of glass, tinted black by smoke. A pencil, its lead tip stained black. Lighters, fingernail cutters, small postage stamp sized squares of clear wrap with white residue dusting the corners, and empty beer bottles.

"There's no need to cuss, I understand everything you're saying," I interrupt as she tries to dull her hyperactive senses.

"What drugs have you done?" I ask.

"None," she mumbles.

"Let me ask again. What drugs have you done?"

"None."

"That's bullsh*t and we both know it. I'm standing in an apartment that looks like a drug den. The lady downstairs told us she believes you guys do drugs, I see drug paraphernalia everywhere, your pupils are dilated, your heart rate is tachycardiac, you can't sit still, your teeth are rotting, and you won't answer my questions."

I look around, don't like where I am, and tell her, "Get up, let's go. I don't feel safe here. I don't like being in a drug den."

She stands, tucking her stained men's golf shirt into her cotton warm-up pants and asks, "Where are my keys?"

"In the door," I respond, "but you probably don't remember because the last time you entered your apartment your were probably high as a kite."

She doesn't respond and follows us down the hall and out the building.

She climbs in the back of the ambulance; I close the doors, turn the lights on, and strap her in. My partner is learning that she will probably be kicked out because of the threatening episode with her crack-head friend.

I sit there, gloved hands across my lap, and pity her. "How can you live like this?"

Random tattoos on her body tell stories of previous years. Names, quotes, and symbols all permanently stain her skin. She begins to talk. She begins telling me how she had been up all night smoking crack and drinking vodka. She tells me how her "friends" had robbed her and taken her money and her bus pass. She tells me how difficult it was to get this apartment and I tell her how quickly she lost it.

She cries, no tears, and tells me her story. She tells me she has pancreatitus and that is what has upset her stomach. I knew that, my spider-senses on number 11. She tells me I can't get a line in her, I do, and we leave for the ED.

"Why do I live like this?" she asks.

"I don't know, why do you live like this?" I imitate.

Silence.

"You need to change some things. Because at this rate you'll be dead in five years," I tell her.

Silence.

"I wish I were dead now," she whispers.

Love.

2007-03-13T14:40:00.000-06:00

What emotion is there that encompasses all others? The alpha emotion, the one that creates so many feelings ranging from laughter to sadness. The one emotion that influences personalities and urges us become someone we aren't, intimidates us into becoming someone we don't like, and at the same time make us want to be someone better.

That alpha emotion is love. What a powerful thing, and what an amazing rollercoaster ride to witness firsthand.

Of course I'm in love to my beautiful wife and she makes me smile just writing about her. And I've felt that fury knocking on my door, creeping up on me and challenging me to become someone I am not, better or worse, all because of my love for her. I have grandiose nightmares that Oscar-winning directors would dream of filming. The one's where the love of your life gets hurt, and the only thing left is renegade revenge.

But the other night, in a span of 20 minutes, I watched a son transition through every emotion known. Like the seven steps of denial, or the twelve steps in A.A., I watched him speed through every emotion in his vocabulary. Not even slowing down at the speed bumps.

We were told to wait for cover. Meaning, wait for the police because something was going on. Something, that the already preoccupied dispatcher felt might be concerning. But, when we arrived in the neighborhood, we saw the large fire truck sitting outside the address with it's light bar swiveling red, white, and blue lights. We pulled up to make sure they were O.K.

As we approached I saw a young man, with pants hanging around his thighs, nervously flinching cigarette ashes in the air. He paced with the cadence of a crack-head. Flinching to the right, stuttering to the left. He made a quick dash back inside the house as if he had heard a gunshot.

I looked at my partner and said, "That must be why we were told to wait for cover. He's high as a kite."

We opened the front door and entered through the lingering cloud of cigarette smoke dissipating in the air. I looked for the crack-head and heard him rummaging upstairs.

Blood was spattered everywhere. Bright, red blood soaked the toilet, the walls, the carpet, and the mirror as if someone had filled a balloon with it and tossed against the wall. An explosion of blood, all of which came from the mouth of the pale, sweaty man resting on the hallway door rationalizing in his head what had actually happened. He sat there, in denial, trying to tell himself that all that blood didn't come from him.

My partner tended to the patient and I strategically placed myself in the room to intercept the person I believed was on drugs. He came tearing into the room, almost knocking over a lamp, and quickly stopped in front of me.

Not looking at me, and wiping the tears from his swelling eyes with the cuff of his long sleeve T-shirt, he attempted to speak. Nothing came out but stutters and grumbles. He was too choked up to talk.

"That's his son," said a fire guy.

He then darted out of the room and disappeared from view. More noise was heard clunking in the other room.

We loaded the patient and took him out to the ambulance. I stayed with a fireman and waited for the distraught son. He came screaming down the stairs, frantically fumbled for his keys in his backpack and began to close and lock the door.

"Uhm, partner? I'm driving so it's probably best that you don't lock me in the house," I said.

His red, swollen eyes glanced up at me and he tried to get out of my way, accidentally knocking me into the wall in the process. I exited and he, again, fumbled for his keys as though trying to escape from a serial killer.

Outside, on the porch, I touched his shoulder and talked to him. "It's going to be alright. I know you are upset and that your are scared, but I promise you we will take excellent care of your father."

He nodded.

"If you are going to ride with us I need you to settle down. Take a couple of deep breaths, slow your thoughts down, and walk with me to the ambulance."

He inspired deeply and held it. Exhaling slowly, he finally looked up at me.

"If he were any sicker we wouldn't be hanging around," I said. "He's doing fine."

Again, with his sleeve he wiped his swollen eyes and tried to hide the fact that he was crying. Twenty year old don't cry, especially in front of paramedics.

Like a lost puppy, he indirectly made it to the front of the ambulance. I asked if he was O.K. and he signaled with a nod of his head "yes."

I went to the back of the ambulance to help my partner. As I began my work, the son jumped out of the ambulance and walked outside. "I'd better go check on him," I said to my partner.

I got outside and he was yelling at a neighbor. Not in a confrontational manner, but anger had already set in. His quiet vocabulary increased and became more profane.

I, again, walked him to the ambulance and told him, "Your dad is doing fine, I promise."

With that, he cried and laughed. One of those awkward cries where laughter sneaks in and makes it's presence known.

We left for the ED and I tried taking his mind of things. He quickly diverted the conversation back to the emergency at hand and we walked through what happened, step by step.

In the twenty minutes I spent with him I witnessed: confusion, grief, anger, embarrassment, laughter, joy, sorrow, fear, passion, indignation, kindness, and lastly love.

This son loved his father so much. And that powerful emotion of love, took him on the ride of his life.

The Cadillac.

2007-03-13T02:41:00.000-06:00

It was dark and I was sitting in the passenger seat. Darker than normal, it seemed. Dark, as in you can't see twenty feet ahead of you and every sparkle in the night conjures up horrible, frightening thoughts in your racing mind.

We were in the city, but never have I been so close to downtown, yet so far away. We u-turned the large ambulance in the residential street and pulled up next to the curb. Out my passenger window was an illuminated portrait of downtown. The lights of the large towering buildings beaconed through the cold darkness surrounding me. And like a lighthouse on a rocky cliff, they warned me of imminent danger.

We sat there, my partner and I, watching movies off my portable DVD player. Our faces glowing with the images capturing our attention on the little screen. I tried to enjoy the movie, but the darkness suffocated me. My eyes twitched from the screen out the windows. My pupils dilated hoping to catch the evil lurking up on us in the camouflaged distance.

I don't normally get uneasy. I feel safe in my ambulance and I am confident if something goes horribly awry, that one of our radios will be able to beacon a distress signal that will send aide.

But this place, dark and chained, scared the cr*p out of me. It felt like another world. Trash littered the pot-holed street. Chain link fences rested on the ground where people had obviously climbed over them. The houses were small and surrounded by black, iron fences. The yards were small squares of dirt with patches of weeds misplaced throughout. A field on one side of the street was sprinkled with beer bottles, cigarette wrappers, fast food boxes, shoes, and drug paraphernalia. Cars were locked behind fences and dogs were on the prowl, looking for anyone attempting to invade their personal property.

The movie played and lights swept the intersection as cars turned down our block. They drove slow and menacingly. And this one Cadillac continually circled like a shark, prowling around us in the distance, always returning to where we sat. The horn barked at us as they drove past, telling us they didn't want us there.

It's red taillights, in the distance, stared at us like beady little devil eyes.

The Cadillac with no plates, the one with felonious occupants with nothing to loose in this world and a chip on their shoulder. The Cadillac that had someone that needed to prove something to somebody.

I looked to memorize the numbers on the plate, but it was absent. I thought, in case they decided to begin shooting at us with their new toys they probably traded for with stolen DVD players and drugs, that it would be nice to have when we had to call for police cover. It circled the block multiple times, leering at us because we were obviously somewhere we shouldn't be. And inside I pictured the teens trying to talk themselves into using those toys. The toys that penetrate metal, shatter glass, and kill paramedics.

The Cadillac drove past, went to the end of the block, and slowly and deliberately made another u-turn. It stopped in front of us and it's headlights shot into the ambulance cab. It lurched forward and crept slowly towards the ambulance. They turned the lights off and I got ready to call for help. Where the hell were we? It approached, my stomach sank and my spine shrank, and it passed.

Inside, I imagined the words, "DO IT, DO IT. "F*CKING SHOOT THEM" being shouted to the newly inducted gang member.

They passed, my partner and I looked at one another, and knew what one another was thinking. We started the engine, dropped the gears into D, and sped out of that black hole like children running from the boogieman.

Who knows who was inside that Cadillac, for all I know it could have been an elderly lady looking for her bridge club. But, at that moment in time, with all the nothingness surrounding me and darkness chilling me to the bone on that comfortable March evening I was scared to death.

And there's nothing wrong with that.

Intravenous.

2007-03-11T11:41:00.000-06:00

The back doors slam shut, rattling the tinted and screened window in back. In front of me, an altered, bruised, bleeding patient struggling to stay alive. Memories of better times trace the patient's brain and ominously fall into that stereotyped category of seeing one's "life flash before your eyes". I rip off my bloody, blue gloves and throw them into the garbage. I try to slide my new pair on, over my sweaty palms, and struggle greatly. I adjust the tips of the fingers, look down at the patient, and tell myself to get to work.

We are five miles away from the trauma center and averaging 60 mph. I do the algebra in my head and come to 5 minutes. I have 5 minutes to stabilize this patient, prepare my story, clean my mess, and package him neatly so when we arrive into the ED everyone silently "oohs" and "ahhs" over the efficiency displayed in front of them.

I reach blindly behind my back and search for the blood pressure cuff. In the well, between the glove boxes and tourniquets, I find it cowering in the corner. I rip the Velcro, wrap it around the only good arm available, squeeze the black bulb like a teen playing a video game, and watch the needle apex at 200 mm/hg. Slowly, and as quietly as possible, I ease the little silver knob on the cuff to gradually release pressure. The patient's arm is raised by mine, so it floats in the air and won't absorb any indirect road vibration. My eyes squint on the needle as it falls counter clockwise and begins to twitch. Those twitches, hopefully, correspond with the faint thump of the exerted heart within. 70/20, seventy over twenty, if I heard it correctly. Again, 70/?, seventy over something. The huge bumps, the vibrating ambulance, the loud air horn, the sirens, my partner yelling at me, the dispatcher on the radio, the patient moaning, and my cell phone ringing in my pocket, all prevent me from hearing that last number.

Must be my wife, I'll have to call her back.

Slapping me in the brim of the hat, with each knot in the road, is the tubing to the I.V. It screams at me with each sway from the hook on the handrail attached to the ceiling. "Time is ticking -fast, and you need me -now," it silently fills my head.

To my right, on the bench seat, is my next goal. I duck forward to look through the small opening dividing the patient compartment and driver's compartment, and quickly try to recognize some landmarks. The surroundings screaming by look quite familiar. I plug this new variable into my algebraic equation and deduce I have 3 minutes.

I tourniquet the left arm of the patient. Wrapping the plastic tubing as tightly as I can around the upper portion of the bicep, ending it with a fancy little knot that allows me to "pop" the tourniquet open once I'm done preventing deoxygenated blood from returning to the heart.

I slide forward on the bench, check my gloves for any blood, and grab the cell phone attached to the metal wall. I push a series of buttons, push the green button, wait uncomfortably as the sirens remind me we are advancing quickly, and finally get a MD on the other end. Here's what I got, what I'm doing, and when we'll be there. I punch the red button on the bottom and the sling the phone forward, hoping that it lands anywhere near it's designated area.

I slide back down on the bench seat to where I was previously. I rip open a small square encasing an alcohol swab, pull it out, and as concentrically as possible, attempt to somewhat sterilize the filthy arm where I plan on poking the patient with a needle.

I've marked my bull’s-eye. I grab the 3 inch wrapped needle and rip the packing off, attempting to toss it into the trash and, like a feather floating in the wind, it lands not but a foot away from me.

I straighten the elbow, pull back the skin, see the bulge in the crook of the elbow, and stab. I push the 14-gauge needle through the tough outer layer of skin and advance it until a little chamber in the needle fills with blood, telling me that I am in a vein. I stop advancing the needle, move my forefinger onto the catheter tip, and like E.T., push my finger forward advancing the catheter into the blood-swelled vein. I hook up a device that allows me to draw bloods for the ED. A tiger top, because the top looks like a tiger, a blue one, a red one, and a few more that I can't remember the colors of.

I pop my safety lock on the tourniquet and blood rushes back into the circulatory system. The arm pinkens as everything returns to normal.

Again, I lean forward and determine where we are. 1 minute away.

I repeat the previous process on the other arm. This time, it takes me half as long.

I cover the semi-clad patient with a sheet as the siren changes from a steady wail to a whoop-whoop. We're pulling in. I grab the green oxygen cylinder and slide it between the patient's legs, attaching the vital end of the oxygenating mask to the outlet spewing out 15 liters of oxygen per minute.

Next, I follow the I.V. wires to the bags hanging from the handrail and lay them on the patient's lap as well. The doors pop open and my partner, as well as anyone else killing time in the ED ambulance bay, quickly unlatch the bed from the locking mechanism and pull him out the back, catching the wheels as they drop to the pavement. My patient is now taken from me and quickly wheeled into the ED. I follow, reciting the poetry in my head that is about to be yelled in a large room with a lot of people.

I enter the ED behind my patient, watching all the white coats scurry into the room like bugs under a white light. I attempt to wipe off the beads of sweat on my forehead, but quickly realize that my arm is just as sweaty as my head. I want desperately to fix my hat, clean the sweat, and tuck in my shirt for this emergent rendezvous, but can't because spots of blood stain my gloves.

I turn the corner into the large room and say,

"Is everyone here that needs to be here?"

Red headed stepchild in a bathroom stall.

2007-03-08T14:52:00.000-07:00

Time for a little moaning.

Ten hours a day, four days a week. Sixteen times a month, one hundred ninety-two days a year.

One hundred ninety-two days a year times ten hour shifts equals close to two thousand hours of me fighting the evil advances of claustrophobia. Two thousand hours of the soiled arm rest to my left closing in on me, poking me in the side of my chest. The steering wheel, tilted as forward as possible, always impeding my precious living space, starring at me like a bully on the playground.

The sunken, broken-springed chair reclines to a coach class comfortable 80 degrees and doesn't slide back to allow my aching legs to move about and circulate blood because the wall dividing us from the patient compartment bows it's chest at my every thought. Above my head, a speaker. Continually, CONTINUALLY, barking addresses and information. And as if all that's not bad enough, forty times an hour someone airs what time it is. Therefore, the dripping second hand off of Salvador Dali's clock always lingers in my thoughts and constantly reminds me how much longer my misery shall last.

My office is the size of a bathroom stall, with someone else in there, sitting right next to me.

Then, add the fact that we drive all over the city, all the time, in all the traffic, regardless of the time or weather. Go here, sit and try and get comfortable, and then move. Go from the far west side of town to the far east, all in rush hour traffic surrounded by angry, honking, tail-gaiting, hypertensive, future cardiac patients. Patients that will inevitably never say thank you.

But that isn't what bothers me, too terribly.

I sit there avoiding evil leers from the public that treat me like their red headed stepchild. "Christmas already? I guess you can sit at the table."

Harry Potter, C3P0, Cinderella, the maid of Diff'rent Strokes, Barry Gibbs' little brother, Robin (of Batman fame), Ashlee Simpson, any of Alec Baldwin's brothers, the second guy to step foot on the moon, and me!

We are allies in this world of hypocrites. We all have special talents, but until those talents are needed we are swept under the carpet, or locked in the shed, until summoned by one of those in need. "Did someone say those in neeeeed?" We are relegated to the underworld. We are told to keep our head down and our mouths shut until that one moment when we are needed. Then, we come out of hiding, do our deed without any acknowledgement or thank you, and then melt back into the memories of those we came to aide.

So remember. When you sneak up on to the side of my toilet stall office in your gold windbreaker and velvet workout pants, batting your blue eye-shadowed eyeballs, asking that I turn my ambulance off because it "bothers" you and you believe it causes excess pollution, that I'm that red headed stepchild that you will call upon to save your life. I'm the one you've stuffed under your stairwell because you're embarrassed of my special, "magical" powers.

And then, when I politely respond to you and apologize for trying to keep warm by running the ambulance because it's 20 degrees outside, don't continue to passive-aggressively push the subject.

"Yes, we do this all over the city."

"No, I'm not concerned about the environmental effects of the engine." And neither are you, you just use that political point to try and gain advantage.

"Yes, like I said, I'll be happy to move."

"No, there's no place we can sit and have coffee at this hour."

Unless you'd like to invite us in? Ohh, wait. We're one of the Baldwin’s you don't like.

I think next week I'll randomly appear at some office downtown. Passive-aggressively knock on one of the hollow doors to an office and treat you, like you treat me.

"Uhm, do you really need all those lights? I mean, what about the environment?"

"Can you close your window? Turn the air up? Would you move your desk, please? You can't sit there."

I'll hide in the corner and shout randomly, "It's 3:15. It's 3:18. It's 3:45. Time is, 4:00. It's 4:01."

"And, well, now that we're talking about it, I'd like you to move all your stuff into the closet and finish your business in there. Grab another employee, we need you to sit no further than 3 feet apart from one another for the rest of the week."

Then, once situated in that dark, cramped stockroom, I'll wait until you pull out your lunch, heat it up, and then say,

"Excuse me? You need to run across the street in the rain, into the lobby where the security guards are going to quiz you about what's going on, then up five flights of stairs. Then, find our contact and try to get the super-secret password from him. Bring him, and the password, against his will over here. And all the while, I need you to change his clothes and comb his hair."

Now you know what I feel like.

But remember. Cinderella got her prince, Harry Potter became a wizard, Ashlee Simpson's career...well, nevermind, and the second man that walked on the moon -he got to walk on the moon!

Fishbowl.

2007-03-06T02:23:00.000-07:00

We pulled into the 7-11 and eased the ambulance into the distant regions of the parking lot. Sitting next to a wall, in front of a dumpster, and beside an alley, we tried to blend the bright orange and white, boxy, ambulance into its surroundings. It was daytime, and not yet dark enough for us to find a secluded hiding place away from all of humanity. Plus, it was these hours of the day we enjoyed sitting there in our little office watching the characters of everyday life pass in front of us. 72" of windshield framed the frenetic characters dancing around us like a big-screen television. It was better than HD, it was real life.

But the tables were soon turned. The hunter quickly became the hunted. The voyeurs suddenly were the objects of desire.

I saw him across the street, in the crosswalk. He stood there pushing the round, silver button on the large light pole like a button on a joystick. He concentrated on the red, no-walk light as if he were an owl pearched in a tree searching for mice. He was determined to witness the colors change from red to green. It switched, he proclaimed something out loud, and contrary to all his previous actions, began to slowly mosey across the busy four-way intersection.

He was talking, a lot, to himself. Hands were moving and gestures were articulated as though he was in a high school debating contest. All this animation caught my eye and made me sit up from my scrunched position in the ambulance to study him further. He was prime people-watching material and both my partner, and myself, prepared ourselves for the show that was surely about to ensue.

Then suddenly, like a cat stalking a mouse, he quickly shifted his gaze and locked his radar on the ambulance.

"Ohh, shit," I said. "I think he's seen us."

He continued crossing the diagonal walk at his own ease. He had no intention of moving quickly now and, even though the light had already turned green, and the traffic to his right was beginning to push forward, he stutter-stepped his way to the sidewalk.

"Please, oh please don't come over here," I said.

And like sonar on a submarine, he changed his coordinates and zeroed in on the ambulance. He was now walking quickly. He had a mission, and it was orange and white with two paramedics in it.

He passed the gas pumps, lost his bearing and gradually swayed towards the front door of 7-11.

"Maybe he's just going to get something to drink?" asked my partner, already knowing the answer to his hypothetical question.

He regained his bearings and stomped each foot in front of one another and aimed his body at my window.

"Please go to your side, please go to your window," I mumbled, like a ventriloquist, to my partner without moving my lips.

Again, radar locked on to weakness, he approached my window. He gestured to me to roll it down and I complied.

He said nothing. He smiled, gave us a thumbs up, and fixed his pompadour blowing in the wind. He moved to the front of the ambulance and pointed at the light bar.

"What do you think he wants?" asked my partner.

"I don't know, you think he wants to see the lights?"

My partner reached his right hand along the black row of switches and like Jerry Lee Lewis on the piano, slid his hand from right to left. The lights clanked above us and he again smiled, said nothing, and gave us another thumbs up. He then pointed at the hood.

"What does he want now?" I asked.

"The siren?"

"Uhh, sure. Give him a little toot."

My partner slid his left foot from where it was resting and tapped the little button hidden on the floor well that sounds the airhorn.

One sharp blast like tug boat sounded and the voyeur jumped back, fixed his faltered pompadour again, and then he smiled and gave us another thumbs up.

He approached the ambulance. Looked at every light and touched the silver, indestructible, airhornes on the side of the hood. He went to the side door, slid open the tinted patient compartment window, pushed his nose into the screen and inhaled deeply.

"What's he doing? I can't see him," I squirmed.

"Uhh, he's sniffing the ambulance," my partner said.

He felt the orange stripe along the side as the walked around the back. He took in every detail of the ambulance. It was almost as if he where from outer space and had never seen such a thing. He continued his journey towards the driver's door, being sure to examine every light on the ambulance closely.

Again he got to my partner's window, gestured that he roll it down, and then with a big smile gave us a thumbs up. No words spoken, he walked off into the distance.

We sat there in our little fishbowl as he crossed the street and disappeared into the rush hour foot traffic.

I couldn't help but feel that now everyone that entered that parking lot was staring at us.

We were two fish swimming in a fishbowl for everyone to see.

As good as it gets.

2007-03-02T13:54:00.000-07:00

The elevator lurched to a stop and the door slowly opened. My destination, the twentieth floor, had arrived very slowly -ding after ding until the number twenty was dimly illuminated on the yellowed number panel. The doors clanked and hesitantly opened to reveal that the elevator floor, for which I was standing on, was not even with my destined floor. I had to step up, out of the elevator, to securely plant my black boot on the worn, carpeted floor.

Like a scrolled map to a treasure, numbers with arrows pointed in various directions. 2100-2119, to the left. 2119-2300 to the right. I quickly did the math in my head, inserting the apartment number I had been given into the equation, and decided like a fifth grader which set of numbers it fell in-between. To the left.

The long hall seemed to get smaller in the distance. Like a maze in Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory, I saw myself getting bigger, and the hall becoming smaller, as I strolled into the distance looking for the X on my map.

The front door of his apartment was already cracked, for he was expecting us. Through the crack created by the patient, I could see the kitchen counter tops and the rotting food imbedding itself into the Formica counter tops. I heard shuffling inside and someone speaking very softly. I knocked on the door politely, as the figure eclipsed my view of the kitchen, and began speaking.

"I can't void," he said looking down at the dirty carpet.

"I can't void," he reiterated.

He held his unbuttoned blue jeans with one hand and continuously tapped his finger and thumb together with his other, as if he were measuring time while conducting a symphony. His mustache had food from previous days, his shirt was buttoned awkwardly and as though he had dressed in the dark. He wore a belt, but it was interlaced sporadically through the loops. His slip-on New Balance house shoes were worn at the heels and it was obvious that many miles had rubbed certain areas more than others.

"I...I...I...can't...I can't...I can't void." He timed his speech as if sitting in front of a metronome. His finger's still kept the intrinsic beat in his chaotic mind.

"I wouldn't have called. But I think I need a catheter. Can you do that?"

"No sir," I responded, "I am unable to do that. But I would be more than happy to take you somewhere where they can."

He glanced up at me with his eyes without moving his head, then continued to scan the filthy carpet from left to right.

"Grab your things and we'll go," I said.

He shuffled some papers on the glass counter top. I saw discontinuance notices stacked atop overdue bills. He searched his mind for everything he might need and began collecting those items. He stuffed papers, prescriptions, pieces of food, and other small trinkets into the pockets of his black pea coat that was draped behind his back, on his elbows, like a shawl.

As he collected everything -picking it up, putting it down, then picking it up and putting it into his pocket, I looked around the his apartment.

A wood bookshelf stretching from floor to ceiling encompassed the dining room and living room. Books, thousands of books, were precisely placed on the shelving. The wide ones side-by-side and decreasing in size from the left to the right. Paperbacks lined one shelf, large books, another. Alphabetized, the American History books were his passports to another world. Where one saw a wall, he saw a window. Those books were his friends, and regardless of how many times he took one down, put it back, and took one down again to read, they never judged him.

Along the opposing walls, about eyelevel, were small little shelves displaying hours and hours of his tedious work. Small-scaled models of ancient arenas made from plastic where sitting prestigiously. I expected to see miniature Gladiators fighting one another in the precise re-creations.

And on the wall, in the hall were his degrees. Bachelors from California, Masters from Colorado, Doctorate from Florida. Idealogical dissertations sat stacked upon one another on an end table.

We exited his apartment and he tried to quell all the regular impulses he has when leaving his apartment. He closed, opened, closed, opened, and then locked the front door. His fingers had stopped the rhythm he was counting in his head, but his respirations increased methodically like a back-up singer in a band.

"Thank you for being nice to me," he whispered as he sat in the ambulance. "Have you ever seen As Good As It Gets, with Jack Nicholson?" he asked.

"Yes, I have. Kind of a sad movie." I responded as I seat belted him in.

"I didn't like it. It portrayed a negative image of people with O.C.D. That's what I have." His knee was know bouncing up and down like a jackhammer on the ambulance floor. "I have rituals that I need to do."

I asked if he didn't mind sharing them and he quickly became uncomfortable. I apologized, "I didn't mean to insult you," I said.

"That's okay. You've been very nice to me. Thank you. I can't void and I believe I need a catheter."

As we neared our destination he briefly looked up at me, still refusing to make eye contact, and said, "My biggest fear is that people will think I'm stupid. I don't want people to believe I'm stupid."

I looked at him, locked his eyes with mine and said, "Me too."

Green Eyes.

2007-03-01T14:57:00.000-07:00

Blue pants, white shirt, black shoes, red hair, and those green eyes. That was my third rider the other day.

She sat smiling in the back, in the Captain's chair, waiting, hoping, for our ambulance number to be called. It was her day off, and although she had better things to do, she wanted to spend ten hours in the back of an ambulance hoping to see what she had only heard of.

Seatbelt secured around her waist, she turned the chair forward and scrunched down so she could look out the front window as we screamed down the city streets. Her elbows on her knees, and her hands framing her smiling face, she sat in the back with anticipation. Her eyes blinked as they darted left, then right, while she took in the urban sprawl flying at her at 60 mph.

We arrived on scene. I talked in code on the radio and she repeated in the background. She unbuckled and crouched in the back as she opened the heavy side door. We both stepped out and met one another as we approached the curb. Her green eyes watching my every step.

She followed us in and carefully placed herself next to the door, per my instructions. "If anything goes wrong," I said, "Go to the ambulance and lock the doors."

"Who should I call?" she asked.

"911," I said seriously.

Like someone from another country she took in every detail. She looked at the house, the patient, the art on the wall, the television, and the dirty faces of the children running from room to room. She listened to every sound, smelled every smell, and emotionally attached herself to the misery presenting in front of us.

In the back of the ambulance she sat quietly, like a fly on the wall. Watching me and wondering what the patient was thinking. Occasionally, I would tell her what I thought was going on, not that she already didn't know, and she would smile at me and blink her emerald green eyes.

For ten hours we hustled around the city responding to 911 calls. What was, more often than not, miserable to me was exciting and fascinating to her. She had the excitement and wonderment that I once had. She had all the feelings that I so desperately wanted to return to me.

She saw the tragedy of everyday life. And with those green eyes reminded me that what I'm doing isn't futile. That I can still believe in things how I once did. I can believe, although as difficult as it sometimes may be, that I am actually making a difference and helping people.

Those green eyes turned my blue soul upside down.

It's not that I don't like people. It's just that I feel a whole lot better when they're not around.

2007-02-28T03:21:00.000-07:00

These are the people I met tonight:

A lady with a tattoo of red lips on her forearm sitting in Dodge Neon with personalized license plates on the side of the highway. Stains on her white T-shirt, sandals in the middle of winter, and long, curly, painted fingernails with snakes on them.

"Can you check my babies out? Can you tell me if they are hurt?" she puffs.

I poke my head into the back window and look at the dirty-faced children eating soggy french fries off the backseat covered in litter.

"You kids hurt?"

"No," they giggle.

I move back to the front window, "They say they're not hurt. I asked them. Anything else?"

Next, the middle aged man who probably still lives with his mother and plays Nintendo Wii in the basement in-between raging sessions of Dungeon's and Dragon's. Sensible, Colorado-eco-friendly shoes, khaki pants that never wrinkle - the one's with the crease magically always present, and a white button-up oxford with earthy-toned sweater. His coat was off, but I assume it had patches on the elbows and was stitched of herringbone. Very classy, I'm sure his mother was proud.

Talking as if someone was pinching his nose with a thumb and forefinger, he sputtered like a lonely, elderly lady with thirty cats. "Well, he hit me pretty hard. I mean I didn't get knocked out, but he certainly drove under my car and lifted it up off the ground." he rambled and rambled, and rambled. I looked out the small window and watched the snowfall. It sure was pretty.

"Wow, now I'm dizzy. I don't know, though. Should I go?" he rambled, and rambled, and rambled. I watched the passerbyers as they weaved through the maze of emergency vehicles.

"I just don't know. I'm really dizzy. I wasn't this dizzy before, but now that I'm in an ambulance I am really dizzy. Maybe it's all the, you-know, from the accident. Let me call my primary care physician. No wait, I'd better call so-and-so, but I can't, she's pregnant, and it's snowing outside. Would you go?” He rambled, and rambled and rambled.

I was on thirty-five when I answered. I was trying to count to one hundred. "You need to make up your mind. Either come with us or don't, but we can't sit here all day."

Then the man wearing five coats, two pairs of pants, four pairs of socks, white belt with matching stained, white tennis shoes, and a mesh hat picked up from a truck stop. None of it his. In his pockets: folded paper receipts, a telephone book page of financial consultants, a cross, a Gillette Mach Three razor, combs, a lighter, cigarette butts, a wrapped up taqito from 7-11, sunglasses, a wallet reminiscent of George Castanza chained to his white belt, more papers, and finally, a pornographic picture sized to fit in his wallet and showing only the "business" part of that industry.

Then, the seedy motel with 2 drunken guys and an even drunker Polish chick "freshening up" in the bathroom. Stumbling drunk from cheap American vodka in her red sweat suit with white high-tops, she stumbled out of the bathroom as I knocked forcefully on the hollow door with the butt of my flashlight. She was as pleasant as a prostate exam and successfully pushed all my buttons. But what happens when you successfully push all my buttons? You go to detox.

Lastly, the twenty-something gangster. The one that wears the baggy jeans and the white tennis shoes with the red athletic shirt. The one with the stupid hat clocked sideways and the brim flatter than a pancake. The one that rolls around town trying to intimidate people through the tinted windows of his Dodge Stratus with two stock wheels and 2 spinners. The one that had a Venti Latte from Starbucks in the cup holder of the dash -because sometimes he just needs a little pick-me-up on a Wednesday night while he's out on the town trying to create chaos.

"Yo, what up? I wanna venti, caramel mocha latte with extra whip, foo."

"And for my peeps, they wanna cinnamon dolce latte with extra whip and a iced, chai latte, foo! West side!"

Fifteen minutes. (part two)

2007-02-26T02:01:00.000-07:00

Sirens wailed in the distance, echoing off the stucco walls of the middle-class neighborhood. Traffic created a new flow and slowly passed the scene of the accident, all occupants inside glued to the drama unfolding before them. He shoved his hand out and stopped traffic as he began to cross the street. He felt so powerful and respected. Who else could stop the inevitable flow of traffic with the palm of a hand?

He knocked on the sedan's driver side window. He knelt uncomfortably and peered into the vehicle, stating he was a paramedic. He asked if anyone was hurt. Still dazed, the occupant nodded her head no as she gasped on the sulpherous odor of the airbag chemicals. He shined his light into the passenger compartment, scanning what he thought was important, scanning what he believed real paramedics would look at.

The sirens were getting closer. The radio chatter on his stolen radio was becoming more pronounced. He heard the police dispatcher sending units and heard that EMS was enroute.

But it was too intoxicating. The lights, the sounds, the blood, and the feeling of power. He was in charge. He was the one everyone on this accident scene was looking to for help. His mind told him to get in his car and leave, his jealousy made him stay.

He walked over to the upside down SUV. Broken glass crumpled under his steel-toed boots as he approached the vehicle. One patient was already out and walking around. He quickly dismissed this person and began to focus on the one bleeding in the grass. He knelt down, at the patient's head, and began talking. He began rendering patient care and tried to convince the patient, and himself, that everything was going to be alright.

He could see the flashing emergency lights now. He could hear the sirens getting louder and louder, closer and closer. "Run, get out of here," said a voice in his head. But he couldn't. He was powerful, unstoppable, and invincible. He was intoxicated with he power of being in charge and his judgment faded more and more at each turn of the approaching ambulance's tires.

He had seen paramedics on T.V. hold cervical spine immobilization after someone had been in an accident, he saw it on The Discovery Channel. He knelt and held the patients head between his legs, looking down at their bloodied face and proud that he instilled a sense of calmness in the patient in a moment of crisis.

The police arrived. Two squad cars parked on opposite sides of the accident, preventing any and all traffic from passing through. They quickly scanned the scene, taking in all the clues as to what may have happened. In the darkness, next to an upside SUV, was what seemed to be a kneeling paramedic in a white shirt. But where was his ambulance? The police approached the cars as an ambulance came to a screeching halt in the middle of the intersection.

The paramedics from the ambulance fell out of the lifted compartment and quickly separated. One went to the sedan, an officer interrupted the other as he made his way to the SUV. Still, more sirens echoed from seemingly every direction as more police and a paramedic supervisor arrived.

And still, in the darkness, struggling with every feeling to flee, was the fastfood paramedic. He was in over his head, there were too many real professional EMS crews on scene. But, it felt so good. Like a sweet piece of cake after dinner, he savored every moment.

An officer approached and he ducked his head like a child caught stealing. He mumbled that he need to retrieve something from the ambulance and slyly weaved his way around objects so as not to be seen by the real paramedics. He had a gauntlet to run and knew it was going to be difficult. He had to cross the street to get back to his girlfriend's Mustang. In doing that, he would have to pass two cop cars, an ambulance, and the paramedic supervisor's Expedition. And like a Marine taking fire, he tucked his head and swiftly crossed that minefield. Twenty steps. Twenty steps and he would be home free.

"Who's that?" he heard as he dodged the first mine.

"Who? Him? I thought he was with you?" mused one of the real paramedics.

The supervisor approached the ambulance and the police asking, "Who the fuck is that?"

"We don't know. But he's wearing a uniform and has a radio."

He was almost there. He could see the Mustang and his girlfriend leaning against the driver's door. He pointed, as nonchalantly as he could, at his girlfriend, hoping she would understand to get in the car and get ready to leave. He wanted to look behind him, it felt as though the world was watching his every move. Just 10 more steps, just 10 steps and he would be inside the Mustang and able to leave.

"I don't, does he have a patch"

"Yeah, he has a patch. But I've never seen him before."

The paid paramedics questioned one another as they attempted to continue managing the accident scene.

"Well," said the paramedic supervisor, "I'm gonna go see who he is."

5 steps. He told his girlfriend to get in the car and start it up. It was time to leave. His heart was racing. Partly because he done what he had dreamed of for so long. And partly, because he was as scared as he had been that day the police knocked his front door down. 5 steps, and he wouldn't have to go back to jail.

"Excuse me? Hey!" asked the supervisor.

3 steps. He could almost reach the handle.

"Hey!"

He grabbed the handle, pulled it up and sprung the mechanism allowing him to swing the awkward door open. He quickly sat down and closed it forcefully. "Let's go!" he told his girlfriend.

The supervisor tapped on the window and his heart sank. Beads of sweat formed on his brow and he could feel the course injection of blood move through his entire body with each pump of his heart. His girlfriend looked awkwardly at him as if asking, "Well, aren't you going to open the door?"

He rolled the window down and avoided any eye contact with the supervisor.

"You new here?"

He stuttered. The powers of his uniform were failing him. He had no idea what to say. He cleared his throat and awkwardly said, " Excuse me?"

"You new here? I haven't seen you around. Who's your FTO?" Inquired the supervisor.

He shifted in his seat. He couldn't speed away, he wasn't driving. He couldn't lock the door and roll the window up and scream at his proud, yet confused, girlfriend. He mustered his last bit of courage and made up some generic, false name.

"Well," said the supervisor, "I need you to come over to the ambulance and sign something stating you made patient contact." The supervisor grabbed the metal handle, pulled up, and opened the rust stained door. "It'll just take a second."

He looked at his girlfriend with a look of sheer terror. He was cornered, he was busted, and he was about to go back to jail. He wiped the sweat from his brow with his forearm, swung his foot out of the well, and attempted to stand on his feeble legs. He looked at the accident scene and it looked nothing like before. It was cold and chaotic. It was swarming with police and frightened him to death. He knew if he walked back to that accident scene his life would never be the same.

"Alright," he mumbled, "I'll be right over."

"No, let's do it now," the supervisor grunted seriously.

He stood and in the blink of an eye, ran. He ran as far, and as fast, from that accident scene as he could. He ran from his girlfriend and all his hopes and dreams. He ran for his life, because he knew if he was caught, that it would drastically change forever. Behind him he heard pounding footsteps on the pavement.

"EMS 14, he's running. North bound on this street. Blue pants, white shirt.... Uhh, dressed like one of us. Wearing our uniform."

He turned down a black alley, jumped over a fence and hurdled some lawn chairs. He had lost the supervisor and quickly fumbled for his stolen police radio on his belt. One drunken, lonely friday night he had studied all the police districts of this city and quickly turned the knob to the one he was hiding in.

Police chattered on the radio, airing a description and his last known whereabouts. He could hear the thud-thud-thud of the police helicopter above as they scanned the ground with their floodlight. He found a dark corner, removed all his clothes, including his bulletproof vest, and closely monitored the radio. He quietly hopped from yard to yard as he heard Metro arrive on scene with the K-9. He knew he was in trouble.

For three hours he played cat and mouse with the SWAT team. Cold, scared, and surrendered, he raised his arms towards the sky as the K-9 barked uncontrollably at him. He was caught.

His eyes closed as he was taken to the ground and handcuffed. His hopes shattered as he was forced to the pavement.

He laid there flat on the cold pavement. For twenty-four years he had been a looser. Twenty-four years and no one had ever taken him serious. Twenty-four years and look where he had gotten -flat on the cold ground with his hands cuffed behind his back, K-9 barking at his heels.

He began to cry. And as he was lifted up onto his feet and escorted to the cage in the police car he looked at the flashing lights of that car accident on the horizon. In twenty-four years, it was those fifteen minutes on that accident scene that he'll never forget.

For fifteen minutes, he was respected.

For fifteen minutes, he was somebody.

Fifteen minutes. (part one)

2007-02-24T00:34:00.000-07:00

He quickly untucked his white shirt, stained with mustard and jalapeno sauce, as he exited the fastfood restaurant he was forced to work at. The fading red 1980's mustang, with the dream catcher hanging from the rearview mirror, sat sputtering in the parking lot. Below it, the stains of oil tattooed the concrete in-between the yellow parking lines from its previous times of waiting, and idling. Inside, a pony tailed young girl sat smoking a cigarette. Four months pregnant, she was there to pick up her boyfriend and take him to his next job.

They were both young and dropouts. He, twenty-four and the eldest of many displaced children, already had a felony record and was on probation. He had already experienced what it was like to wear those bright orange jumpsuits and shuffle from jail to courthouse with legs shackled by steel. And as tough as he was on the outside -in the real world, he had no intention of ever going back. He'd never forget the day the FCC, ATF, and Police kicked his mother's front door down and stormed into his room where he sat illegally programming city owned police radios.

She was in love and not yet eighteen. She had decided school was a waste of time and that her days were better spent in the park smoking weed and drinking bottles of beer wrapped in brown paper sacks. She had been in many relationships and had already been on the receiving end of a domestic violence charge. All she wanted was to find the right man so they could someday settle down and start their very own little dysfunctional family.

Their two-bedroom apartment, on the wrong side of town, was shared with his best friend. They met in juvy. He got him his job at Subway. And between the three of them, bills were paid relatively on time and there was always just enough with their $600 paychecks to buy a bottle of booze, a case of Bud, and a bag of weed. Weekends were worth waiting for.

But tonight, he had his other job to go to. The job that made him feel important. The one that, when asked where he worked, made him smile grandly as he told them which hospital service he worked for. The one that his girlfriend was proud of and the one his best friend was jealous of. The one job that identified him as a valuable person in this society.

The job that he didn't have. The one that was fake. And although he told people, including his girlfriend, that he was a Paramedic for the City and County, that was far from the truth.

He slung his backpack off his shoulder and into the back seat of the rotting Mustang. Although it was after midnight, he informed his girlfriend that he had been called into work and needed to go out into the bustling city to render medical aide to all it's worthy citizens. He told his girl that he only worked at restaurant because it paid the bills, being a Paramedic was what made him feel good about being a man.

She plucked a cassette off the large dash and shoved it into the knobless radio. He climbed over the red, felt seats into the back seat and rummaged through his backpack. He meticulously unrolled its contents and placed them on the McDonald's wrappers in the seat next to him.

Blue cargo pants, black boots, black belt, and white shirt were all draped officially over the front passenger seat. Next, came the orange handled trauma shears, the maglight, the bulletproof vest, and the belt-attached radio holder. The radio, and one other item, remained in the beer stained backpack.

He changed his clothes and instantly felt more important. He felt smarter and stronger and prettier. Although tired from standing for ten hours and making sandwiches, he instantly became rejuvenated and felt awake, alive. He climbed back over the broken seats and fixed his hair in the vanity mirror. He told his girl that when they got near the hospital, she could just drop him a few blocks away, he didn't want her to not see him have enough courage to not walk anywhere near where all the real paramedics were.

As he reached into the back seat and pulled his backpack forward onto his lap, the top opened enough so that his girl could see what looked like a gun. He quickly stuttered and became nervous, but then summoned the powers of his uniform and simply told her that it was a dangerous job and that this was something he needed to carry for his safety. Little did she know, that once she dropped him off, he disappeared into the night running far from that hospital.

She turned onto Avenue and headed west. What little time she had to spend with her boyfriend she wanted to enjoy. She lit him a cigarette and told him how proud she was of him, how wonderful it was to have a boyfriend that saved lives. He sat, blowing smoke out a crack in the window, relishing the fact that he was somebody now. Wishing that he really were going to work that night, dreaming that someday he might just become a real paramedic.

Red lights framed the intersection ahead of them. Hazards flashed as smoke seeped from the hood of one car. In the distance, propped against a wooden fence, was an upside SUV. Bloodied bodies were crawling out the broken glass windows onto the soft, green yard. A lady sat crying in the driver's seat of a sedan involved in the accident. They had driven up onto an accident. Although they didn't witness the actual event, they arrived just as the dust from the airbags settled onto the floorboards.

What was he to do? He was in uniform. He was going to work. This is what he did. He sat sweating in the passenger seat as the Mustang inched closer. What was he to tell his girlfriend? How would he explain to her that instead of stopping they needed to drive on, that he needed to get to work. This is what he did, this was his job. How could he not help?

She looked at him as they neared, excited that she was about to witness the love of her life do what he had talked about so many times before. All those nights getting drunk and high with him in the park and listening to him recant gory details of such gnarly accidents was finally about to be witnessed. A tear came to her eye as she realized that she was about to witness her boyfriend save a life.

They pulled passed the accident and off onto a side street. She flicked the hazard button on the broken steering column and as the yellow lights clicked on and off, her boyfriend, her hero, exited the car. He clipped his radio onto his belt, grabbed his flashlight and began to walk towards the chaos in the middle of the street.

Private Dick.

2007-02-23T01:15:00.000-07:00

I don't mind, too terribly, standing out in the middle of the street while snow falls gently upon my uniform and attempts to chill me to the bone. I don't mind, too terribly, working all hours of the night and having to step into 6-foot snowdrifts. And I don't mind, too terribly, those dimly lit rooms with the black and white TV casting its shadows on the altered patient who has not been out of bed, or changed the sheets, in months. I relish those as exercises in humility and patience. Those aspects, as annoying as they sometimes seem, actually make my job personally challenging on a daily basis. There's no routine, and I don't mind that.

What I do mind is my private life being intruded upon. Especially by some "investigator". I'm not the President, and therefore on my days off, when I'm not gallivanting around town in blue pants and a white shirt, I have no official responsibilities to the public at large. I am not a public servant; I am an everyday Joe, a tax-paying, law-abiding, laid-back citizen.

My life away from my job is private. That's why the house isn't in my name, why the phone is unlisted, and getting my social security number is like breaking into Ft. Knox. I don't wear paramedic hats, don't stroll around the block in paramedic shirts, and I especially don't go cruising the town looking for sick and injured people. My private life is just that, PRIVATE!

Obviously lawyers, or insurance companies, or investigators, or whoever it is right now trying to subpoena me, thinks differently. In their cubicle-laden, 9-5 white-collared jobs, they must obviously think that since 40 hours a week I work for the City and County that I must surely always be available for their beck and call. They are mistaken.

Today, an "investigator" decided to try and find me. Because I was sick the last few days I missed a couple of shifts. That blessing-in-disguise foiled their attempts to subpoena me at work. But, instead of pursuing the correct avenues of finding me through my workplace, they decided to go Magnum P.I. on me and hire some paramedic bounty hunter. A private investigator.

First, they got my name. My full name. That's not too hard to do, being as my name is typed on every trip sheet of every call. They then decided to find my social security number, once they have that matching piece of evidence they are certain to not mistake me for anyone else. Who knows, there could be more than one Rocky Mountain Medic in this world. How they got my SSN in disheartening, to say the least.

What next? Let's pull his tax records. That way, they can match my name, SSN, how much I made last year and where I live -privately with my private family. They find the last known address and reverse search it to find the phone number. Mistakenly, I thought if the house didn't have my name anywhere near it, that they couldn't link me too it. Wrong. Every house has a number, and that number was called. In-laws or not, this Investigator has some investigating to do.

A bland, vague, coded message was left stating they were looking for Paramedic Me.

"If you know where he is, gives us a call."

Well, word made it to me that some "investigator" was looking for me. I picked up the phone and called the numbers back, blocking my cell phone number, as the outgoing called bounced off cellular towers. The other end picked up and I was furious.

"We did this, we did that, we couldn't find you so we had to do what we did", retorted the other end of the line.

"Do you still live at this address?"

"What's this about?" I inquired.

"Well, all I know is that I have a subpoena with your name on it about some call you ran. Will you be home tomorrow at 1:00 p.m.?"

I replied, "I have no idea. And if you need to get a hold of me call the office and have them page me."

"Well, the trial is this Tuesday and I need to get you this. I'll be in your neighborhood tomorrow morning." crackled the Investigator.

"Good, because I have no intention of being anywhere near here tomorrow", I said to myself.

So, there's no moral to this story, other than watch yourself. In today's day and age it seems all privacy has been lost. And if someone, say an investigator, wants to find you, then that's what they'll do. They'll find you.

I just hope that crazy crack head that said he wanted to squish my head between his fists isn't smart enough to find out where I live. If so, I'm going to have a whopper of a story to tell. That is if they allow blogging in prison.

Svee-dish.

2007-02-20T22:48:00.000-07:00

Be forewarned: this one's going to be short, nonlinear, and constructed like a high school dropout high on gold paint.

I am sick.

Legs shaking, back aching, chest congested, "I'm hot" - "I'm cold," sick. It feels like someone has punched me in the face with a hot sack of nickels. I read someone's blog about working sick and came down with this monster of a chest/head cold. I blame that blog; simply on it's power of inference. If I hadn't have read that blog I wouldn't have come down with this throat rattling cough, aching head, constantly dripping nose with a raspy Barry White soulfulness in my voice.

Or, I may be because of the last week I spent attempting to tend to my sick wife. The one with all these remarkably similar symptoms.

But, I did go to work one day. The first day of my four shifts. The day I was probably the sickest and most communicable. I apologize to my partner who is surely to come down with these same ominous signs in the next few days. Nothing like sitting 3 feet from one another while the other sprays infected cough particles all over the already disease infested ambulance cab.

But, I digress - again.

You are reading the words from the person that single-handedly, most-probably has infected that bitterly cold, northern country of Sweden. Watch the news, read the magazines, tune into your local public radio. Sweden is about to hypothetically shake hands with a flu-infected paramedic from the Mile High City, the alpha of their invading flu. They're about to realize how everything here is bigger and better - including our flu's.

We transported a mother, and her family, to the hospital the other night. She was in that notorious and infamous Swedish bigemeny. She had syncoped in customs and was now sidetracking her entire family to a local hospital for the beginning of their American land tour. I, of course being the reasonable paramedic that I am, drove that night. Plus, it was just my turn. I sat up front with the father trying to suppress my chronic cough. Sneezing into my sleeve and dabbing my watering eyes with tissue, I drove as quickly to the hospital as I could. We both laughed uncomfortably as we were delayed by possibly the slowest moving train on Earth. I tried not to talk. The Swede sat next to me taking in all the peculiarities of America, probably wondering if we all talked like I did and if all trains here were that slow.

We dropped the Swede's off at the hospital favored by Russians. As I exited, I looked at the tangled messes in the beds. I was sicker than them all. Bed 3, chest pain -I got it. Bed 6, shortness of breath - me too. Bed 12, bloody stool - ahh... not yet.

So, to all my readers in Sweden, I am sorry. I know that this may stain my International Status of Paramedic Blog Story Telling in that community and some may become offended enough as to not read me anymore. My Swedish friends, you have that right to Blacklist me as one of your past, favorite contemporary American authors, but always remember. I like your meatballs.

The above post is probably why they put all those warnings on cold / flu medicine boxes. Too much of one thing can be hazardous, especially if chased with a shot of Jagermeister.

Why I am bulletproof.

2007-02-16T18:11:00.000-07:00

This happened three months into my training down at where I work. If things would have gone differently, if that officer would have shot him in the head, splattering brain and blood all over my face and glasses, then I probably wouldn't be working where I am today. This is true. Every last blood-soaked detail.

There are these series of apartment complexes on the far east side of town, so far that they abutt the neighboring city and county. Anyway, these are the addresses that are aired repeatedly on a daily basis. And when it's your turn, when you're on the receiving end of one of these infamous addresses, you can hear a collective sigh of relief from every other ambulance in the city. "Oooh, that hurts. Better them than us," floats in the minds of every other ambulance in the city.

Tonight, it is my turn.

"Number (dramatic pause so everyone nestled up in the black, night air has to awake mildly and bend an ear to listen) 9".

Damn it. "Number 9," I respond.

"Code 10 to this address. All we have is altered mention. Everyone's going". Meaning Police and Fire.

A collective sigh floats above the city streets from every other ambulance. It's my turn. Batter up.

We scream through the night's sky. Slowing down to a comfortable 60 mph at the red lights. Dirty blues harmonica music plays in my head as the red and blue emergency lights ricochet of anything reflective. The dually tires screech around every corner as we rocket down the street. What normally would take fifteen minutes, takes us four. We shut everything off blocks early and creep stealthily to the front entrance of this elderly apartment complex. Not that we thought it was dangerous, but that was habit at night. All stealth. All the time.

In their new post 9/11 black bunker gear, a firefighter approaches the side of the ambulance. This is uncommon, especially here. His face pale, his speech stuttered, he begins talking frantically to my rolled up window. Fingers pointing and hands waving, something has freaked him out. I look at my partner and ask. "Isn't this where all the old people live?"

I exit and the firefighter rambles uncontrollably. "Crazy" and "Police" and "Dangerous" all penetrate the night sky. He is attempting to warn me about something, something that seems to have gone horribly awry. I grab my black, metal briefcase full of medical tools, and like a businessman walking to his cubicle from the water dispenser, I collect my thoughts and wonder what has happened to make this young, fit, firefighter so crazed. How could an elderly man create such a stir?

The police arrive at the same time. One officer. He is large and built like a boxer. I imagine a tattoo of a barbed wire painted on his bicep, under his perfectly starched blue shirt. He follows me along the dimly lit sidewalk to the front entrance, handcuffs clinking and mag light swaying against his hip. We both enter the complex, hop in the elevator made for two, and slowly ascend to the B floor.

As we exit we are greeted by another frightened firefighter. We round the corner and see a huddled group of black bunker gear against the wall, and standing across from them two almost fit security guards leaning against the wall, Dirty Harry revolvers hang from their lopsided utility belts. Apparently, .45 magnums are a necessity around all these old people.

"He's going crazy. We've been out here 10 minutes and all we've heard is screaming. He's tearing the apartment apart."

Still confused, I finally ask, "How old is he?"

"He must be in his twenty's," responds the one I assume is in charge.

The officer leans his head to his right, almost resting it on his shoulder. He punches the small button on the side of the radio attached to his lapel and calls for another car. "Better safe than sorry," he whispers to me.

We wait in the cramped hall listening to the crashing furniture on the other side of the paper-thin walls. An occasional scream breaks the silence and awakes all of us from the horrible daydreaming that is surely occupying everyone's brain.

"He's big, really big." a firefighter mumbles.

The other cop arrives. An identical twin to the giant in front of us, the only difference is that you can see the tattoo on his huge bicep. The two officers huddle together, discuss their plan, and one draws his taser and checks the red, laser light on the wall. He looks at me and smiles. They knock.

"DPD! Open the door!"

No response.

"DPD, open the door or we'll kick it in."

The door slowly swings open. I step forward to the right of the cop with the taser. My logic: I've never seen anyone tased and I heard it knocks them down instantly. The mother has escaped and was able to open the barricaded door. I peak around the door frame and see a monster of a human charging down the cramped hallway. Fire in his breath and emptiness in his eyes, he lurches forward angrily towards the cops.

"STOP, or I'll..."

Zap! The copper wires with small silver fishing hooks explode out the end of the taser. Three in all, and all three striking the crazed man. They penetrate through his shirt and stick to his neck and face. "Click-click-click-click-click," the taser shoots electricity from the handle, down the wire, and into the barbs. It doesn't faze him. He doesn't even flinch as he continues his lunges towards the frame of the door where we are all standing -in disbelief.

He cocks his right arm back and rockets it forward. His fist, like a shot from a canon, connects with the samller of the two incredibly large cops left eye. The taser is still making that depressing sound and has done nothing to impede this marine-cut, shell of a man's charge.

The officers begin to push him back into the apartment's hallway. My partner charges around the corner and I follow as we, the four of us, push him backwards onto a coffee table, exploding the glass like fireworks on a 4th of July picnic. The marine somehow gets to his knees and begins fighting like a caged animal. We push him backwards, again, into his mother's television. It falls off its stand and pops like a kernel of corn.

This is the part I really don't remember too well. Two cops, two paramedics, and one crazed, prison-cut muscle man wrestle on the floor of this elderly lady's small apartment. A cop gets thrown off and I hop on. I'm kicked off and land on my back, another cop dives into the mixture of arms and legs. The sap, a leather tool with a ball bearing in it, does no harm as the officers strike the crazed man on the hip. The mag light, that was ominously swaying on a hip minutes before, ascends into the fear filled room and comes down with a thundering crash. Like a melon being dropped from a three-story building, the sound reverberates off the 70's decorated room. Over, and over, and over the mag light crashes into the marine's head, splattering blood and sweat onto my face and the wall next to us.

I briefly wonder what his mom will think of all the blood on the wall, and how she plans on removing it. But, I am violently interrupted with screams from reality.

"He's got my gun. He's got my fucking gun!" The fear in the officer's voice sends chills down my spine. As I write this, my stomach turns and my arms shiver. It wasn't an order by a man in uniform; it was the shrill of a man fighting for his life.

It is at this point I begin to concentrate all my efforts on the marine's groin. Punch after punch after punch does nothing. My partner, trapped on his back by the fighting marine, grabs the felon's wrist and is able to prevent the gun from completely exiting the holster. The other officer, still fighting, reaches for his sidearm and prepares for the seemingly life-altering nightmare that is about to occur.

Luckily, my punches aren't without merit and the marine grunts as I connect one squarely. The gun is reholstered, both of them, and the marine is rolled onto his stomach.

"He' biting me, he's fucking biting me!" Those words stab my eardrums and force me to change my plan. "Ohh, shit. He's biting me," my partner moans. My field trainer of 3 months.

I quickly move from his groin to his face. My gloved hand connects squarely on his nose and bursts it like a dumpling full of red sauce. A noise I am unable to describe now, precedes the moaning and cussing of the marine as his fractured nose bleeds profusely.

He stops biting my partner and this is this opportunity that allows an officer to straddle him, tuck his large, tattooed bicep around the marine's neck, and squeeze. He squeezes with every ounce in his soul. He squeezes until his arm cramps and the marine's face turns ghostly white. He squeezes because this is the last opportunity for us to not have to fight again. He squeezes and the marine's eyes go blank, unconscious, he is eased to the floor.

We look at one another. "Are you O.K.?” we ask. Blood covers our faces, dulls the officer's badges, and trickles down my partner's arm.

The firefighters and the armed security enter the room. After asking if they can do anything, one of the officers yells at them like a child caught stealing. It isn't a stern, professional lecture on why we should help one another, it is a screaming at the top of his lungs, fighting for our lives verbal whip lashing. They, the firemen and the security, load the patient onto my bed.

We wheel him out into the ambulance. I sit, exhausted and frightened, on the bench next to the unconscious, bloody marine.

"Do you want to take off the handcuffs?” asks a fireman.

I stare at him blankly and allow him to close the door. Traditionally, you never transport someone with their arms handcuffed behind them, but I don't care. The blue hands would normally frighten me into thinking something terrible could happen because of this procedure, but I don't care. I hope his hands die.

I grab Haldol, Benedryl, and Valium and pump him blindly with all these substances. I have no idea how much I give, but I don't care. I don't want him to wake up on the way the hospital, or truth be told, ever again.

I sit in the captain's chair, knees straddling his head. He is unconscious because of all the drugs I have given him.

I am suddenly overwhelmed with this feeling of wanting to punch him as hard as I can, right in the already bloodied face. But, instead, I sit there and stew on the words the cop just said to me as we departed for the hospital.

"If he would have pulled that gun all the way out of the holster, I was going to shoot him in the head."

That sentence dances around my head as the streetlights on the sidewalk flash pass the patient compartment window.
That sentence still lurks nightmarishly inside my mind.

That’s the reason I wear a bulletproof vest.

LiveSTRONG.

2007-02-15T21:05:00.001-07:00

When I see those little yellow liveSTRONG bands dangling on the wrists of the thousands of people that own them; I don't think of Lance Armstrong, necessarily.

I own one. It sits prestigiously above my latex-free, blue-gloved, left hand and above my watch. I turn the words so I can read them, because when I wear it it's not for others to admire. It's for me to occasionally glance down at in hopes to spark that Carpe Diem philosophy everyone has, yet always forgets. I use it to remind me how precious life is. And even though I'm in the "business" that affords me that opportunity every day, it's that little yellow band that actually clears out my cobwebs.

I admire Lance Armstrong. But I admire that 33 year old, newlywed with child on the way, man who I met sitting in an uncomfortable recovery chair after having received chemotherapy. The orange colored foam recliner was in full extension, feet even with his head. Blood pressure cuff and oxygen tubes leashed this young, fit man to a hospital wall. Around him, frantic nurses trying to remember that one lecture on emergency management. And by his side, round and awkward, was his wonderful wife. Eyes glossed over from not allowing the tears to escape, she sat confidently next to her new husband while he had a host of poisons introduced into his blood stream.

He had passed out. And he had passed out for a considerable time while resting flat, feet level with his heart. His blood pressure had plummeted and his heart rate soared. It was as if his heart was running a marathon and the rest of his body was on break. The wife suffocated every urge to scream and cry as the nurses performed menial, non-beneficial tasks. 911 was called.

I entered the room and quickly found the Waldo that didn't belong in this picture. Elderly, weak patients sat in these recliners reading Harper's and The New York Times. They were skinny, yellow, frail and above all, sick-looking. They were what you expected to see. But in the corner, under a window where the sun illuminated the pregnant belly of his wife like a theater spotlight, he sat. Reclined, he was pale, white as a ghost. He had beads of sweat on his forehead and his recently shaved head was two shades lighter than the rest of his body.

The heart rate monitor beeped like a time bomb waiting to explode. The closer I got to him, the louder it seemed. I smiled as I approached. Introduced myself to both he and his wife and shook their hands like a politician. Like floodgates about to explode, his wife's eyes stared right through me as I began talking to her husband.

He was my age. He was clean-shaven and dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, Nike's laced to his feet. I looked at him and it was as though I was looking into a magical mirror. The Outside magazine on his lap, the Timex wristwatch on the same arm as mine, the Nalgene bottle full of water with a sticker from Alaska, and a simple silver ring slid over his fourth index finger on his left hand. My stomach sank.

He was pale, sweaty, bald and lethargic. All he could do was smile. The cancerous tumor was growing confidently around his aorta. It was growing exponentially and was feeding on this young, healthy man. They, the doctors, were afraid this would happen, but not this soon. He, too, realized what was happening because his eyes told the story. He looked into my soul, and without words, begged me to help him make it through this.

We loaded him up. Covered him with blanket and strapped the two seatbelts across his chest and legs. The monitor still chirped incessantly in the background and the IV fluids were placed between his legs. The wife gathered all their belongings. The iPod, the magazine, her cell phone, and the emergency hospital bag with changes of clothes in it; the one they carried hoping they wouldn't have to use, the one that was packed just in case he deteriorated and had to stay in the hospital.

I told his wife he was in good hands. With a crooked smile on my face, I told them that this wasn't my first day - it was my second. We all smiled briefly as they both then realized that he was in good hands, that I would do everything in this cold, unjust world to make sure he got to the hospital safely.

We began to wheel him out of the facility and into my ambulance. He grabbed his wife's hand and held it briefly. His pale, cold hands squeezed as he told her he would be alright. The levy broke and puddles of tears streamed down her face.

As he let go I noticed that little, yellow band. The one that read liveSTRONG above his watch on his left hand. The one, just like mine, that faced him so he could look down and be inspired. That same little, yellow band that I now look down at on my wrist in hopes that it will inspire me.

The one that reminds me of him.

See you on the river.

2007-02-12T01:22:00.000-07:00

Occasionally in this profession you encounter that one person that rekindles that love of being a paramedic. Someone who makes you realize, or, more importantly, helps you remember why you chose a career where you sit in a cramped ambulance for hours on end, where you wrestle hallucinating, angry, suicidal patients and where you feign interest in the fibromyalgic, eccentric elderly lady who lives with twenty cats.

Not often enough does this person cross paths with you along their journey of life to make these indelible impressions. It's this kind of patient that makes you forget about all the insignificant problems of your work place and reels you back into the realm of why you do what you do.

Finally, I crossed paths with such an individual the other night.

He was elderly. White hair crowned his freckled skull as he sat on the toilet with a towel covering his lap. The venous arms sat crossed on his robust belly, his eyes darting around the room under his white, bushy eyebrows. He glanced, inconspicuously, from paramedic, to firefighter, to son, to wife. He had fallen, and because his 91-year-old wife was too weak to pick him up, the troops were summoned via 911.

I arrived to be greeted by son, neighbor, wife, fire, and some mysteriously quiet woman lurking in the shadows. He was alright. He had just gotten lightheaded and fell to the carpeted floor. Nothing exciting. Just another elderly fall. Embarrassed, he sat quietly on the toilet, hoping we would all vanish like mist into the cold night air. He didn't want to go, but being as life is one big cycle, he had now returned to the part of his life where all decisions were made for him. The son, tall, thin and what I imagined to be mirror image of the man on the toilet 30 years ago, stated he needed to go. I concurred.

The trip, the treatment, the prognosis, and the history are all insignificant and irrelevant. That's not why I'm writing this. I'm writing this because when I looked at him, when I talked with him, we both felt at ease. We both seemed more comfortable with the situation and we both truly enjoyed one another's company.

He sat half-naked under our white hospital blankets. The dimly lit box bounced on the beaten paths to the emergency room. And we talked. We talked about the war, his family, his job, his kids, the fact that he had been married 54 years and I, 5 months. We talked about Colorado and Montana and we talked about fly-fishing.

We had both found a friend. He was as excited to talk about fishing as I was to hear about it. He talked about his favorite spots, his favorite fly, his favorite reel, and the bamboo rod that had been passed down to him from his dad. We forgot we were in an ambulance on the way to a hectic hospital. We enjoyed the 45-minute ride in rush hour traffic.

He made me smile. And I made him laugh.

We got to the ED and his care was transferred to an awaiting RN, clipboard in hand and business on her mind. I shook his hand, smiled, and told him it was a pleasure. I said if I had a nickel for each time I had a patient like him, someone who was genuinely nice, that I'd have at least a buck-fifty. We laughed and I exited.

As I walked away, computer in hand he smiled and said, "See you on the river".

I'm fairly certain I'll never see him again. But I do know that someday, somewhere, our paths will cross again. And hopefully, it'll be on that crisp, flowing river with fly rods in hand.

Is everyone here who needs to be here?

2007-02-05T12:08:00.000-07:00

There are these rooms at the county hospital that I work for that frighten, intimidate, and bewilder any soul that enters, whether it be a patient on a stretcher or a healthcare worker on their own two feet. They are large, loud and bland. Tile and linoleum frame the rectangular room that is divided into two by a drape that falls from the ceiling to the floor. Sinks on either side rest beneath the x-ray viewing light and in-between the massive double doors that divide the room into two. One patient on the left, one on the right.

Placed center stage on each side of the room are the beds. Beds that are cold and uncomfortable. Beds that serve more the purpose of lifting the patient waist-high so the MDs can better examine the specimen in front of them. Beds that allow them to not have to bend over when they cut open your chest and massage your heart. These beds aren't for resting.

Monitors beep. Blood pressure cuffs dangle from the half wall that holds the oxygen outlets. A desk is tucked into the wall next to the patient where the nurses slouch as they write as furiously as they can while we spout out geysers of relevant information. A large cabinet sits ominously behind the head of the bed. In it, are plastic contraptions that bring out thoughts of uncomfortable ease to the non-medically inclined. Tubes, syringes, laces, metal laryngoscope blades all sit on white, sterile beds of cotton waiting to be used.

Above is a round, white, metal case with handles that hold inside it the power of the sun. A light on an extended arm that, like a robot, can articulate into any position around the patient, shining it's beam of white light directly into the area of MD concentration. And like another drone in this world of fear and unknowing, is a little yellow machine with a computer-imaging screen placed precariously on top. It floats from room to room and is used by the MDs to look through you. Its attached arm, wrapped in clear wrap, is normally coated in cold, blue gel. Then, it is pushed uncomfortably into your belly or chest as it searches for causes of what might be wrong so it can then illuminate it's vision on the green and black screen of the monitor. Like an evil leer from an angry family member, it sits in the corner always awaiting its turn.

The patient is rushed from the ambulance bay directly into one of these rooms. The ceiling tiles with fluorescent lights transition into a bland white ceiling 15 feet high. From our bed to this one, the patient is then invited into a world of chaos.

Immediately, people begin grabbing your arms, poking your hands, feeling your neck, squeezing your chest, jabbing your stomach, removing your clothes, talking to you, asking your name, asking what happened, asking where you hurt, asking your social security, shining lights into your eyes, and violating the most private of all areas. There's one at your head, sometimes two. Four or five on your left, five or six at your feet, and five or six on your right. As well as EMT students, paramedic students, MD interns, surgery interns, registration, nursing students, security, supervisors, social services, priests, and police.

Although the shades are drawn, all privacy is gone. And even though all those people are cramped in that once large room, someone always quietly kneels next to the patient and whispers in their ear. "Everything is going to be alright".

It's this room that intimidates me. And I'm sure it intimidates the person on that thinly mattressed examination bed. In the end, regardless of the reasons why we are intimidated, it’s the same feeling of fear and unknown. It’s the cold nudge of mortality that scents the room with it's presence. In this room, you either live or die. It’s in this room everyones will is tested.

People that enter these rooms are life-threatening sick. They know they are sick, as well as does everyone else working furiously and simultaneously to help them. This, more often than not, is that last bed the patient will ever sleep in; the last room the patient will enter, and is the final battleground for sustaining life. From here you walk away after a hard battle won, or you never leave.

As much as I enjoy these rooms, as much as I hope that I get that call that will cause me to walk through those double doors, I hate them equally as much. When someone that I brought lies unconscious, or altered, or bleeding, on that uncomfortable bed they are fighting the fight of all fights.

What will they choose? Life? Or death?

Buffalo Soldier

2007-02-01T13:36:00.000-07:00

I can walk down the street, smile at an elderly lady, and then have a complaint filed against me for being patronizing and condescending. I change lanes without a signal and I’m writing an incident report for being reckless and haphazard. And I can arrive on the scene of a dead, retired pulmonologist, intubate him, medicate him, and get his heart pumping so efficiently that he has a pulse and blood pressure and tries to talk to me around the tube; then have to return to the office and justify why I didn’t run when the wife told me to hurry.

Well, it’s time for some changes. It’s time that I live in that brick house as opposed to the straw or stick one. It’s like Bob said, “Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights!” It’s time to be like Patrick Swayze and his band of renegade high schoolers and fight, guerrilla style, against those Soviet invaders.

WOLVERINE!

I turned the tables the other day. It was me who filed the complaint.

We got sent to a local hospital on a possible stroke. These days, all hospitals have these elite units of special farces...err forces. People, yet unable to pass the civil service exam for the respected position of police officer, who wear ill-designed, over-sized polyester pants with light blue, uncomfortably pressed, button-up shirts and stroll around a hospital campus with utility belts sans firearm. And some of them, probably the captains, or lieutenants, or chief inspectors, or whatever they're refered to in the minor leagues of enforcement, are allowed to ride bikes and wear knit pullovers that have SECURITY spelled on the back.

It was this goliath that tested my will and made me pick up a pen instead of rocks.

We arrived at the hospital and were securely “escorted” to the patient by two guards. Their radios full blast and airtime full of useless chatter. “Medics on scene”, one said to the other, who was watching us through the clear, full-length lobby window.

We approached the patient and quickly determined that this was not a stroke. The soft-spoken patient with Parkinson’s Disease carried around a typed letter stating that this disease was debilitating and too many times she was transported to the ED against her will for something that was baseline for her. Security believed she was having a stroke because it took three attempts to withdraw money from the ATM. The patient, frustrated that these key chain-clanging guards didn’t attempt to talk to her about what was going on, told us this happens all the time and that she didn't want to go to the ED. All she wanted to do was withdraw some money so she could go to Safeway.

At this point, I turned to the one with the marine-bowl-cut hair and explained what was going on and why we couldn't take her. "It’s called kidnapping. " My words drifted out of my mouth and danced precariously around his ears. Few words penetrated the skull and even fewer were processed. The guard remained confused. And once confused, he had the inability to not transfer that feeling of embarrassment to anger. He became quite...bitchy, for lack of better descriptors.

“You have to take her!”
“No, I don’t. There’s nothing wrong with her and she doesn’t want to go. Did you not read the letter?”

We began to leave and I see the fog of light blue shirts huddle around the patient. They obviously, for some reason, didn't want her on their property and were rushing her to leave the premises. The Parkinsons restricts her mobility and, like a baby learning to walk, she is at times very uncoordinated in her mobility. I returned to help, help her from the hungry land sharks circling her, waiting for her to fall so they could quickly call 911 again. The important-feeling leader of the pack stood in the background; phone in hand, poised to call in another emergency.

I approached her. Broke through the smell of Axe and cheap aftershave and tried to console the patient.

“I tell you what”, I said. “I’ll break the rules and take you home. I promise I won’t take you to the hospital.”

The sharks eased off a little. One updated the mother ship with the status of this situation.

Adamantly and quietly the patient refused any help. She was flustered and frustrated. She wanted to leave but her legs wouldn't let her. If they didn't move in unison, in coordination, something was going to happen that she desperately feared. She tried her best to walk. Slowly, and unconfidently, she shuffled her way towards the sidewalk.

I, again, explained the situation. "There is nothing I can do. It’s called kidnapping."

It was at this point the knit-clad premise guard made his fatal mistake. He looked at me and said, “You need to learn how to do your job!” He then turned, keys slapping him on the hip, and stormed off like a third grader who dropped his ice cream cone.

“This is bullshit!” echoed off the minivans as the sick children were being secured into their carseats.

I looked at one of the plebes and demanded his name. I wanted his name and his supervisor’s name. I wrote it down and each letter seared itself into my memory. Security guard blank-blank. I called my supervisor to warn him of the interaction and that he may, for some unknown reason, receive a call from an angry, hostile security guard. He received that call.

My captain went to meet with him. And after the guard verbalizeed all the nice things I did for the patient he began to realize he was out of line. He admitted to being short and rude with the medics and said he shouldn’t have acted that way. Complaint resolved.

Nope. After having to write an Incident Report my captain said everything was resolved and asked if there is anything else I needed. Yes, as a matter of fact, there was.

“I would like to file a complaint about him!”

Nestle Quick

2007-01-27T20:54:00.000-07:00

A true story of a call downtown told to me from a friend of mine. His story, of course, was much better.

The Denver Police finally wrangled this evil, sweaty, eluding, metho-felon in his cutoff jeans. Why he was running or what he was doing, I don't exactly know. All I do know is that he was evil. Used car salesman evil. He was one of those guys that made you check to see if your wallet was still there after unfortunately encountering him. The kind of guy you wanted to walk away from backwards, facing him, and like the Terminator, always scanning the room for the closest emergency exit.

As he sat steaming up the windows in the back of the cramped police car, he continued to glow in sweat. Not because he was in the back of a police car, but because of the meth screaming through his brittle veins. The cops aren't stupid. They didn't know exactly what was going on with him, but they realized that since he was carrying on a conversation with the graffitied Plexiglas in the back, a very intense conversation at that, that they should call the paramedics. And on a side note, how does that Plexiglas become graffitied? Aren't they always in handcuffs?

Screaming around the corner and skidding to a stop, the medics arrived. One seasoned medic that has been worked in this system for many years, the medic that makes your ten hour day feel like two. And one, although seasoned as well, that has never been introduced to the dark side of this urban city. One that doesn't realize that even grandma will lie to you and can pull a knife out her crochet bag and try to stab you with it.

They approach the all white police car that has just successfully sought an opportunity to serve. In the back, debating like a prom king trying to get his date out of her dress, he sat soaked in his own sweat. Meth rotting his teeth as he sat there screaming into the cloudy night sky. My friend begins talking to him and the metho-crazed felon answers, but completely inappropriately. I imagine something like this.

"What's your name?" the question is posed.
"Purple".

They finally get him out of the cramped police car and shuffle him to the ambulance bed where his wrists are velcroed to the handrails, being as that he is still under arrest and a threat to their safety. The clear, kitchen-sized zip-lock bag of felonious evidence is placed on his lap, below his quivering knees. In that bag are the usual suspects. Lighters -a lot of them, combs -always more than one and always apparently never used, and crumpled receipts from the local mom and pop liquor store for the numerous bottles of Night Train and grape Mad Dog 50/50. And finally, somewhere in that clear little suitcase of crime scene goodness, is his sealed bottle of much anticipated Nestle Quick.

In his maze of mumbled language a question is posed, "Can I have my Nestle Quick?"

The answer, self-evident to all, is a silent no. The ambulance gears clank into D and the rear wheels slip on the ice as they leave the scene for the local county hospital.

The cogs begin to turn, the wheels spin and the police-evading-metho-felon begins to silently become angry. No chocolate milk? How could someone not allow him to enjoy his recently acquired fresh bottle of chocolate milk? In a fit of fury that would make the Hulk proud, the crazed addict in need of more than meth. violently rips the restraints off the bed. Crazed, he stares at the medic and with no words threatens the safety the man in the white shirt holds dear. The ambulance already at a stop and the other medic rushing back to help, the rear doors of the ambulance bust open and he flees with the fury of a trapped animal.

A chase ensues and finally the men in blue's K-9 apprehend the patient / escapee / felon in the back of some unknowing citizen's snow-packed yard. He's cuffed and escorted back to the ambulance where the medic is awaiting in the back.

As the metho-felon forfeits all his dignity and silently bows in defeat, he asks one question.

"Can I have my Nestle Quick now?"

No More playing in the Playground alone.

2007-01-23T12:35:00.000-07:00

A Day in the Life of an Ambulance Driver (I have no idea what I'm doing and the fact that the words are blue is amazing in itself) is a paramedic blog that I've recently started reading, and enjoying. I was asked to do this:

"share five off the wall, strange, unusual or just little-known facts about yourself. Then you "tag" five other bloggers who are supposed to do the same thing."

Since I like these stories to be about my life as a paramedic, I'll share five things about myself at work. And one that’s completely irrelevant.

1) The only call I almost ever cried on was when a beautiful Husky pup was hit on the highway. I immobilized its spine and put it on a backboard. I started an IV and seriously debated calling the hospital for an order of fentanyl. But, I know there's got to be some federal law forbidding giving narcotics to animals, so I just petted it on the side of the highway until animal control arrived.

2) I have peed on the scene of an Emergency call. "Ma'am, I'm really sorry, and this is going to sound weird, but may I use you're bathroom?"

3) I've been scared for my life on a call. Really scared. Guns out of police holsters scared. (That story is to come).

4) I don't like driving "lights and sirens".

5) I have a trained seeing-eye-dog with cataracts.

For Noah.

2007-01-20T14:59:00.000-07:00

My brother regularly reads my blog. And that's half the reason I started doing this, so my family could hear stories about what I do and the things and people I see and meet. He enjoys the stories, but said it was a little sad. I agree. These stories are inspired by things and people I see at work. Good or bad, pretty or ugly, happy or sad, they follow me home like a loyal Labrador retriever. They follow me to my cold basement where I sit cuddled next to my small space heater and pen these intricate, philosophical stories of life.

This is for you, Noah.

Every paramedic waits for that one, big, life-altering call. The one where when you get sent everyone else turns green with envy. The one that makes you smile and makes them frown. The one call that makes Bob Kendrick from News Channel 9 camp outside the Paramedic Division to get that up-close, life-inspiring interview (or Linda Cavanaugh if you live in Oklahoma).

I came pretty close to one of those calls the other day.

It was at the Diamond Cabaret. Even if you're not from Denver, you probably have an idea of what type of joint this is just by the name. The Diamond Cabaret, gentlemen’s club of Denver. The Diamond, where stars are born, dreams are crushed, marriages a ruined, and wallets are left shamelessly voided of all dollar bills.

You may have thought it would have been rescuing babies from burning buildings. Or saving city officials from the clutches of the eternal, cold darkness of death. Or feats of valiant heroism by saving families in distress.

Nope. That's not what simmers in the thoughts of the bored paramedic sitting cramped in that idling ambulance in 7-11. Those aren't the calls, exciting as they may be, that'll put a grin on that paramedic's face.

It's the Strip Club call.

It was Friday night. It was summer. And it was time for me to join the ranks of paramedics that have run Strip Club Calls. We entered the building, radios blaring and flashlights cutting paths through the round tables. Everyone looked our direction, briefly, and then went about their business. The stripper in the shower, playing with the soap bubbles, waved hello. It was official; I was now among the few that have run a Strip Club call.

Hang Dopamine, check. Vent a chest, check. Run a strip club call, check.

We were escorted to the locker room. Here, on the floor, the patient rested. She was wearing, or not wearing -depending on how you look at it- her "uniform". Bambi, Cheyenne, Candy, and Lexus all counted their dollar bills as Van Halen rocked in the other room. Her friend, she looked like a Trixie to me, frantically chattered on the cell phone, being as this was an emergency and she felt the need to inform everyone in their inner circle. The fire guys stood around smiling. My partner stood beside me, although he was nowhere near me. And I did my best to talk to the patient as more ladies filtered in.

We were in the Lions Den. We had passed security and made it to the heart of the club. We were deemed safe, and not a threat. And because of this, Roxanne, Essence, and Jasmine all disrobed and walked around in high heels and lipstick continuing to do what it was that they normally did. The locker room "mom" stood in the corner smiling. At one point she looked at us all, all 8 of us, and asked if we were enjoying ourselves.

With a squint in my eye and a crooked smile on my face I looked at fire and said, "We're good here." Meaning, they could leave. They looked at me and smiled, "OK". They didn't leave.

We loaded up the patient. I asked if she needed anything, more specifically, clothes. And she said no. We were ready to go. I nudged my partner and awoke him from his comatose state. He flinched and quickly pretended to act important. Still frantic, her friend, her roommate, and her dancing coworker asked if she could go. "Of course you can go", I said.

She folded her one-dollar bills and squeezed them into her small, glittering purse. Her stiletto heels clicked as she shuffled around the room. Sierra, Houston, and Amber all kissed her goodbye and wished them luck. Porsche winked and blew me a kiss. She was next on the main stage.

"Ma'am", I said. "If you want to come with us we need to leave now. This could be an emergency and we may be wasting valuable time". I said that without laughing and suppressing every urge to smile or giggle.

"Do I have time to change?" She was wearing her favorite black dancing bra and some lacey skirt-thing.
"Well" I said, "You can try, but we may have to leave quickly".

She grabbed her bag-a-ones and followed us out the ambulance.

Off we went to the ED. One ambulance, two paramedics, and two half-dressed strippers.

This story may not make you laugh, but I know it'll put a smile on your face.

Like I said before. You can't make this stuff up!

Electrical Tape

2007-01-09T01:39:00.000-07:00

I don't like electrical tape.

It signifies something that puts a lump in my throat. It's my flag at half-mast, it's a horse drawn carriage down a blocked off street, it's 21 rifle shots in the air or a military fly-by. It's pressed uniforms and funny looking hats. It's something that turns my stomach. It means someone in our profession has passed away. That someone has died.

Typically, we veil our insignia with carefully cut peices of black electrical tape. Badges, police and fire, are striped with it. Patches, like ours, are striped diagonally from one side to another. It's on every uniform on every employee. And it is a constant reminder of the extreme saddness some loved one is enduring.

It's a constant reminder that I need to say I love you more. That I need to hold a hand, or go on a walk, or just take a moment and look at the stars, smell the grass, or stare at the mountains.

It's a constant reminder that there are more important things in life. That the bills will get paid and the car will get fixed. That the price of gas, the miles on my car, and the speed of my computer are truly insignificant.

It's a constant reminder that there are things I want to do. That going camping, or skiing, or on that vacation, isn't that difficult.

It's a constant reminder of all my excuses, all my fears, and all my hopes and dreams.

It's a constant reminder of family, friends, memories, and goals.

It reminds me that I'm mortal.

And as enlightening as all that may seem, I don't like the fact that today I had to mask my patch with another stripe of black electrical tape.

The luckiest unlucky man.

2007-01-05T18:09:00.000-07:00

I met the luckiest unlucky man on Earth. He had won the lottery, twice. Was a millionaire, twice.

And had shot himself in the head, once.

Upstairs, in the house with furnishings from the '70's, six loud bangs were heard. They sounded like gunshots, and resonated off the wallpapered walls bouncing into the reading room where the elderly parents did crosswords. Frightened, the mother dialed the three digits on their rotary phone. 9, click, click, click, 1, click, click, click, 1 click, click, click. The father, scared that his deepest fears may have just come true, opened the basement door and carefully negotiated each step to his son's bedroom. He screamed as the mother relayed their address to the 911 operator.

I arrive the same time the fire department does. I'm still relatively new at this point in my career and haven't seen a lot of suicide attempts, especially by gun. Enroute, muffled by the screaming sirens and 911-operator traffic, we were told that he was still breathing. Not for long, I thought. A shot to the head can't sustain life.

The elderly father greets us at the door. His eyes floating in tears. His wife sits on the guest couch as the father leads us thought the living room, into the kitchen, and the directs the way to the basement with a crooked, pointed finger. "Down those stairs" he said.

All six of us, plus the 2 cops that just arrived on scene, crunch down so as to not bump our heads on the low ceiling. Our footsteps crash each rung as we slowly walk down the stairs. Not knowing what is around the corner, we carefully peer around the dimly lit room looking for anyone that might want to hurt us.

There, on the bed, was a fully clothed man. Jacket and shoes on, he rested on a bloody comforter with his hands at his side. The sulpher from the gunshots still smoked in the air. The imaginary sound of the blast penetrated my thoughts.

"Where's the gun?" I asked, not necessarily hoping to locate it, but to warn the firemen there was possibly a locked and loaded firearm in the near vicinity,

"My father has it."

I stutter. The firemen flinch and two back up. My partner, like a cold gust of wind, disappears up the stairs. I am left speechless.

Clots of blood the size of pancakes crown the patient in the bed. Grayish clumps of matter the size of jellybeans are strewn on the headboard and embedded in the pillow. Meditation rocks, with inspirational sayings like "Trust" and "Love" and "Peace" are scattered on the floor. "Hope" is wedged firmly in his tight grasp. I begin to talk.

Like that uncomfortable silence on a first date, I ask,
"What's your name?"
"Where do you hurt?" "
"Why did you do this?"

He answers each question. Quietly, and succinctly.

His father, now downstairs but out of the line of sight, states he heard 6 shots. I see one in the head. Penetrating above his right ear and exiting with an explosion at the base of his skull. One of six. I remove the bloody comforter and look for more. His right arm is tense, as if every muscle is flexing simultaneously. His right leg is shattered. From his hip to his knee.

The CSI in me begins to piece the puzzle together. The gun was in his right hand; he put it to his temple, pulled the trigger and blew two holes in his head with one shot. His arm fell to his side, and as the neurons misfired in his traumatized brain, his right hand flinched uncontrollably, causing him to shoot himself 5 more times in the leg, fracturing his femur and blowing his kneecap off.

We load him up and he continues to play a role in his medical care. Do this! He does it. Do that! He does it. He begins to cry and I tell him it'll all be alright. Even though I didn't believe it.

On the way to the ED he has an episode like I've never seen before, and probably never will. He is communicating with me, although his words make no sense. He looks at me as though I'm from a foreign country. I'm sure he asks, in his own language, "do you understand me?" I don't.

We make it to the hospital where he lives for another month. And where I learn that this unlucky, lucky man's luck had run out.

Seems like just another day to me.

2006-12-25T12:48:00.000-07:00

Christmas, it seems, has lost it's luster.

I remember when I was a kid, spending Christmas Eve in my grandmother's living room. All the family huddled on the spacious, L-shaped couch making trips back and forth to the Christmas tree in the window overlooking B street. Music playing, from somewhere. My dad, with his mustache that's he's had longer than I've been alive, sat in a chair, knees crossed, enjoying the warm feeling of family.

The anticipation built up for weeks. The sun seemed brighter and the clouds closer. The wind always seemed sharp, but never cold, although it was always freezing outside. The days blended into one. Tuesday's felt like saturdays. Family, from far away places, arrived in stagnated groups bearing gifts from exotic places.

We gathered in the early evenings and ate our favorite foods. We had kitchen counters full of homemade food and cold pops were unlimited-a blessing if you're a kid. Games were played, music was sung, and smiles were bountiful. It was a month that always went too quick and saddened you when it was over.

Today, it's a little different.

The days still blend into one another, but everyday feels like a monday. It's still chilly outside, but the wind is cold, and cuts right through you. Family still travels from exotic places, but it's to another state-where the rest of your family awaits. Games are still played and homemade food is still prepared, all of which are heard about second-hand, or while on speakerphone to the family while driving to work.

Christmas Eve comes and go. Santa makes his rounds and puts you on the "essential personnel" list, meaning he swings by later, whenever the family can get together, whenever everyone is not working.

Christmas becomes scheduled. How about the thursday after? Or the friday before? When do you work? When do you?

Now, I'm probably just bummed because I have only had 1 Christmas off in the last 10 years, have worked nearly every birthday, and always work extended hours on New Year's Eve. But, it's something I miss. Why can't I be the guy sitting in that chair, listening to music, and watching the world, and those ambulances, go by the front window? Why can't I be the guy wearing the funny hat with a kazoo in my mouth shouting at the night's sky as another years passes? Instead of wrestling intoxicated individuals in the back of an ambulance as the New Year sneaks in, unnoticed by me.

They all seem like every other day, now. This job skews your outlook on life, stains your soul, and even worse-normalizes the majority of special days into mundane mondays.

Next year, it'll be different. Next year, I'm celebrating Christmas ON Christmas with people that I love, in a place that I want to be.

'Twas the night before Christmas.

2006-12-24T00:59:00.000-07:00

'Twas the night before Christmas, and I had to work.

'Twas the night before Christmas...and two men living in a condo with no furniture, sleeping on the floor atop old comforters decided to get high. They filled one of the many syringes in the kitchen sitting next to the sink. They unwrapped their heroin, as if it were a gift from Santa, placed it on their bent spoon, mixed some vodka with it, put a flame underneath, and melted the two substances into one. They filled the syringe, tied off their arms, found a vein, slid the needle in - penetrating the oily, flushed skin, and shot that evil into their blood system. I imagine for a fleeting second it felt wonderful. Then, one vomitted into the sink. He became pale, sweaty, and slowed his breathing. He walked into the living/family/entertainment/bed room and collapsed. Not breathing. Overdosed. His high partner called 911.

'Twas the night before Christmas...and I had to work.

'Twas the night before Christmas...and everyone living in this apartment complex felt the need to go somewhere. A water main had broken, filling the already snow-engulfed parking lot with 3 feet of frezzing water. Cars with piles of snow on them sat inbetween the imagined yellow parking lines. Packed snow formed trails around the lot like a maze. Tonight, Christmas Eve, at 8:00 p.m. these people decided to try and move their cars so they could go somewhere. In this process, the one's not already stuck by the iced over snow drifts, flooded their cars with feezing city water. Someone, somewhere, decided to call 911. As this, to them, is an emergency. And due to the difficulty with the English language, 7 EMS vehicles were sent emergently to "parties trapped in a car, water rushing in". We found the source, as it wasn't that difficult to see the erupting flow of water from the ground, and informed them that they were not going anywhere, that they didn't need to go anywhere. It was Christmas Eve, stay home!

'Twas the night before Christmas...and I had to work.

'Twas the night before Christmas...and a father picked up his daughter from the state asylum so she could spend Christmas wit her family and experience "normal" life. As she sat in the packed, linoleumed bedroom watching gangster movies, she began to have another anxiety attack. Why? Because she left her room in the hospital, traveled 5 hours planning on spending a week, and never thought of bringing her anxiety meds. Hands cramped and lips pursed, she rapidly retained CO2 making her condition much worse. Her father, the elmo-slipper-clad construction worker had had enough. It's Christmas Eve, this isn't suppose to happen.

'Twas the night before Christmas...and I had to work.

'Twas the night before Christmas...and this family of 16 decided to get drunk. After being couped up in a 2 bedroom house, drinking a bunch of Milwaukee's Best and Mad Dog, tensions began to flare. The gangster in them all came out. Someone, somewhere, decided to call 911. The tough one, held a knife to his face and threatened to kill himslef. A wonderful gift on Christmas Eve, don't you think? He eventually cut his face, causing us to be summoned. We get there, with the cops, and the holiday spirit increases even more. Ni**a, this, Ni**a, that, he screams. He defends the honor of the one he was just threatening as we, the paramedics and the police, take him down into a snow bank and wrestle around to get his hands cuffed behind his back. He spits, he bites, and he cusses. We poke hime with a needle and inject a wonderfully calming fluid that slurs his words and eventually causes him to sleep. A fight on Christmas Eve, isn't that what it's all about?

'Twas the night before Christmas...and I'm glad it's over.

Baby, it's cold outside.

2006-12-22T14:26:00.000-07:00

A Colorado Hooker brought this city to it's knees a couple of days ago.

We had a blizzard the other day, this being my second ever. You see, when the storm originates in the pacific, traverses the southwestern states heading north and east, and then "hooks" back around west into Colorado, stalling over Denver because the mountains in the west, it is commonly, and surprisingly, referred to as a "hooker". A Colorado Hooker.

Anyway, as people rushed home in congested highway traffic, their speeds topping 30-35 mph, I was preparing for work. They had made all their calls, faxed all their papers, and put their computers to sleep. I ironed my shirt.

Kathy Sabine was telling us this was going to be a bad one. It was coming, and it wasn't going to be pretty (seldomly hookers are). Feet of snow, not inches, were suspected and all forecasts came true. Gas stations had lines around the block, snow shovels went for 5 times their orignal price, and the stores had no milk. I packed my lunch and a sleeping bag.

Everything you thought might happen in an emergency occured, all but that loud siren piercing the Denver skyline.

It snowed!

And I went to work.

Essential personnel. That's what I am. And frankly, I'm getting pretty tired of it. Everyone, everywhere is screaming to stay home, don't go out, it's miserable and it's dangerous. Me? I am essential. I have to.

So, I warm up the Jeep and pull out of my driveway. Not knowing when the next time I'll see my family. I was offered a ride by the division. They gladly would come pick me up in the Ford Expedition Monster Truck with chains on all four, knobby tires. But, if someone picks you up, someone has to take you home, right? And since that hooker was scheduled to get much worse, as it did, that means no more essential personnel can come to work. Which, in turn, means I have to stay even longer. I didn't want to be there in the first place, and if I'm at the whim of a supervisor as to when I can go home, I'll take my chances and drive myself. Me against the hooker!

It snowed all night. They closed every highway in every direction. The airport closed. They even declared a State of Emergency and called for reinforcements. The National Guard cruised the highways picking up stranded motorists and transfering them to Red Cross Shelters, where they nestled in and spent up to 2 days.

Hummers and Sno-Cats cruised Colfax picking up misplaced and distraught homeless people and frigid hookers. Hookers everywhere, huh?

As for me, I drove from one end of the city to another. Chains grinding on the snow to help our traction as we responded "emergently" to "emergencies". Like the guy who called 911 because he was hung-over. We sledded down 20 blocks in 30 minutes to render aide to someone who drank too much the night before. You wonder why essential personnel are grumpy? Because we have to deal with things, and meet people, like that.

Snow continued to fall. All night. Each hour the world seemed to sink into piles of white. The curbs disappeared, the front porches were gone, and even cars on the side of the road gradually melted into white, glistening piles of snow. Cars abandoned like landmines littered every street. And frenetic piles of Gore-Tex blew white clouds of smoke into the air as they slipped and slided down the middle of snow packed streets. Occasionally, a snow mobile would fly by. Reminding me how much I didn't want to be at work and how nice it would be to be snuggled up at home in the arms of someone you love.

What did this hooker teach me? Probably a lesson every hooker's taught before; It's times like these that you realize how nice you have it and how lucky you are to have someplace warm to rest your head, with someone you love.

Manical.

2006-12-12T01:16:00.000-07:00

I am sick and tired of these yellow walls, with the small, sandpaper bumps on them that look like snot sneezed on a bathroom mirror. This bed, this stupid futon that supposedly folds up into a comfortable couch, sucks. I hate the black tubular steel frame that bumps me on the head when I sleep on it. I wish I wouldn’t have bought it. I had no money, because I hate working, and bought this stupid futon, a lamp, 2 couches, a TV, some rugs, plates, a coffee table, a card table, curtains, dresser, and a 24 pack of mountain dew - all of which I bought 75 cents at a time from the vending machine in the pick-up area of my local furniture store. I put all that stuff on their charge account. No interest, no payments for 6 months. I just felt I needed to do it.

My light sucks, it’s not bright enough. The one I liked, and the one that worked well in my room in this boarding house, was thrown against the wall in a fit of rage. I’m getting close to that tonight.

The carpet is worn. Beaten paths, like trails in a National Forest, show my routes around this small room. This stupid, small room that I loathe. Like roadways, they lead me from my table to my TV to my couch to my bathroom to my bed. Piles of cigarette butts form pyramids on my coffee table, the table that holds dozens of bottles of my full prescription meds. I don’t need those anymore, I don’t like they way they make me feel. I can get along just fine without them. I stopped taking them 3 weeks ago. I don’t need them. I hate them, and the doctors that gave them to me. They are trying to poison me. I know, for a fact, that they are slowly poisoning my body because they want to kill me. I think it’s because the manager here wants to rent my room to someone else. I hate him too. That’s why I stopped taking those medicines.

I’ve got to get out here! This smelly room is closing in on me. I know they are watching me. I’ve covered all the clocks with masking tape and, of course, put aluminum foil on my one and only window. The window that faces west towards those ugly, impeding mountains. I know someone is watching me and I have to be careful what I say, that’s why I write a lot of my thoughts down on paper, so they can’t hear me.

I’m leaving. I’m going outside.

I think I’m pregnant. I know so. My last child was the son of Christ. Has he done it again?

I’ve been poisoned. I drank that milk and now my arm is starting to itch. Is anyone in there listening to me? Call 911! I’m dying. I knew they would kill me. I should have known not to drink that milk from 7-11. I saw them watching me. They followed me.

Good, here come some sirens. Maybe I won’t die tonight. Maybe I should stop pacing up and down the yard, screaming out loud that I’ve been poisoned. I’ll quiet down now. Here come some lights. Those lights are so pretty. They make me so happy. What a wonderful night outside. Isn’t it so nice to know that someone cares about you?

Hello paramedics. Thank you so much for coming to save my life. I am so happy now. I feel so calm. I think that poison is out of my system now. I wish I could see those mountains. They are so pretty. But, the night air feels good and the lights flashing off the houses remind me of Christmas. I wish it would snow. I love the snow. I love playing in it and making snowmen.

No, I don’ need to go to the hospital. I’m better now. No, I haven’t been taking my meds, I don’t need them. It’s been 3 weeks. Certainly not! I would never think of hurting myself or anyone else.

I miss my mother. Please, someone get my mother. I miss her. I need her here with me. PLEASE, someone get her. That’s all I needed tonight, I’m O.K., all I want is my mother. PLEASE someone get my f*cking mother.

I AM CALM. I’M NOT YELLING!

Please, please stop hurting me. I didn’t mean to run. I was just scared. I jumped out of the ambulance and pushed that cop because I was scared. Please, officer, take these cuffs off. Please, sir, I don’t like crying. You’re not going to kill me, are you? Please, don’t kill me! I don’t like needles. What’s the needle for? PLEASE. Don’t kill me! I’ll be nice. These cuffs hurt. Okay, okay, I’m sorry. I’m better now. Can I just go?

Why can’t I leave? I have to go to the hospital? Why? All I want is my mother. Okay, you promise? You promise they’ll let me call her? Okay, let’s go. Which hospital? I like the hospital.

I need a hobby.

2006-12-08T18:00:00.000-07:00

It was dark outside. The wind blowing enough to cut through my sweater and make me shiver. Flashlights cut through the darkness like light-sabers and the the flashing red and blue lights of all the emergency vehicles ricocheted off all the reflective street signs and decaled emergency vehicles parked randomly in the street.

At my feet, at the head of a stream of red, thick blood eroding the soil downwards to the street, was a dead woman. Face up, fists closed, and eyes open was a dead lady. Shot, somewhere, multiple times, she laid in the mud created by the melting snow dripping of the eve of her roof. Firemen rushed here and there, Police officers taped off the block with that theatrical yellow “crime scene” tape, and detectives arrived, hurriedly, scanning the beams of their flashlights on the ground, looking for clues.

She was dead. She was shot. But where? We saw one on her shoulder, above her heart. But there had to be more. That one was not bleeding, and the river of coagulating blood was originating from her head. I knelt down, careful not to get blood or mud on my uniform, and especially my shoes. Here a dead lady rests and in the back of my head all I’m worried about is getting my shirt dirty.

My gloved hand palms her head like a basketball. As if I were giving a massage, kneading all the fatigued muscles of the head, I rummaged through the dreadlocks to try and find a hole. As if I were searching in a bin of numbered Bingo balls hoping to retrieve B-9, I poked and prodded all around her head. The blood clotted in her hair. The mud, clinged to each dread and confused my senses. What was skull, what was mud, what was blood? Where was the hole that created this river of blood?

We moved her to the ambulance and did our “paramedic” thing. We went lights and sirens to the hospital, even though we all knew it wouldn’t change the outcome. And it didn’t.

I was standing outside afterwards, the the ambulance bay. Scrubbing dried blood, vomit (I think), and who knows what of all the surfaces she may have encountered. Trash littered the floor of the ambulance. Bags, catheters, wrappers, bandages, stuck to the wet surface of the ambulance floor like a collage created by a kindergartner. Police slowly arrived, one after another. Some in blue uniforms with guns pasted to their hips. Some, in unmarked cars and in suits 5 years out of style. Their guns lazily “hidden” on their belts beneath their blazers. Clipboard in hand.

That’s when it dawned on me. I’ve thought of it before, but never really realized how important it was.

I need a hobby.

I take that stuff home with me. And, unfortunately, my better half sometimes becomes the outlet. Ever wonder why police, fire, doctors, and paramedics have such a high divorce rate? It’s because, and even though everyone denies it, this stuff gets to you. You’re not suppose to “watch your step” because you may be stepping on brain. People can’t look into the empty, soulless eyes of another human after some unfortunate, violent crime and not be affected. It’s not healthy to pick something up, look at it, and wonder if it’s brain or not. That just doesn’t disappear.

So, I need a hobby. Something where I can listen to some music, sit in a chair, and repetitively and mindlessly accomplish small, and insignificant goals. Something that I can look forward to. Something where I can sit in the ambulance and daydream endlessly about. Something, besides alcohol, that will take my mind off the brain, blood, violence, anger, sad stories, homelessness, randomness and unkindness of this world.

And that something. I found.

Decisions, decisions, decisions.

2006-12-04T02:30:00.000-07:00

How did you wind up where you are right now? At this very moment in time, exactly where you sit? Did you set aside time to read this? Did you drive in the blistering cold, in rush hour traffic to your home office to do other things, then wound up in front of your computer reading these words. Or, were you eating dinner, watching the news, and then propped open your laptop and happened across this site? Regardless of how, or why, you decided this is where you want to be. And this how you want to spend your time.

Pat yourself on the back. Because you are one of the few. One of the few, in the millions of people in this country, that actually made a decision. You actually determined the outcome of your life. You are the master of your domain. Carpe Diem.

As for me. I am continually engaged by the “other half”. The one’s that couldn’t make a decision to save their lives. The one’s that when something happens unexpected, or out-of-the-norm, their world is tossed upside down - like a pineapple cake.

“Were you in this car?”
“Which car?”
“This car. The one I’m pointing to. The one you’re standing next to. The one that has your name on the back window!”
“Yes”
“Are you hurt?”
“Well, I don’t know”.

You don’t know! How can you not know if you are hurt or not? It’s a simple question and your answer should be dependent on whether you are feeling any pain anywhere on your body. Pain, being something that doesn’t feel good. That hurts!

“I think my head hurts, but I’m not sure.”
“Does anything else hurt?”
“I don’t know.”
“How about your chest?”
“Well, I think it hurts. I’m not really sure.”

At this point, I’ve already realized that at this rate we will never get anywhere in this conversation. Kind of like talking to a drunk. It just never makes sense. I know it’s an emergency. And I know that you broke your little Dodge Stratus, the one with tinted windows, the bling bling on the wheels, and the huge Nike emblem on the back window. The one where the stereo costs more than the car itself.

“Okay, how about this. Do you want to go to the hospital?”
“I don’t know.”

Didn’t see that one coming, did you?

“Well, you’re a grown adult and can make your own decisions. Do you, or don’t you, want to go to the hospital?”
“Do you think I should?”
“I can’t answer that for you. You need to decide.”
“No. Yes. No, I don’t think so. Well, maybe I should. Can I call someone?”
“Why?”
“To see if they think I should go to the hospital.”

Make a decision. Make a decision. Make a decision. Sure, when it comes down to choosing a movie or a place to eat, I am usually wishy-washy. But when it comes to black and white, clear-cut decision making, I make up my mind. I’m hurt. Therefore, I need to go to the hospital.

So, you wonder what paramedics and cops really do? They make decisions for people. They call 911. We arrive, and make up there mind.

“911, what’s your emergency?”
“Uhh, what should I have for dinner?”

Should I laugh? Or, should I cry?

2006-11-28T00:50:00.000-07:00

I met the coolest, calmest, most peaceful woman I have ever met in my entire existence on this planet Earth. I wanted to miniaturize her, stick her on my key chain, slide her in my pocket and hold on to her for dear life. My very own lucky rabbit’s foot. My own Buddha. My Holy Grail of peace.

She made me want to smile and cry, at the same time.

The front porch light flickered on and off as if a child had just found the switch. We could see it beckoning from a block a way. The entire block was dark as night, because it was. It was night. We exited the ambulance and sauntered to the front door. This was just a simple nosebleed. Nothing to get worried about. And, even if the moon was on fire and the sun extinguished, we wouldn’t rush anyway. We would saunter. We’re professionals.

Anyway, back to the story at hand. We were greeted at the front door by a golden / greying blob of fur. It’s tail thumping on the wall next to the door. It was so happy someone had come to visit it, especially at this late hour. We let ourselves in and saw the elderly lady sitting in the kitchen chair with her head crunched back, eyes staring at the ceiling and streams of blood trickling down the front lip onto a napkin. Infomercial played on the television set sitting in the corner of the kitchen, between the fridge and the stove. The graying golden led the way to her mom.

Her nose was bleeding. We couldn’t get it to stop and unfortunately due to her medical history and the drugs she was on, it was necessary to go to the ED to have it fixed. She didn’t want to go, but she was resigned to the fact. I fed the dog, gave her some fresh water, turned some lights on, and was sad - as if I were leaving my own pup at home alone - as I closed and locked the wooden front door. This dog was loved unconditionally by the patient. And in return, the dog loved her. I, some random jack*ss in a uniform was now separating them. Man, as I write this that pup may be home alone waiting for her mom. And that makes me sad.

So, anyway, she starts talking on the way to the hospital. As I listen my heart rate slows, my breathing becomes easy, and all the troubles in the world seem to slowly fade away. She is engaging. She is peaceful and wise. She smiles, laughs, jokes, and tells me the most horrific story I think I have ever heard. She lost her daughter in a violent crime and in the process was stabbed herself. Bleeding, alive, after being brutally assaulted she laid next to her dying daughter.

That was 25 years ago. She couldn’t have recovered from something like that. Could anyone? Yet, she was at peace. She didn’t hate anyone and lived everyday for what it was for, for what it could become. How did she do that? I would be an old, angry, bearded, drunk with rotting teeth and stale breath. I would grunt at every passerbyer and scowl at moon.

Then, we dropped her off in the ED. After a hug, which felt like I was being smothered in an warm, invisible, fleece blanket, we moved her from my bed to theirs. Every lemming did their lemming thing in the ED and we sat and waited, and talked. And as we waited, she looked at me and told me she had less than six months to live.

I have no idea what I said. My stomach sank, I must have gulped, and became instantly enveloped with sadness. I’m not sad now, as I write this. Because, I met that wonderful, remarkable, peaceful lady and she reminded me how valuable life is. And how important, regardless of ow dismal things may seem, it is to remain happy and at peace. Peace with everyone, and one’s self.

I watched a man die tonight.

2006-11-27T01:32:00.000-07:00

I watched a man die tonight. Before my very own eyes.

Sure, he was sick. He had lost a lot of weight over the last few weeks and his family had noticed a sharp decline in his health recently. He hadn’t been eating, had not been truthful with family about his medical problems, and was convinced that the hospital was out to kill him. So was his younger, bigger brother, who, luckily (if you want to call it that) had some premonition to check up on his sibling tonight.

He was sick, that’s all there is to it. But not sick enough to where he thought he may die. Especially tonight. He realized something was wrong, but neither he, nor me, had any forethought that in 30 minutes he would be dead. In the back of the ambulance he was stable. Although sick, he was stable.

I could tell you what the hospital did, or didn’t do. But, that’s a waste of time.

I stood in the corner of the ED room. White tile and linoleum decorated the room with bright cumbersome lights attached to scopes on the ceiling. The metal bed with the black mattress held the 120 pound man, contained him as he struggled to breathe. His respiratory rate decreased and his effort increased. His body began using every muscle in attempts to oxygenate his body, his heart, his mind. His stomach bulged in and out. The muscles on his shoulders and between his clavicles squeezed every last fiber to help his chest rise and fall. The depth of his respirations gradually decreased, as if he were drowning. Like a fish out of water. He kicked his leg off the bed. The MD allowed this. “Whatever makes him comfortable”, he said.

The man I was just talking to, the one who had no idea that this was the night, that this was the hour. The one who walked up some stairs and onto my bed and was concerned about locking his house. The man, who was dying in front of my eyes.

“Intubate him! Intubate him!” my head screamed like a broken record.

His eyes were now bulging from the sockets. He was swinging his arms, fighting for his survival. His respiratory rate plummeting like soap suds down the drain. He stopped fighting. He couldn’t hold his head up and it fell to the side, his eyes still open. His heart still beating. He was exhausted, his body was done. It could do no more to oxygenate his body.

They finally intubated him. But the damage was done. His heart rate began to fall because of the lack of oxygen it had received over the last half hour. The heart is a muscle, too. And it, also, was tired. 40, 30 12, 0. It fluttered in shock. It had a meltdown, going into chaotic, nonviable rhythms. They crushed his chest with every compression. The broken ribs crackled as each pump attempted to circulate oxygen into the heart and throughout the body. His lifeless body stared at the bright telescoping light as these people attempted to remedy the situation. It didn’t work.

I don’t think he should have died. It was destined, especially with his medical problems. But not tonight. It saddens me that healthcare is like a roulette table in Vegas. You never know when your numbers going to come up. And even though you can stack your odds, in the end, it’s a game of luck. If you throw lucky 7’s, you get the smart MD, the right RN, and the “A” team. If you throw craps, well, then your lucks up.

And you die.

Everywhere I go, it rains on me.

2006-11-23T22:31:00.001-07:00

What cartoon was it? The one where everywhere the guy goes there is a dark cloud above him and a steady stream of rain pouring down. It's sunny to the left, warm to the right, and clear both ahead, and behind him. And each step he takes, that cloud follows him, reminding him that regardless of where he steps, it's going to rain.

I felt like that yesterday.

Being late for work, the iPod not working, the stain on my shirt, the broken work radio, the faulty computer, the cell phone, the map book, and no spot to park within a mile radius of work. None of those things got to me.

It was the lady with the heartbeat of 10, respiratory rate of 4, with the mentation of fleece blanket. Not to mention the fact that when we arrived to the "assisted" living facility there was not a SOUL around that could, wanted, or had any intention on telling us that this lady had been flat on her back, deteriorating by the hour. Around 5, she said she didn't feel well. Around 7, they finally realized something was wrong, as she laid there flat in her bed breathing like a fish out of water.

So, I step forward and that cloud follows. Somehow, I acquire a DNR (Do Not Resuscitate). That means no airway, CPR, or "heroic" measures. But, that's after she dies. She's still alive. Do I give her meds? Do I pace her? Are those "heroic"? So I do some small things to try and improve her condition, all of which fail. What next? I sit with this dying lady as we drive her to the hospital, where she will die, and does. Where's my damn umbrella?

I step to the left, and the cloud follows. In the form of being sent to a residence for chest pain. On the way, as we zig-zag through traffic and slow down to 40 at the red lights, I get a premonition. It's not going to be good. As we arrive, fire comes running out screaming it's a cardiac arrest. Of course it is.

We start lines, bag him, and shock him multiple times. Eventually winding up in a futile rhythm, asystole, that flat line you always see on ER that they are shocking back into life. That doesn't happen.

A step to the right, and more rain. I needed an airway. I pry his mouth open and shuffle his enlarged tongue to the left, hoping to get an easy glimpse of his epiglottis and vocal chords, landmarks needed to confidently intubate people. I shove my blade in his mouth, see the epiglottis, lift it out of the way and what am I greeted with? Chunks of white, rubbery fat. It seemed as if someone had cut the fat off of a steak and shoved it into his airway. I try to suction it out. But, it's like trying to vacuum a bowling ball with the quickie-wash vacuum hose. I try, my partner tries, and then I try again. No luck. Missing tubes is no good feeling.

I step back, the cloud follows, and he dies. Time of death, 20:26.

Paper of Plastic?

2006-11-20T01:30:00.000-07:00

I could tell you about the gnarly crash on the highway where the little, white, compact car was rammed from the rear on the highway; causing the rear window to explode like confetti all over the highway, then spin wildly out-of-control into the guard rail, crumpling the front and sides like an accordion around the screaming, vomiting, dazed occupants.

Or, I could tell you about the lady who had a headache for three days, along with nausea and vomiting. Who blamed the "bad orange juice" for her blurry vision that developed into slurred, speech, that developed into causing her to fall out of bed, land on the ground and loose control of the left side of her body. The "orange juice", that ruptured a vessel in her brain, exploding like a firecracker in the middle of the night. The "orange juice" that eventually caused her to have a seizure in the back of the ambulance and lead her to be intubated. Denial is an awful thing!

But, you don't want to hear about that, do you? You want to hear about the bearded guy in the hotel room wearing a brown T-shirt (that was once white, I kid you not), lying on brown sheets (that were once white, I kid you not), in a room with dust bunnies the size of Godzilla.

This trust fund baby (I kid you not) that lives in a seedy motel room with the "Do Not Disturb" tags not hanging on the door knob, but taped, like laminate, to the front of the door. Inside, the sound of a small, handheld radio plays oldies music. Reminiscent of World War II, where people hid in basements and huddled around the scratchy noise of an old-fashioned radio. On the clock, a crisp 10 dollar bill.

He was tired. Just couldn't move around. Something was wrong. Something odd, in this bizarro world of his. Dirt was caked on him like he had been four-wheeling in Moab. He couldn't, or wouldn't, take showers because that's where he hung his clothes, in the shower. One light, in the corner, and 60 watts at best, illuminated the moldy room so he could work on his numbers.

Like the guy from a beautiful mind, there were math calculations everywhere. Half-sheets of white 8 1/2 by 11 paper were stacked on top of one another. On the dresser, on the TV, which hasn't been turned on in years, and was probably black and white. In the bathroom, and on his bed. As well as years worth of dust sleeping on every surface.

Stacks of cassettes, although I saw no cassette player, where balancing precariously upon one another. Bob Dylan, surprisingly, was resting on one of the piles. All these cassettes were in arms reach from his queen sized bed, his command center, the center of his universe.

He was wearing a brown shirt, or actually it seemed more Army tan. But upon closer examination it was once white. Now, when I say his shirt was brown, even though it was white, I am taking no story-telling liberties. Story tellers always seem to grandiose things in order to grab the attention of the reader. When I say the white shirt was brown, it was brown. And his sheets. The once white sheets stuck to his waxy skin like cookies baked on an ungreased pan. No pillow. No comforter. Just a sheet, queen-sized, that has been lived on for close to 10 years by the King of this castle.

And finally, like landminds strewn about a field were brown paper, grocery sacks. Everywhere. Sitting side by side from the entrance of the door, around his bed into the "living" area, and then down the hall into the closet and overflowing into the bathroom. Some had tapes. Some had new, unopened, white, queen-sized sheets, some had new, pressed, white starchy T-shirts. And the majority were full of calculations.

Paper sacks full of chocolate wrappers, too. Chocolate, that he only eats every 3 days.

Uhm, excuse me; I am a Rock Star.

2006-11-15T01:32:00.000-07:00

I'm trying not to be morose.

I mean, it seems that the majority of my entries are, well, sad. Is it my job? Is my job truly that depressing and I just haven't noticed it? Or is it just that rhythm in life where things don't seem so good, for me or anyone else. I'm not an unhappy person. And if you ask anyone I work with, I'm pretty sure they would say I'm fun to be around.

So, due to the nature of the above mindset, and even though there is a "story" that has been bothering me and that I intend on relaying to you soon; I thought I'd write about something amusing. (I'm beginning to incorporate the use of semicolons; Stephen King would be proud)

10:00 o'clock in the a.m. No, make it 9:30.

He sat in that alley behind the grease dumpster of a fairly historical bar. His hair disheveled. And trapped, like a fly in a web, was one brown leaf tangled in the greasy mats of his hair. His teeth, snarling spit and leaking remnants of vomit as he attempted to speak clearly. He was still on the cold ground, because if he were to stand, contrary to what he believed, he would collapse like a house made of cards. His boots tell tales from previous nights. There are scars on the toes of the leather boots that could tell stories that would make mine pale in comparison.

And vomit, did I mention vomit? Glued to his shoelaces, in his sock, on his black-studded leather belt that was 3 sizes too big, on the hood of his coat, and lastly, on his face. Vomit, everywhere. That, being one of two things I can't stand. Vomit and poop.

And lastly, as if someone in the group was going on a first date, the smell of mouthwash. Wintergreen, I believe. Emanating from him as if it were a Glade freshener plugged into the outlet at my house, was that sweet smell of cleanliness. Reminding me of early mornings with friends with wet hair, clean skin, pressed clothes, and fresh, sweet, minty breath. It's a world of contradictions, and this one assaulted my senses like an ant at a picnic.

What do we do? Well, we commence, quickly, to save his life. That's what we do, right? He forcefully tells us he's alright and that he intends on leaving. In his mind, this conversation, and his cleverly planned escape attempt are processing at remarkable speeds. But, moving from cognitive reasoning to physical functioning is much, much.....much slower. He stands without bending his knees (a feat not even a sober person could do) , grabs that invisible rail in front to steady his slurred balance, and attempts to put it all together. Like a child first learning to walk, his synapses sparking, it culminates into one awkward move and he makes that first, ever-important escape step to freedom; "One small step for man, One giant leap for mankind".

He falls.

We pick him up. Shuffle him to the ambulance. We remove the shaving razor, even though he hasn't shaved in weeks, remove the ED discharge papers from last night, his lighter, and his comb. And, as this may come as a surprise to you, the majority of these drunkards ALWAYS carry combs. Sometimes, more than one. Why? I don't know. Can you play music through them, or something?

Lastly, we remove his ID.

"Is this you, dude?", I said in utter amazement.
"Yes, that's me."
"What happened?"
"I'm a rock star."
"Not any more, you're not."
"I'm a rock star, I used to be in a band. Heard of Black Sabbath?"
"Uh-huh."
"I used to be in that band."
"How come you're so f*cked up, now?"

"Because I'm a rock star!"

I saw the future.

2006-11-13T02:08:00.000-07:00

I saw the future. And it ain't pretty.

It's got some astrologically influenced name from the Farmer's Almanac, bleached blonde hair with dark roots shooting out from a ratty ponytail precariously affixed on the top of it's skull - a lot like Judy Jetson, way too much Wal-Mart makeup, and is clad in some extremely oversized, state-fair-airbrushed, 2 Pac T-shirt.

Her Jordache, velcro secured, 3/4 tops tap, tap, tap on the dingy bar's gravel lot. The fake fur from her hood of her once white overcoat frame her face as she smacks gum like Britney Spears. She laughs, then cries, then angers all within the time it takes to approach her and become disgusted with her lackadaisical affect. She's got the soul of a hardened 40 year old, and she's only 13.

I won't tell you the whole story as to why we were standing in that parking lot when it was 29 degrees with 5 cops, 1 mother, and a 13 year old going on 40. She didn't really know why, she could never get her story straight. Therefore, the cops didn't know why and felt it necessary to call the paramedics, so we could arrive and concur in the consensus that nobody had a clue what was going on.

Something about weed, mushrooms, hickies, and boyfriends.

But, looking at her as she tried to articulate the fact that she was on a speeding train to a dead end, I realized I was looking at the future. As she rambled on about the fact that she quit school because she didn't like it, or had numerous "boyfriends", or had already come home reeking of weed and tripping like a 70's rock star, I began to see the future. This is where it all begins, this is her destiny. This, seemingly, is what she wants.

That washed up, drugged out, pot-mark-faced, high-heeled hooker cruising the avenue was her. Like looking into a magic 8-ball, I forecasted the life of this little girl. It's true, too.

Is this mean? Do I sound callous? Am I upset? Are you?

What am I suppose to do? "Little girl, don't do drugs and go to school." Like she's never heard that before. How am I going to alter the inevitable events of this avenue bound teen?

I'm not. I'm going tell her she's full of shit, release her to the cops, and then tell the angry, uneducated, chain-smoking mother in the background that "if anything changes, call us back." Which they will, I assure you. Not for this, but for when the angry 18 year old boyfriend finds out she was cheating on him with his best friend while he was in County jail -the once best friend who rides his bike to work at Subway because he's already lost his license.

5 weeks from now, it won't matter!

2006-11-09T22:00:00.000-07:00

5 weeks.
Does it really matter? Does it really matter what they think of you, or what they said? Does it matter that you spend the majority of your time stressed out about some trivial aspect of work that, in the end, really doesn't matter.

4 weeks.
Was it that big of a deal that you got cut off? That you got flipped off? That you were late to work? That you missed your favorite show?

3 weeks.
Who cares if you don't have the biggest TV, or the latest iPod, or the nicest, newest, most outrageously expensive jeans that were made from new "old" denim and then shredded up to look like old, ratty, inexpensive work jeans.

2 weeks.
Do you really need to hold that grudge? Why can't you say you're sorry?

1 week.
Did you call? Did you tell them that you love them? Did you hug them and let them know how important they really are? Did you sit and talk, and listen? Did you enjoy the moment you were in? With them? With yourself? With your God?

It matters now. Because your time's up! You're gone. And all those worries, and stressors, and wastes-of-times, are still there. All those nice, new, shiny toys are there. And the people you love are there, too. The people you now wish you could spend time with. The people you wish you could squeeze and hold in your arms.

You knew someday this would happen. Everyone does. But, not this soon. Not now! It only happens to other people, and I don't plan on it happening to me until I'm old.

Nope. That's not how it goes. You have no control. So, don't watch, but be cognizant of that clock on the wall.

Because in 5 weeks, where will you be?

Cheeseburger Flavored Bread.

2006-11-09T21:59:00.000-07:00

So, what do I do when I've done nothing at work? How do I please the millions of feverish readers who religiously follow these chronicles of excitement and adventure? This is a site about the awe-inspiring life adventures of a paramedic. These words are written to motivate and to reach deep down into your soul and shake loose any, and all, of the cobwebs restraining one's love for life.

Nothing happened tonight.

Really. I mean, we did some calls. But, who wants to hear about the baby who scratched her nose with her fingernail, or the kid that bent his thumb backwards while wrestling? Doesn't make for an attention-grabbing, unbelievably amazing, on the edge-of-your-seat story, does it?

Well, I warned you that it's nothing like on TV.

But, I got to thinking last night, anyway.

Sitting, cramped, in the front of an ambulance in a grocery store parking lot having a diesel engine idling war with the parked semi next to us (who my partner was convinced was watching porn in the back, because "that's what truck drivers do"), I began to ponder. To wonder, how can I make more money?

I mean, if I was independently wealthy, or won the lottery, or just happened across a lot of cash, that would make my job a whole lot better. I could then do it, because I like it. I mean, I like it now. But, whenever you do something that is a primary means of support for you and your family, regardless if you like it or not, you begin to hate it.

Driving that beer truck. Making those donuts. Being a rock star. They all feel the same way I do. They all get sick of their jobs. You know, somewhere, sometime, some super star has said before playing in front of thousands of screaming people:

"Man, this sucks!' It's true. Just ask. After you get his autograph.

Anyway, that leads me to my get quick, money-making scheme that would allow me to enjoy my job like I should.

Cheeseburger flavored bread.

Cheetos.

2006-11-08T01:08:00.000-07:00

It was from a hidden bag in mom's child backpack that the cutest little 18 month old homeless girl I have ever seen was munching on Cheetos. Her little fingers orange from the fluorescent chips that she had such a craving for.

You see. Her father wasn't feeling so well, so he had an ambulance called. I pulled up to see a large man sitting under all the flashing lights and gauges on the side of an old fire engine, graffitied with some macho nickname with the writing enveloped by flames. He was anxious. Very, VERY anxious. His chest hurt. He couldn't sit still and was one flinch away from freaking out. He was having an anxiety attack. Although he thought he was dying.

And behind us all, in the dark, seated in a stroller that no soccer mom today would dare think about pushing down the manicured walking path near her new, tri-level home, was a little girl. She was bundled up, even though it wasn't that cold outside. Her, and her mother, stood patiently as the Emergency crews ignored them both.

Dad was upset because they were getting kicked out of their motel room tomorrow. They were living, and soon to be removed from, one of those seedy motels where aluminum foil squares litter the ground (crack) and hookers stagger back to after a long, long evening doing what they do best. This was their life. Homeless.

So I packed Dad, and the entire family, into the back of the ambulance. I knew he wasn't sick, and so did he. What needed fixin here was where they planned on resting their weary bodies after walking up and down the avenue trying to sell homemade jewelry. And all the while, that little girl ate cheeto after cheeto.

Smiling, trying to lick her boot, pointing at the glowing lights in the back of the ambulance. Not once did she speak. Could she speak? I don't know. But, for those few moments she didn't need to. She was content. She was happy. She was warm, and she was with her family. Cheeto after cheeto she smiled. Cheeto after cheeto made me sadder and sadder.

Seldomly do I feel bad for people. I don't cry for them. Normally, I blame them. They made those decisions, they can fix it if they want. But this little girl didn't ask for this. Her dad so stressed that his family will be sleeping on the streets tomorrow that he ends up in an ambulance. Mom, scared and quiet, but happy that they are all together and at this moment in time--safe. And the little girl. Happy as could be eating her cheetos.

I hope they don't get kicked out tomorrow.

It's not what you think. I promise.

2006-11-07T01:28:00.000-07:00

If you don't know me, and have happened across this site because you are interested, amused, or curious about the lives of paramedics, you may be disappointed.

We don't run around in cool T-shirts with funny sayings with our stethoscope draped fashionably around our necks. We aren't in some sorted love affair with young, beautiful resident doctors studying to become ED attendings (most of us). We don't grab people from the clutches of doom and bring them back from the light only to be honored at some prestigious black-tie dinner. We don't all have flowing manes that smell like mountain streams with manicured hands and sip Starbucks while we contemplate life's important philosophical questions. And, most importantly, there's no cool music in the background and we don't walk in slow motion as we approach some gnarly call.

We sit in cramped ambulances, in 7-11 parking lots. Our feet on the dash while the stock AM/FM radio crackles out the latest John Mayer song from the two oval speakers in the front doors. The 5 presets, that change everyday secondary to the different crews that spend 10 hours a day of their lives in the constantly idling ambulance, are continually punched due to constantly dodging the latest pop song being played repeatedly on every station. Ashlee Simpson, again!

The diesel engine runs 20 hours a day, the seats have softened and sank to the point you feel like you could rest your chin on your knees when you're sitting and staring through the reminents of green, bug goo. You don't touch anywhere below the seats and, if by some unfortunate happenstance, something you're eating touches anything in the ambulance, or touches anything that touches the ambulance, it's trash. Trash, which normally, lies between your seat and the large console between you and your partner with all the bells and whistles.

Our shirts get untucked, we sweat, our shoes are scuffed and not everyone shaves everyday, men and women. People give us dirty looks, people give us the finger, people try to run us off the road, people think since we're sitting in some public parking lot we are their to answer any questions they may have on their minds, medical or not.
And finally, although we have great knowledge of the city, people believe we are their very own, live and in person, Mapquest.com.

So, if you're still curious read on. Check back often. Because, even though it's not like you see on TV, you are guaranteed to be intrigued, amused, saddened, stressed, grossed out, and amazed at some the things I do and people I see. This is what it's really like. This is my life. The life of a Paramedic for the City and County in the Rocky Mountains. In beautiful Colorado.

Truth is stranger than fiction, believe me.