We care for many lives every shift. We provide emotional support, life sustaining, and life saving treatment. We learn to leave our patients at work and not let the stress follow us home. But when it's one of your own that you have to care for, everything changes.
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In the fire and EMS department we become a family. We work 24 hour shifts several times per week with the same people. We work hard and play hard. We share holidays, meals and sleep in the same room. We know their families, attend their kids ball games and birthday parties. We support them during the rough times and share their enjoyment of the good times. On calls we work as a tight-knit team. We anticipate each other's moves and can talk without speaking. We enter scenes that are less than safe and drive fast with citizens who don't appreciate the driving laws. Our safety is in each other's hands.
I am trained to care for others both as an ICU RN and Paramedic. I have the alphabet soup after my name. I have held people as they die and pulled many back from the brink of death. I have seen things that nobody should ever have to see, but I'm trained to talk it out and move on. During my 13 years in EMS and 6 years as a nurse, this has worked for me.
Not this time.
It was like any other shift. My partner and I had finished our daily chores, had run a few calls, and were goofing off like usual. Suddenly he sat down, put his head in his hands, and stared at the floor. I jokingly said "come on, what's wrong you old smoker?" and quickly realized that my goofball partner was not goofing around. He picked his head up and looked at me with terror in his eyes, grabbed at his chest, and said his chest was on fire. I ordered this stubborn man to get out to the ambulance and my heart sank when I received no contest.
He collapsed onto the stretcher and pulled off his shirt. I turned on the cardiac monitor and pulled out the leads. They wouldn't stick. His breathing was becoming heavier, his color more grey. I didn't need an EKG to tell me that my partner was quickly slipping from my grasp. I called on the radio for additional help. Gauze pad after gauze pad, sticker after sticker, I finally was able to confirm my worst fear. STEMI. My face couldn't lie. My shaking hands gave it away. I looked at him and said "it's real." He closed his eyes.
It felt like hours, but help arrived. I ordered them to drive priority 1 (most critical) to the hospital that was two miles away. I gave aspirin, applied oxygen, and further sank when I realized that his vital signs were too low for me to administer nitro. I sent the EKG to the ER and called them on the radio to give a heads up. "It's one of ours." The four words that EMS never wants to say, and the ER never wants to hear.
A second BP pops up on the monitor and it's significantly lower. His color is greyer, muscle tone weak, and he's staring off into space. The voice in my head says a cuss word I can't repeat as I shake him to make sure he is still alive. He turns his head slowly and makes eye contact-they are begging, pleading "help me, I'm going to die." I crouched down beside him and started an IV. At that very moment, I felt the telltale bump in the road that signified that we had arrived at the hospital. How in the world could a 4 minute drive take hours?
We rushed inside with him barely awake, vitals even lower. I was shaking, breathless, and scared out of my mind. There wasn't time for report. We lifted him to the ER stretcher and I lost sight of him as a sea of doctors and nurses surrounded him. The familiar monitor alarms were going off, yelling for drugs. I was pushed out into the hallway unsure if I would ever see him alive again.
I collapsed on the floor and the tears started flowing. My partner, my friend, my family member. What little staff wasn't in the room was with me, providing hugs, tissues, and water. Several minutes later he was rushed past me to the cath lab. I followed. I sat alone in the cath lab waiting room and started making phone calls. His father was on his way. My boss put our ambulance out of service and was on his way. The minutes took hours to pass. His family arrived and we anxiously waited for news.
Finally. The nurse appeared with a smile on her face! A 99% blockage was stented, his vitals had returned to normal, and he was pain free!
He spent a few days in the hospital and is back to his normal self.
Not me.
His pleading and terrified eyes, grey color, and tombstones on the EKG keep flashing through my mind. My hands shake. My chest hurts. I have palpitations. Nausea. Dammit, I did what I was trained to do, and it worked! But why do I still hurt? I should be happy that I made a difference! Instead, my stomach twists into knots when people tell me I "saved his life." Each day gets slightly better. A concerned boss, supportive co-workers and ER nurses have lessened the pain.
I am not a hero. I am a nurse and paramedic. Most importantly, I am a family member.
This too shall pass and just be another story in my book.
