Editor’s note: We got so many great EMS Week story submissions during last month’s contest, we’ve decided to run a few of our favorite entries. Here is one of our top picks. View all entries here, and check out our winner.
By Terri Staner
St Luke’s Lifeguard Air Ambulance (Iowa)
Several years ago when I was a new medic, my frequent partner was a school janitor who was a part-time EMT and part-time volunteer fireman. Mark had been on the service for more years than anyone could remember. He was a thin man who looked like a poster boy for COPD. He had the weathered skin and the calloused hands of a man whose life had been spent doing physical labor.
Mark was a simple man who received pleasure out of a job well done, a good supper placed before him, and a ready joke. Mark had not only a calming effect on the patient, but also on this very green medic.
One of my first calls as a medic was an elderly woman whose complaint was SOB and chest pain. After placing her on the cardiac monitor, I noted her heart rate was in the 180s. Panicked, I yelled, “Mark! We are going now!” I shoved the patient onto the cot and practically ran over my partner trying to get to the rig. As the doors started to shut I said, “Go! This is emergent!”
Mark calmly climbed into the back, sat down beside me, and said, “Terri, ain’t there something in that drug kit you’re supposed to be giving your patient?”
As I hung my head, I responded “Ya, I guess there is.”
And this is how our partnership went, me the “all-knowing” paramedic who was a coward at heart, and my EMT partner who quietly gave me the courage and confidence to become the medic I am today.
Several weeks later our main and back-up ambulances were paged to the scene of a MVC. A busy atmosphere: fire, rescue, police, and the scents of antifreeze and oil assaulted my senses when I arrived. As I stepped down out of the rig, the sheriff grabbed my arm and dragged me over to a small car. The vehicle had slid on black ice smashing onto a bridge.
“Here! The critical one is over here!” yelled the frantic voice of an officer.
I looked where his finger pointed and could see through the shattered glass two young teenagers, a brother and sister. The young girl sat in the driver’s seat with both hands on the steering wheel staring straight ahead like a concrete statue. The boy had come to rest with his head lying on the girl’s shoulder-an obvious fatality that instantly became burned into my mind like a frozen photograph.
In my frustration, I began to place cardiac leads on the boy, thinking maybe, please God, just maybe. I felt someone at my side. I looked up into the eyes of one of the firemen, eyes that were mirrors of my own: full of sadness, full of compassion, and full of pain. It was Mark. He placed a hand on my shoulder as he leaned down and whispered in my ear, “Terri, go, you go take care of the one you can help. I will take care of the boy.”
Years later I am a flight medic in an air medical helicopter. We are circling yet another scene of a multi victim MVC. I am faced with the same sights, same sounds that over the years have formed a large photo album in my mind. My partner commented, “We are the heroes here.” An image of that old crusty EMT came to mind, a good man who still serves that small town, like the men found down below us.
EMS, an army of faithful who are always there. No, we are not the heroes, they are — and that one special EMT