Karen Lynn Vidra, The Texas Tornado, click
here to update your pages on AuthorsDen.
What Might Have Been: Paramedic Stories, Part XI (By Johnny Eaglefeather, EMT) ~Warning: Tear-Jerker Material~ by Karen Lynn Vidra, The Texas Tornado
Wednesday, July 21, 2004
Rated "PG" by the Author.
It is always so hard when someone ends up dead or "damaged" somehow despite your best efforts to prevent it or to try to save them.
I look at people I see on the street that I have taken care of, and all at once, the painful memories come rushing back, and tears sting my eyes because we tried so hard to save their lives; and they end up "damaged", a former shell of themselves. Or worse, they end up dying on us. It is especially heartbreaking when a child is involved because kids aren't supposed to die, only older people.
One such case was that of a little boy I will call Jamie. (This isn't his real name; I am purposely doing this to protect his and his family's privacy.) Jamie was a little boy of four years who nearly drowned, and when we pulled him out of the water, he was pulseless and without breath: he looked more dead than alive, and we were afraid that we were going to lose him.
I remember the call well. It happened on the Fourth of July of last year (we paramedics work even on holidays; we are always on call, because there are always people who will need our services), and it happened about two, two thirty in the afternoon. I and my partners (Kendall, Pat, Royce, and Glenna) were sitting at the firestation, playing cards, trying to stir up some excitement before we would leave for the fireworks display later that evening), when the emergency tones went off, sending us immediately into action. We jumped into our vehicles, got our gear, and took off towards the victim's house. The victim in question was a little boy who had been found floating facedown in his family's pool, and the mother was the one who had made the call. We knew we had to act fast if the kid had any chance of making it.
We got to the kid's residence not even two minutes later (thank GOD they lived relatively close to our firestation!!), and already the police and firetrucks were there. The police and fire personnel were at the pool, whee some of them already started working on the boy. The boy looked no older than the age of five, and at the sight of his tiny, motionless body, my heart sank, as it always does when kids are involved in life-threatening situations. They were breathing for him, and one police officer was doing CPR on him.
Well, we took over, and we soon had the kid hooked up to a breathing tube and an EKG, and at the sight of the flat line on the EKG screen, I knew that the kid was in trouble, big-time trouble. Yet, we tried our best to try to revive him, and we suctioned out what seemed like gallons of water from his still lungs and breathed for him, hoping and praying that he would come back. But he never moved; and we soon had him in the back of our ambulance, where we continued our lifesaving efforts to get him back.
At the hospital, we waited and worried over the fate of the boy, and I tried my best to try to reassure the mother, who was understandably distraught. I didn't want to scare her by telling her that I didn't think that Jamie wasn't going to pull through; yet, inside, that was exactly what my brain was saying to me, over and over. We heard the Code Blue call go over the loudspeaker, and we saw the doctors and nurses rushing in and out of the E.R. All I could do was try to reassure Jamie's mother and pray for the little unconscious boy in the E.R. and hope for a Miracle from God Above.
But it wasn't to be. Despite all our (and the emergency team's) best efforts to save him, little Jamie did not make it. He died despite our efforts, and at the news of the little boy's death, I cried, and I don't think I will ever forget the sound of the mother's keening cries as she collapsed to the floor in shock at finding out that her son had died. It was a horrible ending to what had promised to be a fun-filled July Fourth, and all of a sudden, the celebrations for our nation seemed insignificant as I thought of Jamie's death. He was only five years old, just a little boy, and instead of celebrating our nation's birthday, he was now dead, and nothing could be done to bring him back.
It is cases like this that make many people give up Emergency Services because they just can't deal with it, but as much as it is upsetting, it is still expected. Death is as part of life as life itself, and what we paramedics have to realize is that we can't save everyone (although we DO try!). We will win some, but we will lose some, and we have to learn to accept that and go on with our lives and still try to help those in need, even if the death hits us like a ton of bricks!
Spoken Word
This CD will touch the deepest inner part of your humanness and spirit, you will never be the same after listening to the depths of struggle, the reality of life, the touching voice of truth. It will shock you, move you to tears. It w
Rovella is a beautiful woman with a cold heart whom blames herself for an unfortunate old family secret that is literally ruining her life. This secret impedes a gorgeous woman from having happiness in her childhood, and throughout her life. Dark sec
I look at people I see on the street that I have taken care of, and all at once, the painful memories come rushing back, and tears sting my eyes because we tried so hard to save their lives; and they end up "damaged", a former shell of themselves. Or worse, they end up dying on us. It is especially heartbreaking when a child is involved because kids aren't supposed to die, only older people.
