I have only been on the squad for less than ten months, but in my short tenure as an EMT, I have seen much in the way of carnage and heartbreak.

One of my worst experiences as an EMT happened just the other day, this past weekend. It all started with a shooting, and it went from bad to worse, fast.

I had reported to the ambulance bay at a quarter to six in the morning. I was to be sharing ambulance duty with Kendall V. Smith and George "Goose" Guzman, who were to be my partners for the shift. We figured it would be slow, seeing it was Sunday morning; and for over an hour it was--but then the emergency tones went off, which immediately sprang us into action. We threw on our gear and ran out the door, towards a waiting ambulance.

The call was for a woman down. The woman had been shot several times in a drive-by shooting. First responders at the scene reported thta the woman was lying in a prone, or face-down, position, on the ground, in a puddle of blood. She was not moving. We knew we had to get to the scene, fast, if the woman was to have any chance of making it.

We jumped into the ambulance, mentally preparing ourselves for the scene that surely lay ahead of us. We knew it would be bad; we just didn't know how bad.

We got to the scene within minutes. A crowd was huddled around the still form of a heavy-set woman lying on the concrete. There was a large puddle of blood coming from her body. Time was of the essence for this woman.

We sprinted to the woman; we immediately set to work. I felt for a pulse while my two comrades rolled her onto a spine board and immediately tried to see what was going on with her. The woman was in her forties, African-American, and she was ashen in appearance. You could clearly see that life was ebbing from her body. She looked awful.

"We aren't getting a pulse or a discernable blood pressure reading! She's down! Asystole!" I heard Kendall Smith shout. "We need to initiate CPR! NOW!!"

While my partners started rescue efforts on the woman, I started an IV line and hooked her up to a heart monitor. The tracing on the screen was flatline. It was worse than we had imagined.

Within moments, we had the unidentified woman in the back of the ambulance. My partners continued their rescue efforts while I took the initial report.

"STEP ON IT!" I heard "Goose" scream. We sped down the road, lights flashing, sirens blaring, towards the nearest hospital. Time was quickly running out for the woman who was now in our care.

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At the hospital, a team of medical specialists met us at the entrance of the E.R. While they transferred the nonbreathing, unconscious, blood-soaked woman to a waiting gurney, I ran behind, trying desperately to keep up. "Goose" and Kendall were on the gurney, still trying to revive the woman. She was immediately rushed into a trauma bay, where doctors and nurses soon descended upon her still, bloody form like a swarm of angry bees.

The team worked on the woman; meanwhile, I was being interviewed by a police woman. I gave her the information we had gleaned at the scene. Not much was known about the woman yet, but we (sort of) figured out what had happened to her. Apparently, according to witnesses at the scene, the woman had been reading a newspaper on her porch, when a carload of gangbangers drove up, saw her, and shot her without provocation. Apparently, the woman had been wearing blue; the gangsters thought she was a member of a rival gang, so they shot her before they roared off.

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Surprisingly, the woman surived. She now lies in the Med-Surg (Medical/Surgical) ICU, where she continues to hang on by a precarious thread. Seh endured major surgery to her liver, bowels, spleen (removed), spine, and lung. Four bullets had been pumped into her. She was now paralyzed, and her future is still guarded at best.

The woman now has a name: Raynelda Watkins. She is forty-seven years old, and she works at a GM plant here in Nashville. She has a younger sister, Regina, who has been at her side ever since she first came into the hospital; she refuses to leave her side.

At the present time, Raynelda is in a very critical state. She is prone to devastating infections that could kill her at any time, and she will spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair (or, if she is able to walk, on crutches). The life she once knew is now gone, and she now faces months, even years, of recovery, thanks to gang-related violence, where she was an innocent victim.

I will keep you up to date on Raynelda Watkins, but right now, she needs a miracle if she is to make it.

~As told by Dwayne T. Jackson, EMT, Nashville, Tennessee.