Football Sunday
"X Ray up," the radio crackles to life as I'm just starting to doze off. "I need an X Ray." Quincy PD is calling for an ambulance. With a groan i grope for the portable laying on the table behind me.
"X Ray, you on the air?"
"X Ray Three on, go ahead Control."
"Respond with PD for a well being check." She gives an address as I pull on my boots and tuck in my uniform shirt, coffee. My cup of stale java is the next thing I grab on my way down to the bus. Its around ten am but still, I was napping.
My partner's name is Tex, an old school Italian guy who is perpetually hung over. We make it to the address, a dinky high rise on the South end of Quincy and find a police car sitting out front.
The first four rings on the buzzer give us no response so I just start pushing buttons waiting for someone to let us in. Finally someone unlocks the door and we find our way in.
A very very tall police officer meets us at the door and says: "I didn't know what else to do with her." I nod and ask if he wants to tell me why she needs something done with her. "O just wait, I don't want to rob you of the experience."
Tex rolls his eyes and we go into the spartan but well kept apartment to find a cute little old lady dressed in her Sunday best perched on the couch. I use the same opening line with old women on virtually every call. "What's up, dear?"
Her face goes stoney and she practically spits the words at me. "You don't know?" I shake my head and her face turns warm and serene. "O well then, I'll tell you. Nine years ago they came and they stole my money. One hundred thousand dollars."
"O I'm sorry, dear, thats terrible."
"Now they're back, they live upstairs." Shes on the top floor. "They keep coming down in the middle of the night. They want my blood, they have a procedure to use my blood to find out where I keep the rest of my money. I hope they didn't get any of my blood."
I nod, "Yeah, me too. But hey, we can go to the hospital and they can check to see if any of your blood was taken."
She looks like a kid on Christmas morning. "They can do that?"
"Mmmmhmmmm. Come on, hun lets go down to the truck, shit I'll even use the sirens and we can get you there really fast to find out if all your blood's there."
A devilish grin cuts across her face. "Ooooh lets do that." I guide her down stairs and ten minutes later we're at the QMC. After getting her situated I hear her screaming and yelling about the nurse coming to do a blood draw.
"No fucking needles! Thats how they steal my blood!"
I stick my head in the room and say "Maddie, how do you think they check to make sure its still there? They're not stealing anything. I told you they're gonna help ya."
As if this makes perfect sense, and to her it probably does, she stops braying and calms down telling the nurse a story about her son and some sort of recipe for a jelly.
Now the game is set to start, Pats and Browns.
"X Ray up?"
Mothafucka! "X Ray on the air, go for Control."
"Unknown medical, China District. No English."
"X Ray has it."
In the China District of Quincy, virtually every house is three floors or more, none of them have elevators, just windy staircases that seem to climb into infinity. Despite the fact that the room is four hundred some odd degrees and there is a grey skinned woman vommiting violently into a bucket, it smells great. Some sort of rice and chicken meal sits untouched on the table.
"Okay, whats this all about?" I ask the son of the woman. In broken English he tells me that she's been vommiting all night. I can tell looking at her she can't walk.
"All right, bud, hang on." I reach over and key my microphone. "X Ray Three for Control. Roll an Engine, we're gonna need a lift assist here." Two guys and a stair chair is all well and good but three flights of winding stairs is just asking to fall and hurt yourself without a spotter.
I go over and feel the woman's head, even through my glove I can feel her burning up. Tex took a quick pulse and said: "Fuck the engine, we gotta go. Shes tacing away, weak and thready." And here I am working a BLS bus.
We get to the first landing when Engine Five pulls up outside. Three guys come up and meet us. We were in such a hurry we didn't bother with a stair chair. "Hi guys" Tex is overly cheerful. "This is yours" we plop the woman in their arms and help guide them down. A fourth guy had the good sense to get the stretcher out so they just drop her in it secure her and I call out. "Hey, Cap, gimme one of your guys as a driver."
The son is trying to rub oil on his mother's face when Tex just pushes him to the front of the bus. "Not now, man, get in front." The kid takes the hint and climbs in as a Quincy Jake gets in the driver's seat.
More violent vommiting and her eyes roll back in her head. "No, no honey!" I yell. "Eyes open," nothing. "Hey open your eyes." Tex reaches over and flicks her nose, her eyes snap open and I take a quick set of vitals. 90/70, pulse 120, resperations at 36. When I check the eyes I find pupils fixed at one milimeter. My partner starts hooking her up to the oxygen as i check between her toes, fingers, up and down both arms and down by the groin for track marks. Nothing.
We make it to the Quincy as I'm going for another set of vitals, cursing BLS because I would have loved to pop in a line and get her on the monitor.
Once in the ED, I'm helping transfer her to a bed when Tex says. "Ah shit, do people with SARS vommit?" The nurse laughes and tells him not to worry. She starts to decomp really fast, bradying down to around fifty for a pulse. The physian and a few critical care nurses are already there so I ask, noone in particular.
"Somebody wanna tell me the score?"
"X Ray, you on the air?"
"X Ray Three on, go ahead Control."
"Respond with PD for a well being check." She gives an address as I pull on my boots and tuck in my uniform shirt, coffee. My cup of stale java is the next thing I grab on my way down to the bus. Its around ten am but still, I was napping.
My partner's name is Tex, an old school Italian guy who is perpetually hung over. We make it to the address, a dinky high rise on the South end of Quincy and find a police car sitting out front.
The first four rings on the buzzer give us no response so I just start pushing buttons waiting for someone to let us in. Finally someone unlocks the door and we find our way in.
A very very tall police officer meets us at the door and says: "I didn't know what else to do with her." I nod and ask if he wants to tell me why she needs something done with her. "O just wait, I don't want to rob you of the experience."
Tex rolls his eyes and we go into the spartan but well kept apartment to find a cute little old lady dressed in her Sunday best perched on the couch. I use the same opening line with old women on virtually every call. "What's up, dear?"
Her face goes stoney and she practically spits the words at me. "You don't know?" I shake my head and her face turns warm and serene. "O well then, I'll tell you. Nine years ago they came and they stole my money. One hundred thousand dollars."
"O I'm sorry, dear, thats terrible."
"Now they're back, they live upstairs." Shes on the top floor. "They keep coming down in the middle of the night. They want my blood, they have a procedure to use my blood to find out where I keep the rest of my money. I hope they didn't get any of my blood."
I nod, "Yeah, me too. But hey, we can go to the hospital and they can check to see if any of your blood was taken."
She looks like a kid on Christmas morning. "They can do that?"
"Mmmmhmmmm. Come on, hun lets go down to the truck, shit I'll even use the sirens and we can get you there really fast to find out if all your blood's there."
A devilish grin cuts across her face. "Ooooh lets do that." I guide her down stairs and ten minutes later we're at the QMC. After getting her situated I hear her screaming and yelling about the nurse coming to do a blood draw.
"No fucking needles! Thats how they steal my blood!"
I stick my head in the room and say "Maddie, how do you think they check to make sure its still there? They're not stealing anything. I told you they're gonna help ya."
As if this makes perfect sense, and to her it probably does, she stops braying and calms down telling the nurse a story about her son and some sort of recipe for a jelly.
Now the game is set to start, Pats and Browns.
"X Ray up?"
Mothafucka! "X Ray on the air, go for Control."
"Unknown medical, China District. No English."
"X Ray has it."
In the China District of Quincy, virtually every house is three floors or more, none of them have elevators, just windy staircases that seem to climb into infinity. Despite the fact that the room is four hundred some odd degrees and there is a grey skinned woman vommiting violently into a bucket, it smells great. Some sort of rice and chicken meal sits untouched on the table.
"Okay, whats this all about?" I ask the son of the woman. In broken English he tells me that she's been vommiting all night. I can tell looking at her she can't walk.
"All right, bud, hang on." I reach over and key my microphone. "X Ray Three for Control. Roll an Engine, we're gonna need a lift assist here." Two guys and a stair chair is all well and good but three flights of winding stairs is just asking to fall and hurt yourself without a spotter.
I go over and feel the woman's head, even through my glove I can feel her burning up. Tex took a quick pulse and said: "Fuck the engine, we gotta go. Shes tacing away, weak and thready." And here I am working a BLS bus.
We get to the first landing when Engine Five pulls up outside. Three guys come up and meet us. We were in such a hurry we didn't bother with a stair chair. "Hi guys" Tex is overly cheerful. "This is yours" we plop the woman in their arms and help guide them down. A fourth guy had the good sense to get the stretcher out so they just drop her in it secure her and I call out. "Hey, Cap, gimme one of your guys as a driver."
The son is trying to rub oil on his mother's face when Tex just pushes him to the front of the bus. "Not now, man, get in front." The kid takes the hint and climbs in as a Quincy Jake gets in the driver's seat.
More violent vommiting and her eyes roll back in her head. "No, no honey!" I yell. "Eyes open," nothing. "Hey open your eyes." Tex reaches over and flicks her nose, her eyes snap open and I take a quick set of vitals. 90/70, pulse 120, resperations at 36. When I check the eyes I find pupils fixed at one milimeter. My partner starts hooking her up to the oxygen as i check between her toes, fingers, up and down both arms and down by the groin for track marks. Nothing.
We make it to the Quincy as I'm going for another set of vitals, cursing BLS because I would have loved to pop in a line and get her on the monitor.
Once in the ED, I'm helping transfer her to a bed when Tex says. "Ah shit, do people with SARS vommit?" The nurse laughes and tells him not to worry. She starts to decomp really fast, bradying down to around fifty for a pulse. The physian and a few critical care nurses are already there so I ask, noone in particular.
"Somebody wanna tell me the score?"
posted by Nick Stabile at 9:01 PM
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