Quincy

An engine crew is already on scene when I jump out the back of the truck with two medics I litterally just met. I've got the first in bag slung over my shoulder and the monitor in my right hand, mentally noting that I have two pairs of gloves in my rightside pocket.
As codes go, this one was easy. A 93 year old male with an unknown down time, litterally right in the front door as we walk in. Despite the two sets of winding staircases, his age emaciated 110 pound frame will pose no problem strapped to a backboard, especially with a group of eager engine boys to help us out.
Laurie, a thickly built bulldog of a woman drops to her knees at the now purpling man's head. Vommit chokes the man's airway so she passes off to Pete and notices me already setting up her IV bag and tubing.
"I'm bleeding it now," I tell her. "Get a venipuncture and gimme the sharp, I'll get ya a sugar. Op site's on my knee." I had stuck the side of a small clear occlusive dressing that old school guys refer to as "an opsite" on my knee for easy access, as she was on her knees it was right within reach.
"What's on ya knee?" She hasn't heard that term in years.
"An opsite....shit what do you Boston guys call em? A teg, I got a teg on my knee."
"O ok, are you a student or something?"
"Just waiting to test for medic and I been an RI intermediate for a while."
She nods, happy that I'm not some fresh out of school bumpkin like most of the other EMTs she needs to deal with.
The lieutenant of the engine company, a 5o something year old guy with a bushy white mustache has been pounding on the guy's chest for the fifteen or so minutes we've been there. "You guys gonna shock em?" He's got that almost childlike anticipation in his voice, clearly someone who loves his job. Laurie and Pete just smile and I get a blood sugar off the sharp she pulled out.
"Gluc's at 117. Sharp OUT! Sharp in the box." I gather up all of the wrappers, gauze and discarded non sharp refuse and stash it next to the O2 bottle. "All waste accounted for, next to the O2 bottle. No sharps."
The lieutnant is turning red, sweat soaking through his gray officer's polo shirt. "Hey Lou, " I ask. "You want me to spell ya over there?" He shakes his head but he's clearly beat. "Lou, I don't wanna be doin' that on you, how bout you let me take over?" He looks up, nods and says something about me being younger and gladly pushes aside.
As usual I feel the ribs breaking under my compressions, a weird kind of snapping and popping that feels almost like twigs breaking. The guy's wife, another 90 something is watching and sobbing so a female cop who showed up with us takes her in the other room. Another eager firefighter pushes in to take over compressions, fine by me.
"Pete, you want a board?"
"Yeah, lets blow this popsicle stand."
I jog down to the bus and grab a backboard in order to transport our guy down to the rig. Once we get him packaged we cart him down two windy sets of stairs two the street level and the stretcher, I'm bagging him and one of the Quincy Jakes is riding the rails like something out of ER while we hustle it to the truck.
Out of the corner of my eye I see a red car slowing down, rubbernecking at what's going on. The woman driving has her windows rolled down and I see her carseated daughter in the back, wide eyed at what we are doing.
I'm about to tell her to get out of here when the sweat soaked liutenant snarls. "You enjoyin' the show? Piss off, ya want ya kid to see this?"
In the back of the truck its me and Laurie, I'm bagging and compressing, one with each hand while she starts pushing more of her meds. She maxed out on Atropine in the house so now it's just epi until we hit the QMC.
"Tube's dislodged." I'm watching the belly blow up with air so I hand off the bag to the medic and fish out my stethoscope. I listen as she pumps in breaths and I listen for breath sounds and hear nothing over the lungs. Whoshing greets me in the stomach.
She turns to tell Pete to pull the bus over but I've already weasled the tube back into place by pulling it up a bit. Again we have breath sounds and I ask if she wants to decompress the belly, an old school procedure thats hardly ever done anymore but still, it makes bagging even with a tube a helluva lot easier.
Laurie laughes, "Who are you?"
When we get to the QMC, we bring our guy in and the doc calls it after a mere minute or two of CPR. The poor old man was practically in rigor when we got there and he's ice cold now. His confused ancient wife said she had talked to him fifteen minutes earlier but unfournatley who knows how long her age addled brain had taken to process the fact that her husband was down.
Overall as codes go, it was easy to work but wondering how long she puttered around the house with her dead husband lying there kinda gives me the shivers.
The rest of the evening went by uneventfully enough. I had been stuck on a transfer truck all day and after my crew left, I saw the medics leaving for this call. Not even knowing what it was I asked if they needed a third and managed to get a bit of excitement to start an otherwise uneventful evening.