An ambulance crew coming
back off their third call in a row stopped off at a convenience store to
grab a snack and cold drink. As the crew exited the truck, the
emergency medical technician glanced over at a vehicle that had just
pulled in with a small child standing up in the seat. The veteran EMT's
face went red and he waited until the woman opened her car door. As
she exited her vehicle, he asked her to come over to him for a second.
"Lady,
you do know there's a law about unrestrained children in cars, right",
the EMT asked. The woman glared at him in a way that said she really
wasn't interested in what he had to say.
"Do you understand
what I'm saying", he asked her, and she replied with a simple "yeah, I
guess". Obviously aware his point hadn't hit home, the EMT began to
unleash upon the woman.
"You don't know what it's like to pull
up on a car that's tore up and a little child about your son's size
pinned up under the dashboard," the heartfelt speech began. "To see
that precious child laying there dead because a simple car seat wasn't
there to keep him from flying through the car," he continued. The lady
turned and walked away without saying a word. The EMT got back into his
ambulance and waited for his partner and paramedic student to return
from inside the store. That happened one afternoon in Morehead as I
was the paramedic student riding along with that crew. Some will say it
wasn't the EMT's place to chastise the lady for poor decisions she
made, but look at it from the eyes of the responder for a minute.
I
joined the Owingsville Fire Department as a junior member at the age of
sixteen. When I was 'official' at the age of eighteen, I could respond
to real calls with the department. In addition to fires, we were
responsible for all vehicle extrications and other emergency calls as
requested. My first 'bad' call was in April 1992, along Interstate 64
at the 127 mile marker. A car had ran off the road into some trees and
caught fire with a lady trapped in it. As I sat in the fire truck on
the way there, I couldn't help to think of two friends of mine who died
in a similar way almost exactly two years before. Once on scene, we
went into full fire and rescue mode, I was part of the crew that put the
fire out, which had by then totally engulfed the car and poor lady
inside. She never made a sound; we thought she had perished in the
flames, and were quite shocked to see her turn to look at us as we
worked to get all the fire out. Another crew used the Jaws of Life on
the car door to get her out and she lunged out at the guys standing
there. There are no words to describe the horrific scene, no details I
would want to share with readers, anyway. The ambulance crew went to
work on her and quickly transported her to Saint Claire hospital where a
helicopter would be summoned to air lift her to a burn center. That
lady's name was Rita, a name that's stuck with me all this time. She
was freed from her suffering later that evening, but the images I saw
will always be in my mind.
You may wonder why I didn't run
away and never respond ever again after seeing that sight along the
interstate. Like any other responder, I enjoyed being able to help
people, and still do after all these years; that's why we do what we do
even during those bad calls. That wreck was something we all chalked up
that day as being part of the job. Some older, veteran firefighters had
already been exposed to that kind of trauma and even more in their
years, so the counseling we younger guys got was, "you'll see it again,
it's part of it". It's that mentality emergency responders have that
eases the shock and awe of the job for some. Over time, the bad calls
start running together and we start playing certain scenes back in our
minds, whether we want to or not. The official term for this is called
Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, which is more akin to returning soldiers
from wars beyond, but can happen to anyone who has witnessed or been a
part of a traumatic event that involves immediate danger or death. We
deal with it in various ways; some try to rationalize the events, some
self medicate themselves into an oblivious state, others delve deeper
into a dark self contained abyss that is a down right scary place to be.
The emergency responders on September 11, 2001 are hailed as
heroes. Not a single person involved, responder or civilian, was left
unaffected that day. To see that much carnage and devastation in
Manhattan or Washington, D.C. would be more than any one of us could
fathom. All involved that day are heroes in my opinion, because they
are survivors. The bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City on
April 19, 1995 was society's first glimpse into Responder PTSD; the
image of the firefighter carrying the bloodied, limp body of a child
from the wreckage of the Murroh Building speaks volumes. It was there,
for the first time, it was recognized that emergency personnel could be
affected by just doing their job. But yet, it is expected for those who
dedicate to save to be tough as nails and pass it all off as part of
it.
I joined the Army when I was eighteen and became a Combat
Medical Specialist, or in civilian terms, an Army Medic. I was deployed
to Saudi Arabia as part of the Persian Gulf War operative and was a
medic for a Patriot Missile Battalion. During my time there, I never
saw the horrors of war; in fact, the worst thing I saw was a guy get his
finger severed. It wasn't until I reported to Fort Campbell, Kentucky
that I saw a plethora of traumatic events. The biggest incident I was
part of was when two Blackhawk helicopters collided in midair during a
training exercise in June, 1996. I was part of the receiving triage
team, which meant when injured people came to the hospital via truck or
helicopter, I sorted them out in order of their injuries and sent them
into awaiting doctors in the hospital. The final tally was over 40
injured and six killed that day. From March 1995 until I left in
September 1996, I worked shootings, stabbings, domestic assaults that
left women battered nearly to death and numerous car accidents. On top
of that were the military training exercises that went wrong; like the
squad of soldiers that had a grenade bounce out of a foxhole onto them
and explode, or the battalion commander who took an accidental M-16
bullet to the back of his head on his last training exercise with his
unit. But, it was, again, just 'part of it'.
Post traumatic
stress is attributed to a mental disorder, and those who exhibit signs
and symptoms quickly deny they have PTSD in fear that they will be
labeled as being a 'mental case' or crazy. These issues can bottle up
and, for some people, can explode into a Vesuvian level meltdown. It is
the stigma that if help is sought then the responder will lose their
job and their credibility. The number of responder suicides has
increased over the years, as well as alcohol related incidents and
domestic violence within the ranks. It's easy for people to say, "suck
it up, drive on", but for many, the images of the horrific things we've
seen are just too much eventually.
In my twenty something
years of being a first responder, I've seen my share of bad things.
Like nearly all other responders, images in my mind still haunt me and
always will. Being from a small community, the likelihood of
responding to a call and it being someone we know very well or a family
member is always looming. In April, 2004, while responding to a call in
Salt Lick, a fellow responder going to the same call I was going to
rolled her vehicle just up ahead of me and was thrown out onto the
roadway, nearly killing her. This responder happened to also be the
sister of a woman I was dating at the time. We do the job because we
love it and love helping people. I'm always asked how I handle it all;
my reply is always, I do what I do to the best of my training and
rationalize it all out in my own way. We don't do it for the glory and
accolades; if it's an ego trip to do the job, then my advice is to
reconsider your career choices. Seeing things through the eyes of a
responder can be a scary, dark thing. Our humor is off the wall and
macabre' at best. But also, know that the people who pledge their lives
to save other are human too, and sometimes need time to grieve and
process what has been seen, and cannot be unseen.
