The Call
Why we go back to rural Emergency Medicine…
As EMS professionals, we are called to deal with a lot of stress. Stress for which we are, admittedly, trained. But still, which of us hasn’t wondered, for just a moment, why we keep going back?
The following is a piece I wrote for a class several years ago. (Note: No identifying information follows. Any similarities are entirely coincidental, as this story is just that: a story compiled from the imagination and a few of my own experiences).
It was wickedly hot on the late summer day in her small town. There was nothing really unusual about it, just another busy weekend with everyone going seven directions at once. She had one of those nasty end-of-summer colds that knocks you down and drags you out, complete with fever and blinding headache.
Out of necessity, she’d given up on getting any work done and finally sat down in the most comfortable La-Z-Boy available, falling into a troubled sleep.
The call tones came over the digital radio with chilling clarity. “All responders. All responders. Please stand by for a page.” Her eyes flew open and she sat motionless, scarcely breathing, waiting for the dispatcher’s next words—multiple injuries, possible fatalities. She catapulted out of the chair, grabbed her shoes and keys. No one told her—they didn’t have to. Sometimes you just know. This one was theirs.
She knew, although she wasn’t a licensed EMT yet, that she was one of two trained emergency personnel available to respond. Her first responder status would have to be sufficient. She heard her partner respond over the airwaves as she dashed out the door. It slammed behind her with a resounding crack! She turned the key in the ignition of her little green sports car. Two words stuck in her mind—possible fatalities. Her hands shook violently as the adrenaline rush took effect. She knew then the meaning of terror. Cold, hard, stick-in-your-throat terror.
Dear God, please let this be a dream. I’m not trained to handle this! Bruises, cuts, broken bones, I can handle that. But fatalities? Please God, my training doesn’t go that far. Please, please, let them have the wrong address, anything to make it not our call.
She hit the highway at with hazard lights flashing and came to a halt in the ambulance barn parking lot moments later. As she sprinted from her car to the emergency vehicle pulling out of the barn, she made a haphazard attempt to tie her hair back.
“What can I do?” she asked, out of breath, still shaking.
“Crawl in the back. Grab us gloves, c-collars, and the trauma kit.” She heard the same charge in her partner’s voice that she felt in the pit of her stomach. It was a feeling of chaos and complete calm, of thrill and dread.
“I can’t do this. I haven’t even started the Basic class yet.” The younger of the two felt the need to remind her superior about her lack of experience.
“Well, we’re it. So we have to. I’ll tell you what needs done.”
They pulled on their gloves and silence engulfed them. One concentrated on driving, the other on balancing in the back of the ambulance as she gathered supplies while they hurtled down the road. The road rushed by in a blur, occasionally highlighted by the flash of the emergency light bar. The racket of the road noise was nearly deafening when combined with the clatter of bouncing equipment and the whine of sirens. She felt her self-control slipping.
As they neared the address, she pulled up her mental bootstraps and checked off a silent list. Gloves, c-collars, and trauma kit. She focused on the minute details, knowing from experience that when it came down to the line, they would do their best, because that was all they could do.
“You see anything yet?”
“Nothing.” The driver reached for the radio to double-check the hastily-given address, but stopped when the dispatcher beat her to it.
“QRT, this is Dispatch. We already have a unit on-scene, you can stand down. The original address was incorrect. Repeat. QRT, you can stand down. The sheriff’s department requests help with traffic control south of town.”
“10-4, Dispatch, this is QRT. In route to help sheriff’s deputy with traffic.”
They pulled to the edge of the highway and drifted slowly to a stop. Then, after taking deep sighs and breathing a prayer for the crews on scene, they turned around and headed back to town.
They spent the rest of the afternoon in neon orange vests with “EMS” stamped on the front and back in huge letters, directing traffic and wondering about their comrades on the scene. The line of vehicles stopped behind their bright red stop sign grew exponentially longer as the day progressed, everyone asking questions, no one getting real answers. The physical traffic, however, didn’t hold a candle to the verbal traffic blaring out of the emergency radios.
They heard someone—fireman, EMT, sheriff’s deputy, they couldn’t tell—announce that the Flight-for-Life crew and patient were in the air. It wasn’t exactly good news, but the partners were relieved. Where there’s breath, there’s hope.
She loves the thrill, the rush, the high, and she survives the dread, terror, and exhaustion. But at the end of the day, it’s the hope of doing the right thing at the right time for the one person who might need her that keeps her coming back…
day…
after day…
after day…
after day…
