“You Do It Once? F%*k No — You Do It Eighteen Times”

Trenton, 2022

There’s this Robin Williams bit where he’s talking about golf — how the Scottish invented it as this torturous game. He pantomimes swinging a club and yelling profanities, and then says, “And you do it once? Fuck no, you do it eighteen times!” That’s EMS. You go through something most people would call the worst moment of their life — and then you reset the clock and go again.

This was one of those nights.

Two cardiac arrests. Back-to-back. And not just cardiac arrests, but the kind that take something out of you physically, mentally, emotionally. Calls that don’t leave you. You don’t shake them off. You just carry them forward into the next one.

The first came in late — a man unresponsive in his bedroom. We pull up, grab the gear, and make our way inside. The room is maybe nine feet by nine feet. Queen-size bed. No real floor space. It’s the kind of room where you take one step and you’re already touching three pieces of furniture.

We pile in — six of us. Two paramedics, four EMTs. That many bodies in that small a space would be absurd under normal conditions. But this is a code. You need hands. You need someone on compressions, someone bagging, someone prepping meds, someone managing the monitor. You don’t have time to think about elbows bumping or gear bags getting kicked. You just move.

We get the patient to the floor — no easy task with the space — and start CPR. I’m kneeling so close to the dresser that my hip is jammed against it every time I rock forward on compressions. The heat starts to hit. There’s no airflow in the room, and within two minutes, everyone’s drenched in sweat. It’s suffocating. The kind of hot that makes you dizzy.

And then we hear it. Yelling. Screaming. Outside the bedroom, the family’s losing it. Cops arrive, try to hold the hallway, but the family is desperate — trying to push past them, get in, see what’s happening, maybe stop it, maybe help, maybe just be present for someone’s last moments. But they can’t be in the room. It’s too small. Too dangerous. Too much.

So the cops barricade the door. Literally hold it closed while we work. We’re locked inside — us, the patient, and the weight of all that fear and rage and heartbreak on the other side of the door. It’s pounding. It’s screaming. It’s slamming fists and crying prayers. And we’re just… trying to get a heartbeat.

Shock advised. We clear. Shock delivered. We get pulses back. Then lose them. Start compressions again. Another shock. ROSC — Return of Spontaneous Circulation. A fragile victory, but enough to move.

Now comes the extraction.

Two flights of narrow stairs. No elevator. And this guy’s big. We load him into the Reeves — a soft stretcher, basically just heavy-duty webbing and straps — and start the descent. I’m at the feet. Halfway down, I feel it. My grip’s slipping. My arms are shot. My hands are wet. My legs are shaking. I catch my chief’s eye — he sees it, nods, and takes over without a word. That’s the kind of leadership that matters in these moments. We get the patient outside. Into the rig. Transported.

He lived.

And then… we get tapped out again.

Different part of town. The call comes in as a choking. We arrive and walk into what feels like a normal family dinner. Kitchen table. Adults around. Food half-eaten. The patient is an older man in a chair, clutching his chest. Everyone’s yelling. “He’s choking!” “No, he wasn’t eating!” “He can’t breathe!” No one agrees. Everyone’s scared.

I try to talk to him, but before I can finish a sentence, his eyes roll back and he starts to fall. I lunge, catch him, guide him down. Instinct kicks in. Someone shoves the table aside. Another pulls chairs out of the way. Cops arrive. Medics. More EMTs. The room floods with responders.

We start CPR. I’m doing compressions, counting under my breath, and the medic starts to intubate. The guy vomits. Hard. We suction. More vomit. I swap out for compressions, then back in. It’s pit crew style — fast, efficient, clean transitions. Two minutes. “I got it on your count.” Swap. Continue.

There’s sweat in my eyes. I can’t wipe it. My gloves are covered in… everything. I’m soaked. I can’t push my sleeves up. Then, without a word, one of the officers walks over and gently pulls my sleeves up over my elbows. That little act — completely unnecessary but deeply human — stayed with me. A small gesture of care in the middle of chaos.

At one point, I’m off to the side kneeling by the patient’s legs and I feel a hand tug on my ankle. It’s his daughter. Adult. Eyes wide with panic. “Is he breathing?” she asks. “Does he have a pulse?” I say, “We’re breathing for him, and we’re pumping his heart for him right now.” It’s the only honest answer I have. She nods, says thank you, and her hand disappears back into the crowd.

We shock him. Get pulses. Lose them. Get them back. It’s a rollercoaster. We load him up. Keep CPR going in the rig. Get him to the hospital. He had a fighting chance when we handed him over. That’s all we could give him.

All this happened in the span of a few hours. And they were just two of fourteen calls that night.

There’s no way to describe the kind of disorientation that creates. It’s not exhaustion — not exactly. It’s like whiplash. Emotional vertigo. One moment you’re in a blazing hot box of a bedroom surrounded by screams and sweat. The next you’re at a kitchen table trying to guide a dying man to the floor with twelve people watching. Then you’re sitting in the rig, typing a chart with vomit still on your boots.

It’s a bizarre split-reality: you have to be hyper-present for the call — focused, decisive, sharp. And then immediately switch gears into documentation mode, recalling details with legal-level precision. Then you reset. Answer the radio. Go again.

Golf. Eighteen holes.

Sometimes in EMS, it’s not eighteen over the course of a career. It’s eighteen in one shift.