First Response.

First Response

"And dearer yet the brotherhood        

That binds the brave of all the earth"

Sir Henry Newbolt

"Mu-ther of God! he whispered under his breath.

It is late on a Sunday afternoon in August, narrow two lane county road, ambulance headed west, lights flashing, siren screaming.  Crew of three, rookie driver, sun in his eyes.

**********

Steve could hardly believe his eyes!  He gripped the wheel tighter and slowed for the first kink in the "S" curve.  The other end of the "S" was where it had happened.

An El Camino, skidded sideways into the utility pole. now almost in two pieces; bodies scattered about like matchsticks; couple of bystanders and a state trooper among them.

Joe, on the mike: "Ambulance 38, at location, looks like at least five patients, we're gonna need more help." then to the driver, "Get it up as close as you can, and look to how you're gonna get out of  here when we're loaded." Joe shouted as he switched off the siren. He turned to Lou, "bring the trauma bag from the back,  Steve, the scoop stretcher."

"the what?"

The radio:  "Hq 38, 46 and Trooper 1 also responding.".
"can we talk to the chopper?"
"only through the trooper on the ground."

Joe put the microphone back in its bracket, rolled his eyes, let out a sigh, looked at Steve for a second, then patiently: "the metal litter that comes apart at each end so you can place it on each side of the patient then fasten it back together, rear door, leftside, let's go! Lou, bring the long backboard, too."

"rookies", he muttered, barely to himself.

**************

Steve was indeed a rookie.  A few years older than the others in the crew, he had only been a member of the volunteer company for a few months.  Had a few years in a neighbor company, also volunteer, but lived too far from the firehouse to make fire calls, (3 min to be on the road), they had no ambo. He did, however, keep a radio in his bedroom tuned to the dispatch frequency. It was always on.

A few months ago he had listened to the dispatcher trying to send help for a drowning at a local swimming pool and heard the closest unit fail to respond, thereby adding several precious minutes to the possibility of saving a drowning victim.  Having an instructor's rating in first aid, he thought that he might be able to help.  So he joined that company to serve as an ambulance attendant.

It was a totally different ball game.  Rolled wraps and triangle bandages, the mainstay of the Red Cross training classes were not the items of choice in an environment where the theme seemed to be stop the bleeding, stabilize breaks, maintain the airway, and get to the ER as fast as possible.  Four by four gauze pads for minor trauma, sanitary napkins (kotex) for major ones, air splints for broken bones, traction splint for femur break, along with taking a blood pressure and pulse rate while the ambo is in motion. This was all well beyond the first aid protocols, the medivac system was just begun and radio connection to a consulting doctor, starting IVs and the administering of drugs in the on site treatment of heart attacks, were things of the future.  It was basic "swoop and scoop" and go like hell for the hospital.

And then there was the matter of acceptance. Respect is earned; trust must be proven. Acceptance takes time, and it takes performance. Baptism of fire, if you will.

An informal code of unwritten rules govern the crews. Rookies are not fully qualified until a senior attendant says he is. Senior members are the leaders on each crew. they aren't dressed any different or wear any special hats, the crew members just know, as does the crew leader.  Drivers learn by first driving under normal, non-emergency, conditions, then when they have the feel of the vehicle, perhaps they are allowed to drive on the way to a call (with lights and siren, no patient).  Only then, when the senior attendant is satisfied and the lieutenant agrees, will a new driver be allowed to drive in full emergency, provided he has memorized the routes to each and every hospital that a call might take him to. Getting lost in the city with an emergency patient on board would be unpardonable.

**************

This was Steve's first drive other than returning from a hospital or going for subs or pizza..
There were indeed five victims, all seriously injured. 'Two would go with 38, 46 took two, and Trooper 1 would fly the last one to the shock trauma unit of University Hospital.  This was the first chopper in what was to become the nationwide model for medivac emergency medical service.

The tiny Bell "Ranger" chopper was never designed to be an ambulance. Four seated passengers could be fitted in, two in front seats and two in the rear. Modifications allowed the litter to take up two seats, one front, one back.  Add a pilot and an attendant and you have a really tightly packed cabin.  But it could land at the accident scene and it could fly quickly directly to the trauma center in the city, a huge benefit in getting treatment started within that "golden hour" of opportunity in the treatment of major trauma.

Thirty Eight's two young men were loaded, (they had been on their way to a rally of some sort in adjoining town.) one on the stretcher and the other on the scoop stretcher laid on top of the bench seat. No room for the attendants to sit, it was either kneel or stand and standing is not recommended in the back of a fast travelling ambulance.  With a crew of three, driving duties rotated, one drives to the scene, one drives to the hospital and the third drives back to the station.  Lou is driving to the hospital. Joe was looking to the one on the bench, Steve the one on the stretcher.  About the only thing to be done, given their limited capabilities, was to try to maintain the airway and keep tabs on the vital signs; They did have oxygen masks on both patients.

Steve was having trouble keeping the fluids out of his patient's airway; Joe says, use the suction.
He tried, It clogged. He had never used it before and did not know to feed water into the suction to keep it clear.  The other patient was calling for his mother between gasping for breath.  A sizable amount of debris was scattered throughout the compartment;  the patient on the scoop stretcher had been lying in the roadside leaves and grass which was caught up in the "scoop" as the litter was closed under him.

It was perhaps a fifteen minute run to the nearest hospital.  Both patients were still alive when they were wheeled into the ER, but just barely.

************

Steve was the last one back to the unit; he found the other two had stopped their cleanup and were staring intently into the open rear door, a look of concern on their faces..

"What is it?" he asked cautiously.
"Look"
"What, where?"
"there, on the floor."
crumpled playing card,  -  Queen of Spades,  half hidden in the leaves and other debris caught up in the stretcher in the loading process.

"What's wrong?" Steve asked.
"It's that card"
"what about it?"
"think that's the one the fortune tellers call the death card"
"really, why don't we just sweep it out and let's go home?"
" 'ain't touchin' that thing, bad luck!"

He picked it up, tucked it in his shirt pocket and later pinned it on the bulletin board over his desk at home, just as a reminder.

They finished the cleanup; Joe drove back, parked on the apron and went inside to complete the report.

The other two washed the ambulance and cleaned the interior thoroughly, put it away and headed for the watchroom.  Joe, just coming out; put out his hand, grinned. "y'done OK, Rookie".

"Thanks," was all he could say, but the acceptance felt good.

**********************

 Heard later that both their patients had died in the ER and only one of the remaining three had survived, probably the one who was flown to shock trauma.

But they were wrong about the card.  It's the Ace that's called the death card.

The queen is also symbolic, but different.

You can look it up.





















.
Afterthought;
Several months after I first put this little story out, I was talking to a friend who was also at the incident upon which this is based.  He complimented me on my attempt, but I had left out a very important item in my description of the scene. "You left out the crabs," he says.  "What crabs?"
"The road was covered with steamed crabs, the must have had a bushel of  'em in the back of the El Camino, maybe going to a picnic or that civil rights rally in Westminster that was goin' on that day."
Arriving from the same direction as the crashed vehicle, we had begun work on the closest victims who had been flung across the road as the El Camino struck the utility pole at about the driver's side door. (With the exception of one small piece of the frame, the car was in two pieces, haven been almost broken in halves by the impact.)
fr

Thirteen Roses

Thirteen Roses

You may break, you may shatter the vase, if you will

but the scent of the roses will hang round it still.

Thomas Moore

It is New Years Day, the first of a new year.

Bright noonday sunshine on freshly fallen snow, a dying fire in the fireplace.

He is alone.

His eyes ire misty as he carefully pulls apart the rose petals and drops them, one by one,  gently into the vase.

The roses, brought home after the funeral had graced the dining room table until their glory faded, then  laid out to dry in the cool darkness of the unused sauna.  The sauna that no one uses anymore; was never used much; always seemed like too much of a waste of time and being hot and sweaty brought an unpleasant remembrance of a farmland childhood long before air conditioning. Anyway, the wood slat bench made a good place to dry flowers. Unmolested, they were now quite dry and almost brittle.

  ********

No one had noticed, or at least hadn't mentioned it, why there were fourteen roses, not the customary dozen, or why the card simply said "Steve".
Thirteen dried red roses, dark red, almost black, still beautiful even after weeks of drying, now being carefully taken apart, petal by petal and saved for when the snow is gone.  He wasn't sure just what he would do with them, but there was no doubt that they would not wind up in the trash.  Perhaps he would scatter them at the grave site. Time enough to decide.

I know, I said Thirteen.  The 14th he had placed carefully atop the casket before it was lowered, a little custom he started years ago as close friends and family began to pass on.  He always sent roses, and always pulled one from the vase and, as a last goodbye, placed it on the casket before leaving the grave site.

But why fourteen, you ask.  Well, it started almost as a joke. On the occasion of her birthday just after the completion of their first year of marriage, he had given her a single long stemmed red rose, and told her, "I won't give you a dozen roses, but I will add one each year. If we make it through a dozen years, you shall have your dozen."  She had dried and saved the petals for thirteen years and stored them in vases tucked away in the corner cabinet. What use she had planned for them she never said, but the present ones would likewise be placed in that same cabinet, at least for now.

************

Her illness had begun with the start of their fourteenth year, and, after extensive surgery and chemotherapy, she had reached remission status and was only doing maintenance treatments.  Tests and scans detected nothing; everything was within normal parameters.

But the lost weight never came back. With its reduced capacity, the abbreviated digestive system never seemed to function properly.

He missed the fourteenth birthday anniversary, being hospitalized himself for a most of the month

She got no roses, no birthday party, no cake.

Nothing.

Not even a card.

He had totally forgotten her birthday.

She never mentioned it.

She was there to help bring him home from the hospital, and she continued to function, maybe not 100%, but well enough, and the tests still showed no sign of the cancer.  They were grateful for their good luck.  Maintenance sessions continued every three weeks, but the much needed weight never returned.

She developed digestive problems of such severity that, upon going to the emergency room at her doctors prompting, one Sunday afternoon, she was immediately admitted and taken directly to surgery for removal of a blockage to the intestine.

It was not a blockage.

Surgery revealed what the tests could not see or tell; an almost total involvement of the unseen and undetected malignancy.  The surgeon could only provide relief of the pressure and lessen the discomfort.

A week of hospitalization and a week of hospice and it was over.

He held her hand and sobbed as she left.

A dozen+two long stemmed red roses for the casket,
Tennyson's "crossing the Bar" on the little information cards,
and Jay Unger's "Ashokan Farewell", played softly as part of the service.

It wasn't enough, but it was all he could think of.

**********

He drops the last petal into the vase, carrys it gently to the crowded shelf, sets it next to the others.

The shelf is full.

The house is empty and quiet as he walks quietly from room to room and collecting all of the past year's calenders. Most are wall calenders from the various charities to whom she sent a donation.

He collects a dozen or so calendars and carries them to the fireplace, places them gingerly on the glowing coals and watches the flames flare up briefly then slowly die. There is nothing left but ashes atop the glowing coals.

There is a trace of a smile on his face as he brushes away the tear.

Living alone -Suspenders or Belt

Suspenders

"If it seem too good to be true, it probably is"

Let's start by saying that I hadn't had any dealings with the dry cleaners in many years.  That was never my job.  Ditto for the seamstress.  Anything having to do with washing, drying or cleaning and adjusting the various items of clothing was handled by the more qualified.  I was not even deemed qualified to operate her washer and dryer. Honestly, I didn't mind.

But that's all changed now.

Always thought that suspenders that fastened to the pants by means of buttons added a touch of class. At least they do not depend on alligator clips that often lose their grip and provide embarrassing moments.  I was, therefore, justifiably  proud when I became the owner of a large selection of button-on suspenders. (that's another story)  Being in good shape, as I am, have never had a real need for suspenders.  However, with time "shape" has become more rounded and has made the belt a far less effective means of trouser support..  For jeans, etc there is a leather set that merely snap on to the belt loops, front and back and do a fine job. These, however, don't look very stylish.

Anyhow, there was a problem with the new suspenders, namely buttons.  None of my trousers had the necessary buttons with which to attach the new suspenders. Not being enamored with the idea of sowing on buttons, (six buttons per pair of pants, times the number of pants in the closet, could add up to a full time occupation, and besides there were no buttons.) I inquired at the cleaners' as to the cost of button sewing-on.
"fifteen", she said, after consulting the seamstress and what appeared to be a tattered pricing manual.
"fifteen?", says I, requesting confirmation of what seemed to be a pricing scale circa 1920.
fifteen,  what a deal, I thought as I did the mental calculations
"I'll bring 'em in."

And subsequently delivered six pair for the sewings-on of buttons. They took down the usual name, rank, serial number, date of birth, etc. You know the drill.

They were to be picked up on Thursday next.  Told all my friends about available bargains and recommended that they should get their buttons sewed on there, quickly, before the prices went up!

Upon arriving for the scheduled pickup and handing over the ticket, I watched as she scanned the bar code on the ticket, turned to the travelling rack as it stopped and delivered a neatly wrapped set of hangers to the hanging post by the register.  A few key taps and the machine produced a paper tape.
She tore it off , glared at it for a second or two, and announced, without looking up:
"Thattelbe ninety".

My mind whirled and I tried to match this with the "fifteen" I had heard earlier.
"ninety?"
"ninety."
Rummaged in my pocket for my tattered money clip and produced a dollar bill
She look at the dollar, then at me
I looked at her and then at the bill
"you said ninety?" I said, nudging the dollar a little closer to the register,
"Ninety Dollars," she sez, her tone was somewhere between irritation and condensation.
"ninety dollars?
"fifteen times the six pair."
"oh," I said weakly and scrambled for a credit card.
Handed over the card, the register produced a ticket for Eighty One dollars, which I signed, took back my pants and slunk out the door.

I have no idea where the other nine dollars went; I did not ask.  Perhaps a senior discount?  More likely an allowance for stupidity.

I may just wear overalls.