streetstoriesems

The career archive of a NYC paramedic

Category: EMT (Page 2 of 2)

architecture, building, infrastructure

The Dungeon at the Luxury Hotel

October 4, 2020 /

When an extremely expensive, world renowned hotel in Manhattan would call us they used an address that led to a side entrance utilized by the laundry service and garbage pick-up. Going through this entrance took you down a dark, putrid tunnel where the underbelly of the hotel operated. Large bins overflowed with laundry on one side while several small dumpsters lined the other. At the end of the long hallway, bright glaring florescent lighting lit up large areas where hotel workers dressed in white scrub type uniforms rushed around carrying plastic bags or trays or boxes. There was always hurried activity going on whether we came during the day or in the middle of the night. The employees were always friendly and quickly got out of our way despite their seemingly urgent mission. It was with these employees we would wait for the service elevator. As an old hotel it only had one.

Sometimes a well-dressed representative from the hotel would meet us at the doorway of the dirty tunnel and take us upstairs with him to the room where the guest was. When there was no representative waiting we knew the call was for an employee and we were on our own.

We had learned of the alternative address early on, as they called fairly frequently. The Dungeon Entrance, is what we called it. One time we tried disregarding the separate address and attempted to go through the front, main entrance but we had barely made it in to the lobby when we were quickly intercepted by a small security detail wearing earpieces connected to little squiggly wires. It wouldn’t be a good look if it appeared guests weren’t well 100% of the time they stayed at this exclusive address. Those who fell ill were dispatched to the Dungeon, presumably to let the well heeled clients know they had lost their high end status for the time being.

One day the representative met us outside, moving the orange cones he had set up to reserve our spot. Was this their new policy, we wondered? No, we would find out later. Just this one time for someone they wanted to impress. As we took out our equipment from the side door the man told us we would need our stretcher. The patient had abdominal pains, he told, and couldn’t sit up.

The assistant hotel manager looked slightly uncomfortable leading us through the dirty tunnel. He did his best to pretend he didn’t smell anything foul. He looked more ridiculous continuing the charade in the service elevator where the confined space made the odor much more concentrated. The service elevator was unusually small, as most service elevators are considerably larger than regular elevators, in my limited experience. It was a bit challenging getting our stretcher to fit. Our hotel rep was forced to brush the expensive material of his specially designed blazer against the steel wall several times and I imagined him to be making a mental note of burning it when the call was over.

We went up to one of the top floors and were guided into a suite with enormous double doors made of thick wood. The lights had been dimmed and the curtains drawn but I could still tell the room was larger than my apartment at the time. He must have had a spectacular view of the city from this vantage point as well. I recognized our patient, despite the challenges of limited lighting. I had read some of his books and liked them. I was also a fan of his ex-wife, who had been a famous actress.

“Hello Mr. Andrews,” I said. “How can we help you?”

“So you know who I am?” he said, somewhat cheerfully. “I guess the dim lighting gave it away.”

His face lightened up when I told him what my favorite book of his was, which was not one of the more popular ones. He told me it was one of his better ones but hadn’t been received well by critics who said it was too ‘dark’.

“That’s the first time I’ve seen him smile since we’ve been here,” remarked a man who was staying with the patient. He looked over to the manager as if to imply that there was more going on than Mr. Andrews’ illness.

The patient started moaning in pain again and we went to work checking him out. He told us that he thinks he had eaten something ‘bad’.

“He had room service,” chimed in the author’s friend. “From the hotel restaurant.” The hotel representative continued with his pained look as well.

We went through his litany of signs and symptoms, took his history and checked his vitals and then tried to gently move him onto our stretcher. When he was fairly comfortable we exited the suite and headed towards the service elevator. When we got to it our world famous novelist vocalized what we had been thinking.

“Why are we using the trash elevators?” He looked at us as if it had been our idea.

“Hotel policy, sir,” said my partner. “Wait until you smell the basement.”

“Sir,” said the hotel rep, authoritatively, “We do it for privacy concerns.” He totally ignored how the separate entrance led to a different experience.

“Whose privacy? Mine?” he asked. “Or yours. Because we all know I don’t give a damn. This is ridiculous. Take me to the regular elevators.”

“They have us parked around the block,” we told him.

“You never know who has a camera aimed at our lobby,” the hotel manager tried to explain. “The hotel takes the privacy of our privileged guests very seriously and…”

“That’s a lot of bullshit and you know it,” he said. “This young lady is the first person who knew who I was without bringing up my wife. Thank you for that, by the way.”

The complaints continued as we made our way down the elevator and all the way to the ambulance. He promised to continue to complain to the owners of the hotel.

But the next time we came nothing had changed except the representatives blazer. He remembered us from the writer call and confided in us, as we were all members of the underclasses and he had put him the man down at our level, that the complaints were probably burned as swiftly as his soiled blazer had been. To the rep, the man was just someone who had jotted a few lines and ridden on the coattails of his ex wife anyway. “She was a darling of this hotel,” he told us. “The parties, the events, she gave us so much publicity when she walked through those doors.” We assumed he meant the hotel lobby doors where all the cameras were aimed.

The Two Roslyns

September 24, 2020 /

I met the first Roslyn a year or two after I started working in Manhattan. The first time we went to her apartment she had accidentally broken a crystal vase and had cut both of her hands significantly. One wound on her wrist was bleeding badly enough that she thought she may have severed an artery and she was very distraught about it. Despite being upset, she was polite and mostly friendly. There was a lot of blood in her modern living room which had sweeping views of the East River. As I started the paperwork I leaned on her grand piano and glanced at the framed photos on display. They illustrated an enviable life. There were photos on safari in Africa, skiing photos in what looked like Switzerland and several happy pictures of friends and family. In one photo it appeared that a young Roslyn had gotten some kind of award riding horses. There was also a wedding photo with a handsome man. The man was not present and when it was time to go to the hospital she was asked if they could notify her husband.

“Oh no,” she replied, somewhat bitterly.

We took her to the hospital and while we were waiting to be triaged another crew of EMTs, who were leaving, saw her and said hello, using her name. She said hello back in the embarrassed kind of way a person does when they think they’ve been mistaken for someone else and are just trying to be polite.

“Do you know her?” I asked later.

“Yeah, sure,” they said. “She’s a regular.”

Really? Most of our ‘regulars’ are either homeless or have chronic medical conditions requiring frequent hospitalizations. Our homeless regulars are, almost without exception, people with substance abuse issues. She didn’t seem to fit either of those categories. What could make Roslyn a regular?

“You’ll see,” they said. “She calls all the time.”

She calls all the time? For what? Is she accident-prone?

I had forgotten about it until the next time we were summoned to her apartment, which was not too long after. This time her apartment was messy. It wasn’t ransacked but it looked more like someone hadn’t picked up after themselves in a long time. The wedding picture was gone and some other things looks slightly different but I couldn’t tell exactly what.

Roslyn was intoxicated and rambling about having things stolen from her apartment. Her statements didn’t go together and went off on tangents that had to do with her job or her family, both of whom she hated at that moment. A long time was spent deciphering everything she said but eventually it was determined that the missing items were taken by her now ex-husband thanks to a “misogynistic, two-bit, loser judge” who had sided with him in the divorce. It wasn’t clear what she had called for since she didn’t want to go to the hospital and there was nothing actually ‘stolen’. The police abandoned their report but stayed on to assist us in taking her to the hospital as she was in no position to make an informed decision to refuse. She was furious about going to the hospital. We were accused of working for her ex. Our previously friendly and polite lady had turned into a cursing, spitting lunatic.

Each trip to Roslyn’s home for the next year or so also involved alcohol to some degree of another. There were stints in rehab, relapses, and long periods when she was sober, when she’d call 911 for relatively minor things every now and then. On these types of calls, I think she thought of us more as company and tried to serve us food and played the piano for us. She told us about her stressful job that she liked, despite a boss who had gotten promoted over her. She complained about her ex, who she felt had made out too well in the divorce. She gossiped about her neighbors. And once, when I admired a painting in her hallway, she mentioned she had painted it, saying that her first dream was to be an artist and that someday she was going to try again. Getting to know her during these sober periods made it all the more heartbreaking as we watched her decline years later.

Eventually we were called to her home when she had relapsed and discovered she had acquired four new roommates-other alcoholics who were clearly taking advantage of her. At some point she had lost the job she loved when the same man who had been promoted over her fired her. She told us of her struggle to find another job even though, she said, she didn’t need one. It was just something she wanted to do because she was good at what she did. I suggested that she could now pursue being an artist and she berated me. There was a huge personality difference between sober Roslyn and drunk Roslyn.

She may have misjudged how expensive Manhattan living is or perhaps her roommates had drank her savings away, we could only speculate, but sometime later we ran into Roslyn at a different hospital, on the west side, where we found out she was living somewhere else. She had lost her modern apartment with the East River views and was temporarily staying with a friend until she got back on her feet. She was genuinely optimistic and I desperately hoped she would be able to improve her situation soon.

Every once in a while we would see her again in different places. If we were driving around and spotted her we’d get her some food or give her a blanket. She was very well known by most of the EMTs who worked in midtown and we’d hear updates from each other after periods of not seeing her. Sometimes when we did see her, she acted like we were long lost friends. Other times when we picked her up she didn’t recognize us. And many times she was extremely mean and abusive. Knowing her backstory led me to be more sympathetic towards the many other alcoholics we dealt with on the job, who were similarly frustrated and angry at anyone whose existence validated their fear that they didn’t have control over their day to day life.

I would eventually leave Manhattan to go to paramedic school and after that I worked in Brooklyn. I never saw Roslyn again. At the time I left, Roslyn had used up all of the favors her friends owed her and was now exclusively living on the street. It had taken only the short time that I knew her that she had gone from having what seemed to be a fabulous life of the rich and privileged to becoming one of the many overlooked and forgotten people living in the street begging for change. It is my great hope that she eventually did turn things around.

There was another Roslyn I remember from my days in Manhattan, also. The second Roslyn’s trajectory went in a decidedly opposite direction. She also became a semi-regular during the time I knew the first one. This Roslyn had only called 911 for herself once, after her leg was injured by a bicyclist as she sat on a curb begging for money. Roslyn Two became familiar to us because many other people called 911 on her behalf.

A very large percentage of calls to 911 for people living on the street are made by a sympathetic or concerned person who sees something that bothers them without often knowing the whole situation. Calls come in for ‘unconscious’ people who are sleeping or ‘not breathing’ when they definitely are. Despite the large number of these calls leading to interactions with people who take their annoyance out on you for being woken up or interrupted I still found it a redeeming quality of humanity that so many people were concerned enough for strangers to have someone check up on them.

People called for Roslyn because they thought she was abused. Our second Roslyn had a discoloration on her face that could be construed as a black eye if you only looked at it quickly. She seemed to have parlayed this birthmark to her financial advantage.

The first time I met her we were responding to a 911 call for a woman who was beaten up and left in a garbage bag. The location given was in an area of high tourist traffic near Rockefeller Center. When we arrived we saw a small woman wearing a black garbage bag as a dress. There were cut outs for her arms and she had shorts on underneath. She also had a cup that she used to solicit donations. When she saw us coming she ran up to us and asked “Did someone call for me again?”

When we said yes she said that she felt that someone who had given her money may have called. She apologized for inconveniencing us and assured us she was OK and did not need an ambulance. The garbage bag, she said, served to garner her more sympathy and had gotten her more ‘tips’ which is how she referred to the money she made panhandling. We made the call an unfounded but came back again later when yet another call came in fitting Roslyn’s description.

When we returned, she apologized again and reaffirmed that she did not want to go to the hospital or anywhere else. The man I was working with was very curious about her panhandling lifestyle and Roslyn was happy to talk with us about it. She said she could “take a break” but even while ‘off the clock’ and talking to us several people went out of their way to put money in her cup anyway. The ‘tips’ she was getting were not in coins, but in bills of $10 and $20. She told us this kind of donation was typical and that the summer months were very lucrative for her. During the Christmas season, however, she made much more, enough to pay her rent for the entire year.

We met her several times after that. Each time she let us know she as OK and each time she offered to buy us coffee for our trouble.

We learned much more about her enterprise when the bicyclist ran over her leg and she went to the hospital. She didn’t want to go initially but we convinced her by suggesting a cast and crutches could be helpful to her career. Her face lit up and she immediately hopped in our truck. As we wrapped up her leg she told us more about herself.

For a while she had lived in subsidized housing getting every government benefit available. She was very proud of the fact she no longer was, and that her kids went to private school. She said she had someone who helped her manage her income and that she had a diverse portfolio that included a 401K heavily invested in municipal bonds. She had worked it out that she only had to ‘work’ for 10 more years and at that time she would be moving to Florida to retire. She would be 38. Asked if she would continue to panhandle in Florida she said wouldn’t and was looking forward to picking up some hobbies like ceramics and painting.

A few months later I ran into the second Roslyn off-duty. I was out with some friends ‘in the city’ and as we were walking along a sidewalk she was there, sitting in front of a closed storefront with her outstretched cup. She looked very sad, almost in pain, as we approached she asked for some assistance. She didn’t recognize me without my uniform and with my hair down.

“Hey, it’s me!” I said. “EMS.”

Her whole demeanor changed. “Hey there, Nancy. Good to see you!”

“How is business going?” I asked.

“Pretty good,” she said. Then she winked and said “But it could always be a little better!” She stretched out her cup.

“I should be asking YOU for money”

She laughed and admitted that was probably true. I introduced her to my friends and made a little joke about how in a few years we’d run into her in Florida, sipping fruity cocktails with little umbrellas in them

“I’ll be in Florida all right,” she said. “But no fruity cocktails. I don’t drink. Ever. Drinking killed my father and I’ve never touched it. I’ve seen what it can do.”

I thought of the other Roslyn and agreed with her about the devastating effects it can have.

The Beeper

September 15, 2020 /

Back in the olden days, when access to a web-less internet was obtained through a company called CompuServe, the hottest status symbol of the day was a high tech device called a “pager”. People of importance would never think to leave their homes without the elite electronic device clipped to their waistband. In the egalitarian age of the early tech boom, having a pager didn’t symbolize importance by being wealthy. Having a pager meant that you were important because you were someone people needed to get in touch with. Doctors, deal-makers, and your pot supplier, anyone who kept the supply chain moving. My partner also had a ‘beeper’ because he was a union delegate. As someone who tended to shun excessive social interaction it was nice to vicariously experience the marvels of the modern age through him.

Despite newer technology some beeper stores are still thriving. (photo taken in 2020)

He had his newly upgraded alpha-numeric pager when we were called to a building on the Upper West Side that is renowned for its famous architecture. One of my favorite things about this job is the access it gives us to see the inside of amazing homes and places that most people only hear about or see on screen. Many of the pre-war building in Manhattan have subtle intricacies that are never given enough prestige when presented as part of a background to a movie or news story. Being inside these beautiful old places gives you an historic feeling of old New York and I like to try to imagine what the world looked like to people who lived there decades before.

The call was for an EDP or ’emotionally disturbed person’ who, the caller felt, was not taking care of herself. (When you’re wealthy the term for this is ‘eccentric’). The woman was obviously well off to be able to afford an apartment in this exclusive building that had famous artists and celebrities living it. We took the elevator up with several people dressed in expensive clothing as we wondered if, perhaps, our patient was someone we might have heard of in some way. We knocked on the door and it was opened by a little white-haired woman with the biggest, sweetest smile. She looked at us with awe, as if we were the celebrities and were here to fulfill a spectacular wish.

“What do you freakshow motherfuckers want with me now?” she said. She went on to elaborate that any requests for sexual favors were not going to be met. Her big smile never left her face. She was wearing a stained, purple printed house-dress that was over a set of thermal long-johns. She had uncoordinated socks on her feet and her long nails were dirty. Behind her, we could see what seemed to be a huge, mostly empty, apartment with bare walls and bedsheets haphazardly duct-taped to most of the windows.

“Do you know who called 911?” my partner asked.

Somewhere in the apartment a Jamaican accented voice yelled out “I called for her. I’ll be right there. Let these people in, Miss Jensen.”

Miss Jensen silently opened the door wider and moved to the side. She never took her eyes off us and for a while she fixated on me.

“You better get yourself to a good dermatologist, your face is disgusting,” she told me. “I’m just being nice, seriously, I don’t know if anyone can help you. You really need one of them, plastic doctors. And you should get yourself some cocaine. That would take care of those rolls. You’re a big cake and cookie eater, aren’t you?” She gave me some more advice that she felt might assist me in getting my reproductive organs noticed by the male population.

“Why, you’re just a lovely beam of sunshine, aren’t you?” I remarked.

“You don’t have to thank me,” she said calmly. “Just get the fuck outta my house.”

“Now, now, Miss Jensen,” said the lady with the accent. A tall, slim, well dressed woman emerged from a room taking off a pair of latex gloves. She reminded me of Iman, the fashion model. “Forgive her, sometimes she’s real mean,” she whispered to us.

“I ain’t mean. I’m honest.” said old lady Jensen. She turned around picked up a plate. “Cookie?” she offered.

The woman with the Jamaican accent gave us a wide eyed serious look and shook her head, as if warning us they were loaded with poison.

Miss Jensen, seeing her plate of cookies rejected, casually threw them in the garbage, along with the plate. She then wandered off into another room. The apartment had a peculiar foul smell, like rotting food, but when the woman went away the odor seemed to travel with her.

“Thank you for coming. I’m Tanya,” said the other woman. “I work for Miss. Jensen’s family.”

“Are you her home attendant or a visiting nurse?” said my partner with a tone indicating that he didn’t believe she was. She wasn’t dressed like a home attendant or visiting nurse.

“No,” said Tanya. “I… I just sort of bring Miss Jensen the things that she needs. You see, her family doesn’t really deal with her anymore. But Miss Jensen isn’t in control of her finances. They gave her a number to call, it’s a service, she is supposed to tell them what she needs, then they page me on this device and I go out and buy it for her.” She showed us her pager that looked just like my partner’s newly upgraded beeper. “But she doesn’t know what she’s doing. She calls the poor people at the service and talks to them about nonsense. So I come here from time to time and fill up her refrigerator and ask her if she wants me to bring her anything.”

Miss Jensen emerged from one of the many rooms of her apartment and went up to my partner just to inform him that he should expect to die alone. Then she turned around and went back. The apartment was mostly empty. There was nothing on the walls and only a few scattered chairs for furniture. There was a path, however, that had been created with two rows of Lladro figurines leading to another room. There was no TV, no books and I wondered what Miss Jensen did all day.

Tanya continued, “I think I am the only one who comes here. I was originally told she had more people, a nurse, a housekeeper, but I think if she did once have them that they no longer come here. Miss Jensen needs help, much more than I can give her. But when I talk to the family they say she is fine. She is not fine. She hasn’t taken any medicine in a long time from what I can see. She’s not taking care of herself and I can’t do it for her. I’m not qualified and they don’t pay me for that. I do all kinds of other things around here because I feel sorry, but I’m not giving her a bath or combing her hair. She sometimes scratches with those long nails of hers. You can’t tell her anything. She won’t listen.”

“Do you know what she’s supposed to take?”‘ I asked.

I heard Miss Jensen yell from wherever she was, “COCAINE! I use cocaine, that’s why I can get a man and you can’t, girly!” She cackled like the evil villain in a Disney movie.

Tanya looked at me, slightly embarrassed and slightly smiling. “She’s supposed to take psychiatric drugs. I do not know what kind”

I went over to find Miss Jensen to see if she would let me take some vital signs. She was actually very pleasant to me and allowed it, rolling up the sleeves of her dirty clothing and revealing a dry, frail arm. Her vitals were pretty good. I asked her if she would go to the hospital with us.

“I’d love to get out of this place for an afternoon,” she told me. “Let me change my dress.” She walked over to a large closet and when she opened it, it appeared that many of the contents of a normal home were stored inside. There were unopened appliances, a large television, boxes of clothing, dishes, and random objects. They were all piled in, seemingly arranged in an intricate balancing act. I feared that when she dug out an identical purple house-dress from a box everything would come tumbling out of alignment but thankfully they didn’t.

Her new going-outside house-dress was also stained and unwashed. She turned her back out of modesty as she took off the old dress and put the new one on over her long johns. Tanya came into the room and asked Miss Jensen if she might want to take a shower or bath before leaving. “It’s my only chance,” she looked at me, pleading. I was very much in favor of the idea.

“What for?” Miss Jensen scowled. “I’m quite lovely just the way I am.” Then she gave us all a big smile. As she walked around her barren apartment she stopped near one room, pointed and said with another big smile “That’s where the… accident happened.”

Tanya looked at me seriously and whispered, “Her family thinks she killed her husband. A big wall unit fell down on top of him. That’s why they want nothing to do with her. I don’t think she was ever strong enough to crush him like that. But I think she wants everyone thinking she could. Then again, she is very resourceful.” She also added, “I don’t think it was a happy marriage.”

Maybe we were in the home of a noteworthy individual. If Google had existed I would have checked her out. Scanning through miles of microfiche at the local library didn’t hold the same instant gratification.

Tanya said she had to go, she had some errands, but promised to meet Miss Jensen in the hospital. Miss Jensen was ready to go shortly after. She seemed to be happy to go outside and said she hoped she’d see the same MD she saw the last time Tanya made her go.

When got into the elevator to go down there were four other people already inside. As the doors closed, their faces indicated that they had gotten a whiff of the malodorous cloud that surrounded our patient. We slowly went down another few floors before stopping to let another person in. I could see the people in the back considering whether to get out or not but they didn’t decide quickly enough and were stuck with us for the duration. The person who got in clearly regretted it. Suddenly my partners beeper started beeping loudly.

“What’s that?” Miss Jensen asked angrily, looking around.

Without missing a beat, my quick witted partner whipped out his pager and checked the message. He looked at Miss Jensen and said, “Why, it’s my smell-o-meter. According to this, you are exceeding acceptable clean air standards by 65%. It might be time to do something about that.” I burst out laughing. The others in the elevator didn’t seem to know what to do. They looked scared but also seemed to smile a little.

Miss Jensen considered this, for the first time thinking about taking advice instead of giving it. She demonstratively sniffed the air, and herself. “You might be right,” she said quietly. “It might be time.”

cartridges, weapon, war

10-13

August 22, 2020 /

After racing across the borough we had made it to the block our call would be on. We slowed down in an effort to locate the correct building. Finding address numbers from the street is not always easy. Down the road we could see someone sitting on their stoop. Since he made no effort to wave or flag us we assumed he was not associated with our call. When we reached his building we found that we were wrong.

He was probably around 16 or 17 years old and he got up angrily and made his way to our vehicle. He had an odd stomping type of gait that made it appear that his sneakers didn’t fit-and by the size of his sneakers it seemed true. His green athletic shorts appeared to be oversized as well. He also had on a tank top and a thick gold chain. He had messy hair and freckles and he was really mad.

He pounded on my window when he got to it. “Sure, take your time, bitches! Who cares if a man is dying upstairs? Right?” He backed off a little but he rattled me. My partner turned off the truck and got out. The kid started stomping over to the building thinking we were following. He turned back to look at us, furious that we weren’t right behind him. He gave us that “come on” look.

“We have to get equipment.” my partner said.

“Fucking just take your fucking time you lazy fucking cunts….Just let my uncle bleed to death why don’t you?” He came closer and lifted up his tank top to show us that he had a firearm. “I ought to pop the both of you so you could see what that’s like.”

My partner and I exchanged glances. “How about you open the door for us. We will be right there,” we told him. The kid was annoyed but apparently he didn’t think it was such a big deal to threaten people with a gun. He walked over to the door.

Instead of opening the side compartment where our equipment was, we opened the side door to the ambulance patient compartment and we both got in and shut the door behind us.

“10-13!” we screamed into our radio. This is a distress call for assistance. We gave our unit and location and requested police assistance immediately. We told the dispatcher we had been threatened with a gun and gave the description of the teenager. The dispatcher advised us to find a ‘safe place’ until police arrived.

The kid came back to the ambulance and began pounding on it. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he demanded. He continued to curse us and I wondered what kind of protection the walls of this vehicle really offered us.

It seemed like a long time but it was really just a few minutes that we sat crouched down from the flimsy windows of the patient compartment. Our call for help was answered in a spectacular display as multiple police cars and ambulances pulled up to the scene. We continued to wait inside until we saw that the police had surrounded our potty-mouthed antagonist.

“Why are you arresting me? Arrest THEM! Those girls don’t care if my uncle is DYING.” he was yelling.

“Well,” said the cop. “If he was dying, you killed him by threatening the people who could have done something about it.” The loaded gun was secured and the kid showed no sign of remorse.

A lieutenant showed up after all the ambulances, which is automatic today but was not always the case back then. I recognized Lt. Larry from a station close to ours. I didn’t know much about him but he wasn’t very popular. His face was smiling and he seemed to be doing this ‘calm down’ motion with his hands. As he walked by he told everyone to go back into service. One crew offered to stay and check out the original patient. “That probably won’t be necessary,” he told them.

He came over to us and made a face that I read to be ‘oh you hysterical women, what have we done now?’ He asked us what the “fuss” was about.

“I guess you didn’t hear our radio transmission.” I offered. The implication that he hadn’t monitored his radio properly seemed to make him defensive.

“So you were threatened? With a gun?” he didn’t seem to realize there was a man being arrested for that very thing. We explained that yes, that is exactly what happened. “You mean it was just in his pants? So you even know what a real gun looks like? Especially if he never took it out?” This was incredible. What stupid girls we were for quickly thinking the worst and acting on it. “He was probably just trying to scare you. Is that why you didn’t go inside to check on the patient? Did you think about him? What about him, what’s he doing?”

A police officer heard what was going on and said “Are you implying that they should have ignored the threat? Are you saying that you’d risk having them shot and killed? You’re a terrible boss, a terrible human being. Honestly. I think you should leave.”

Lt. Larry turned to him and said “It’s easy for you to say. You have no idea. We’ve got calls holding. Look at all these ambulances here, all in one place. These girls are OK. Nothing happened.” He turned to us. “Now who’s going to go check on the patient? Did anyone think about him?”

The crew that had offered originally to check on the patient told him they were going. They asked some of the officers on scene to accompany them. It would turn out later that the uncle only had a varicose vein that had started bleeding. It may have looked dramatic but it was not life-threatening. If anyone had been overdramatic it had been us, according to Lt. Larry. It certainly wasn’t our man with the gun.

Lt Larry rolled his eyes but let them take over the call. “And so what are you going to do?” he asked us.

“They’re going to the precinct to make a statement.” said the officer.

“You mean he’s really arrested?” asked Larry. He said it kind of sardonically, as if some macho, he-men had made a show of things just to impress the ladies. Everyone was making a big deal for nothing. I heard from someone later that when he told the story to his peers he implied that the gun had probably not even been real, as if that really would have made any difference. He painted himself as the only rational person at the scene, concerned with getting units back into service and making sure the original patient didn’t file a lawsuit against the city.

“Yes. He’s really arrested. This is a felony,” said the cop. Lt. Larry raised his arms up in a big gesture of surrender to the overblown nonsense of the day.

The kid had been watching the exchange the whole time. As he got into the police car he started laughing and said to the cop, “Wow. That man really is an asshole.”

The Purple Hippo Shooting

July 18, 2020 /

One day my partner and I were called to a wrist injury in the projects on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The way the buildings were situated to the street made parking close to the address very difficult. Many housing projects have roadways that can get you closer but this one either didn’t or it was blocked in some way (not uncommon) so we had to walk a bit of a distance to get to the actual address.

The call was something of a low priority that we assumed didn’t even warrant the stair chair but we brought it with us. We always bring a specific set of equipment with us regardless of call type because things can often be much different on the scene as opposed to the way it was described to the 911 dispatcher. As EMTs that set meant a tech bag, an oxygen bag, a semi-automatic defibrillator, and a carrying device, which 99% of the time is a stair chair.

Once at the apartment, we found that the 911 dispatcher had been 100% correct-it was a wrist injury. An approximately 35-year-old woman had fallen two weeks prior and her wrist was wrapped in an ace bandage. She had gone to the hospital twice during that two-week period where each time x-rays had been taken and exams conducted and her injury had been determined to be a sprain. She had been prescribed pain killers and given instructions on limiting motion to her wrist along with a date to return for a follow-up.

The woman believed that both determinations were wrong, that her wrist must be fractured because she still could not move her wrist without pain. We pointed out that her instruction sheet indicated her wrist would be painful for possibly a month, even with a sprain but she was positive her wrist was far more badly damaged than they had made it out to be and was requesting a third hospital evaluation at a different facility. This would also be her third ambulance trip for the same injury. I don’t understand it but I don’t mind. It was an easy call, or so I thought.

Despite the fact that she ambulated around her apartment very easily while getting her papers together, changing her clothes, and searching for her ID, when it came to getting to the ambulance she said she would be unable to do so without assistance. She was too weak to even walk down the hall, she said, and she required the stair chair which we thought we wouldn’t need. Thankfully, the elevator was working (not always guaranteed) so there was no actual lifting but she was rather heavy and pushing the chair was a slow endeavor as we had parked so far and most of the roadways were not smoothly paved.

As we were slowly making our arduous journey to the ambulance, shots suddenly rang out, many of them.

It was a sound we were familiar with and immediately understood the danger. My partner was able to maneuver the chair behind a large playground object. The bullets were coming from multiple directions but it seemed the whimsical animal we decided to hide behind was a good shield. It was a large purple hippo.

In happier circumstances, I’m sure children enjoyed climbing the concrete hippopotamus. The patient, also familiar with what was going on, hastily unstrapped herself from our chair and took off running. My partner cheerfully announced “10-96!” to me (our radio code for ‘left the scene’) from where he was, which made me laugh despite the circumstances.

When the gunfire died down we quickly made our way to our ambulance and while we were putting away our equipment I was tapped on the shoulder by a young man about 16 or 17 years old. “I’m hit,” he said casually and lifted up his shirt to show me a small wound to his abdomen. The side door to the ambulance was open and he got in.

My partner had been on the radio asking for PD and additional ambulances in case there were injuries. He hadn’t seen the man who approached me. As he made his way around the vehicle he saw the teenager sitting in our truck and asked him what he was doing. I had gone around to the other side of the vehicle to obtain a backboard, which was our protocol at the time. Another slightly comical moment ensued of my partner and I completely missing each other walking around the vehicle to get to different compartments to get various equipment.

Once reunited, we worked very quickly to treat the patient and prepare for our trip to the trauma center. There is a ‘golden hour’ that we use as a rule, getting the trauma patient to a surgeon in as little time as possible. We closed up our doors with an officer and the patient’s friend accompanying us. It would turn out during the ride that the accompanying friend had actually shot the patient in the confusion with targets and the many people involved in this incident. It was a surreal time where none of these circumstances were treated as unusual and my partner didn’t blink an eye when we arrived at the hospital with one patient and one, now, prisoner who was completely cooperative and contrite. There was no animosity between the two with the shooter letting his friend know “if you need blood, man, I got you. I’m O, the universal donor. Good luck.”

Everything went very smoothly and our man survived. In the confusion there had been no second call number given to shooting since it occurred at the same address. Three people were associated with it: our shooting victim, a different shooting victim and the wrist injury. Later on when our ambulance call reports were looked at by the police or the DA there was some confusion regarding which victim went to which hospital since it turned out that both shooting victims had the same first name. They had contacted us for statements about the incident and to clear up which patient was ours.

“And what’s up with this lady with the wrist fracture?” We were asked. “Will she be pressing charges?”

Some supervisors are tyrants.

Administrative Terrorism

July 16, 2020 /

When I came on the job as an inexperienced, naive EMT I had little idea how things worked in the real world. I was lucky to be partnered with a person who was already a legend throughout the service. He wasn’t only good at being an EMT, he knew how the job worked, how the city operated and he had a diverse skill set that was often invaluable. He taught me many, many things but one of the most satisfying was something he liked to call “administrative terrorism”.

It was unfortunate, but I came to find out that some of our supervisors lacked many of the important verbal communication skills needed to motivate poorly-paid civil service subordinates. The reward structure that traditional jobs rely on to motivate their employees (bonuses, raises, and other benefits) doesn’t exist for us and rather than get creative many chose the route of bullying and berating; negative reinforcement at its worst. Administrative terrorism was born as a creative way to handle uncreative supervisors, turning a negative situation into something entertaining. It also broke up the day if you were bored. I was privileged to learn from the master.

One of our lieutenants that used all the tactics in the negative reinforcement playbook was someone I’ll call Lt. Pat. Lt. Pat was obviously taunted as a child and used his new position of authority to make up for the wrongs inflicted upon him in the past. He was wildly incompetent and somewhat comical for us, even without the encouragement our karmic acts of rebellion brought out. Lt Pat desperately sought the approval of those higher up which made him an easy target for my partner whose many talents included being able to imitate the chief in charge’s voice over the telephone.

One day, chosen completely at random my partner asked me to hang around the front of the office and report back to him later what occurred. I didn’t know it at the time but my partner had surreptitiously unplugged the fax machine a little while earlier. Mr. Pat was at the desk and due to hearing difficulty he kept the phone volume up to a level where I, and anyone within a 2 mile radius, could hear. The phone rang, Lt Pat answered in his authoritative manner.

“Hello. Lt. Pat? It’s Chief McAllen,” I could hear my partner say in his best Chief McAllen voice. ” I’ll be sending over a report through the fax machine. I’ll need you to answer a few questions at the end of it and fax it right back”.

“No problem, Chief,” Lt Pat answered confidently. “I’ll take care of it right away.” He continued with whatever he had been doing at his desk for a little while until another call came through.

“Pat?” my partner said. “I’m waiting on that report.”

“I’m sorry, Chief but nothing’s come over.” He answered.

“Ok. I’ll send it again.”

More time went by. Nothing came over the machine, of course. Another phone call was made.

“Pat. I don’t know if I stressed this enough to you but this is somewhat urgent. I need your answered questionnaire pronto.”

“I’m sorry Chief, but still, nothing has come over the fax machine. Perhaps you better send it again.” Lt. Pat sounded contrite.

“Ok Pat”, he said. “But make sure this thing gets done. Drop anything else and send it over right away.”

At this point Lt. Pat stopped everything he was doing and watched the machine. As someone who liked to limit the movement of his considerable girth he chose to not to get up and check out the machine directly, but he stared at it. He also looked at the clock somewhat nervously but of course, no paper, no sound came from the fax machine.

“Lt. Pat,” came the next call. “I sent this report out to 5 supervisors and I have 4 questionnaires sitting on my desk right now. Guess which one I’m missing?” He sounded exactly the right level of angry you could expect from Chief McAllen. “I’ve sent this time over about 5 times. Are you telling me you haven’t received even ONE?”

“But I haven’t!” said Lt. Pat. He sounded like a little schoolboy at this point. A nervous little schoolboy.

“Pat,” the chief voice replied. “You checked the machine, didn’t you? Nothing’s jammed? Receiver not off the hook?”

Lt. Pat finally made it over to the machine, phone in hand. The unplugged cord was situated in a very obvious way on the side of the table it was on which did not face the lieutenant desk. Lt Pat picked up the cord and dejectedly reported that he had found the problem.

“Was it turned off?” He said, in a rather condescending tone.

“It wasn’t plugged in…” At least he was honest. I have learned on this job that honesty is not the virtue that it is elsewhere. They pretend that it’s important but it’s rarely rewarded.

An exasperated ‘Chief McAllen’ hung up. As Lt. Pat scrambled to plug in the machine my partner strolled in with a piece of paper.

“Hey there, Lt Pat,” he said cheerfully. “Would it be OK if I fax”ed this dental form in to the union office? I’m having a root canal–” he was immediately cut off.

“NO!” Lt. Pat screamed. “NO! STAY AWAY FROM THE FAX MACHINE! I’m waiting for something! No one goes near the machine! No one!”

My partner flashed me a smirky grin with his back to Lt. Pat.

“Wait until he calls back the division to speak to the chief again.” He told me later. “No one will have any idea what he’s talking about. Whatever statistical anomaly they’re focused on right now will be put on the back burner for at least a week.”

The Beginning

May 27, 2020 /

I got involved in EMS because my mom moved to Florida. Needing a job to support my sudden non-rent-free lifestyle, I answered an ad in the newspaper (how employment was often procured pre-internet). It offered free training with the promise of future employment in a desperate bid to get a huge influx of naive do-gooders to join the ranks of the city’s ambulance service, which at that time was run by NYC’s Health and Hospitals Corporation. I quickly took the bait. Having been a fan of the “Emergency” television series back when TVs only had 5 channels, I welcomed this opportunity to be like Johnny and Roy, intrepid pioneers in a new medical field. I looked forward to an exciting job “saving people” until I could get my life together and do something else.

I passed my 3rd grade level reading and math entrance exam, took a physical and joined the training academy shortly thereafter. Our education started with CPR. When I received my coveted provider card it was with the mindset that my newfound skills were the catalyst towards changing dismal outcomes for the better. To say I was excited was an understatement.

After my EMT graduation I was off to “the city”. (For those of us who live in the outer boroughs, that means Manhattan). For the benefit of us newbies they held a “roll call”, where the lieutenant addresses everyone at the shift and gives out the unit assignments. On the following days things went back to normal and we just showed up, got our keys and left. But on day one the lieutenant apologized to me saying he had no choice but to put me with the only person available. The EMT I was supposed to have been paired up with had called in sick and this man with the vacuous eyes and ill-fitting uniform was the only one they could put me with. “Any problems,” the lieutenant told me, “you call me up right away. Keep your eye on this guy. And don’t be afraid to snitch. I’m expecting a phone call.” Great.

I discovered I had been paired up with “a skell”. This is someone who is lazy and takes unnecessary shortcuts. (There was also a term “skell” for the patients which had a slightly different definition). The naive, idealistic me was nervous and scared. I had no idea what to expect from a terrible partner. This wasn’t what had been sold to me at the EMS Academy. I expected equally enthusiastic coworkers. We were ‘saving lives’. How could you not be 100% into this? Instead I wondered if I would I be fired on my first day. Why would they do this to me? But also, how bad could it be?

Our first call was assigned, a cardiac arrest. I was going to use my CPR card! I was going to ‘save a life’! Right out of the box. It was exactly how my new position had been described to me. I was going to a high priority call to help someone in need.

My partner, however, hadn’t had his coffee yet.

Prior to firing up the lights and sirens he stopped at a local deli and in the most nonchalant tone ever asked me if I wanted a cup of coffee. I was astounded. “No!” I said. “We have a job! We are going to an arrest! Seconds count! We need to go! Now!”

“Well I’m getting a cup of coffee.” he stated. After was seemed like hours he emerged, cup in hand, and off we went, finally. “I like to drive holding my cup,” he said, “that way no one thinks we’re using the siren to get coffee. I can show them I already have it.” He laughed and took a sip, with enough practiced skill that it didn’t spill despite the bumps and swerves of our emergency response.

My initial consternation with my partners lackadaisical attitude was cut short when we arrived at our destination and my idealism took an even bigger hit. Our call had taken us to Chinatown and into a rundown building where our patient was on the fourth floor of a walk-up. It was a dingy and depressing looking apartment with bunkbeds and cots in every room. There was nothing on the walls and the windows were covered with sheets duct-taped to the frame. The centerpiece of the kitchen was a dirty bathtub, which I would come to find out later was not uncommon for many apartments on the lower East side. The paramedics were already there, having not made a pitstop en route for caffeinated beverages. They were working on an older woman who was laying on the floor of this relatively small apartment inhabited by at least 20 other people. A young boy stood nearby with a look of panic and sadness and it caused me to become slightly unfocused. My partner directed me over to the BVM where I would be providing artificial ventilations. His cavalier attitude had been completely transformed as he spoke to me both professionally and with patience. He seemed empathetic towards the emotional reactions I was, apparently, doing a poor job of hiding. The little boy was crying. For me this was just one of many cardiac arrests to come, for him this was his whole life. Everything he had and the direction of his life were all on the line here. To make matters worse things did not seem to be improving for this woman. Cardiac arrest is a very, very difficult thing to reverse.

The paramedics who were administering the drugs and watching to monitor were also kind and seemed to have a great deal of respect for my partners skills and experience as they bantered back and forth. The whole scene in my memory seems very surreal looking back. So much was going on and yet it seemed to be moving in slow motion. There many people standing around, watching, making my first foray into real CPR a bit unnerving. Also, as this was my first cardiac arrest, my first call altogether, I was unfamiliar with how casually emergency medical providers do their jobs while holding mundane conversations in the midst of someone else’s tragedy. It was something that I would soon take part in myself. No one was dismissing the seriousness of situation or being unsympathetic towards the family, (or as it turned out, living companions who barely knew each other). It was just normal to make conversation at work. It was just that our workplace was someone’s home and our job involved a dying woman.

As I squeezed the BVM to push air into this woman’s lungs I couldn’t help but be fixated on the young boy watching intently with hope and tears. He didn’t speak English. No one in the apartment did. A translator was found in the building somewhere and even her ability was limited. After putting a few snipets of information together it was discovered that the woman was the only relative the young boy had in this country and it was questionable if there were any family left in China. No one else in the apartment knew the woman. It was a mutually beneficial living situation for everyone there to share space and meals but people came and went frequently and most of the residents barely spent more than a few hours at time at the apartment, usually just coming to sleep in between different employment situations. My thoughts were with child and wondering what would become of him should the woman not survive, a circumstance that grew more likely with each passing minute and eventually actualized. Would any of the others there take him under their wing? Would he get sent back to China? Did he want to go back to China? I would never find out but I think about it often, actually. We were both thrown into an unpleasant reality that day, made to realize that everything can change and not always for the better.

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