Throughout my entire career from EMT to paramedic to lieutenant I have been lucky to meet and work with many, many others who’ve adapted to the unusual and often troubling situations we are often thrown into by trying to find some entertainment value where you can. It’s liberating sometimes to stop and look around at all the mayhem, when it appears, and find something redeeming in it. Sometimes this adaptation evolves to help with problems other than PTSD.

Emergency rooms very typically get backed up and it is not unusual to wait behind numerous other units as one triage nurse evaluates the patients, puts them in the system and figures out where to place them. Triaging seems to be the least desirable position in the ER, if facial expressions are any indication, and on one particular night things were made worse by a dispute among the nursing staff as to who, in fact, was assigned the position that evening. As a result no one was being triaged and the nurses were going to great lengths to pretend that there wasn’t a long line of patients waiting to be seen. Tension was clearly visible between the staff, even from my distant vantage point.

Our patient was behind so many other patients that our stretcher was in the lobby area and not even in the actual emergency room. We paramedics and EMTs made the usual short conversations expecting things to be resolved soon but after some time it became clear nothing was moving forward. One of the EMTs who was waiting gave me a wink and said he would take care of it.

“Nancy,” he said, “go up to triage and put your radio on the desk. Make sure that radio is up to the highest volume.”

I nodded with a wink and a smile. He’s using the ol’ Annoy Them With The Radio technique, I thought. Th objective is to make a nuisance of yourself so they get rid of you. I’ve used this tactic with some success in the past. But Mr. Kevin had tweaked this strategy into a whole other dimension.

Our radios came with a command frequency which enabled two users to talk back and forth to each other over the regular frequency without interrupting it. Only people within a short radius would hear. When I reached the desk and put my radio down I noticed others had done the same. Kevin’s message would be broadcast in surround sound.

“Brooklyn Central,” said a disguised Kevin voice addressing the ‘dispatcher’, “Central this is Conditions 53 [he was posing as a lieutenant], I’m at the scene of the school bus accident…the bus that hit the building….at this time we have 12 patients…we are getting ready to transport and I’ll need a notification. Please let hospital A [the hospital we were in] know they are getting 10 adults…3 females and 8 males to Hospital A, all trauma. And let Hospital B know they are getting two, we don’t want Hospital A to get too overloaded…so 10 to Hospital A, 2 to Hospital B…thank you!” He changed his voice again to pretend to be the dispatcher acknowledging the transmission.

All three of the nurses within listening range became immediately outraged. “Is that right?!” they asked. We all shrugged.

“Are we getting 10 patients?! TEN! And the other hospital gets TWO? Who is this lieutenant? How do they expect us to handle ten patients all at once? Where are we supposed to put all of them?…”

One of the registration people was assigned the task of reaching the dispatcher to redirect some of the patients from the bus accident elsewhere and also to complain about the lobsided hospital designations for all 12 patients. The poor registrar could find no one who knew what she was talking about and therefore could not relay to the nurses that the issue was handled.

Suddenly everyone started moving. Beds were moved, spaces were cleared and the trauma room was prepped. It became an instant priority to deal with the patients that were waiting. We were triaged fairly quickly after that. It was done angrily, but it got done.

As Mr. Kevin casually strolled out with his stretcher he looked at me with a smile and remarked “Look how nicely everything works when everyone works together.”