There is always a stabbing bolt of adrenaline when the EMS alarm goes off. The “tone”, as we trauma junkies call it seems to excite and scare the shit out of you at the same time. Day or night it has always done the same thing to me. It brings me to some bizarre level of awareness long before my brain is awake. I hear and remember things said by the dispatcher but can’t remember to put on my socks. I’ve quit trying to figure it out and I suppose it doesn’t really matter. I have to come learn over the years that doing this job isn’t really about any of that. It isn’t about lights and sirens, big motor vehicle crashes, cardiac drugs, shocks, or blood. It’s about people. And it always has been.
The other day the “tones” went off on my radio and I was at my “tiny house”. The same bolt of adrenaline hit me as it always does. This one had a fairly large “pucker factor” involved. No you won’t find those terms in the paramedic textbook but they seem to be universal. A rollover with three victims and two laying in the road. That road was a rutted dirt track about 30 miles away and no one was completely clear where it was. Remember this is truly the last frontier in Texas. Even a helicopter is an hour away if you can get one and they can find a place to land. Oh, did I mention they only can take one patient? or maybe that we only have one ambulance? Luckily and strangely too what Terlingua loses in distance and equipment they make up in some first rate paramedic talent. Fast forward to the scene. A jeep upside down on the side of the road and yes on this rare occasion the information was correct. Three people and two were laying in the road. It looked bad. Difficulty breathing, knocked unconscious, paralyzed legs, back pain, all the things that you would expect from the “big one”. With one exception....they were all alive. One was even uninjured. I will spare you the details of the medical side but make note. No helicopter on this one. One ambulance and two patients and 45 minutes on rutted road to pavement. Then a short hour and half race to a hospital. We were going to double load two very hurt people and make a mad dash to an emergency room. Myself, my top notch colleague, and two people strapped, taped, glued and wedged on very hard uncomfortable boards were getting ready to be very very friendly with each other. Again I will spare you the details but the back of the ambulance was completely covered with tubes, bags of saline, wires, blinking lights, gauze, clothes, and serious noise. There was some screaming, thrashing, twisting and moaning on both sides of the isle for sure. I’m certain that there are no long code three paramedic runs in Texas longer than this one. So you have time to work and hope and second guess what you have done and what is going on along the way a couple of times over.
In that hour and a half of terror I witnessed what I believed I had known for years. Nothing is more important than human contact. The physical touch of another human being in time of need is without equal in it’s power. The same can be said for a kind and thoughtful word and genuine interest. As we rattled down the road I came to understand the most important part of my treatment this evening is simply holding a hand. Other things had to be done and were vital but none would be more powerful than my hand in hers. Every time I had to do one of those, “important”, things, the first thing my patient did was start searching for my hand or my touch on her shoulder. She couldn’t see me very well if at all but she could feel my touch even though my gloves. My partner was doing the same thing with her piece of this chaos too with the same immeasurable results. The best advice I got in my early days of doing this job was always call a person by their name. It doesn’t matter if they are screaming, or trapped or nuts, (ah..I mean “altered”) as we say. That will be the only thing that they hear among strangers and the madness of crisis. It has never failed me and didn’t this afternoon. We should all be humbled by the beauty and force of human contact.
I would ask that when you find that person in need some day...and you will. Please remember to offer a hand or a kind word. Call them by their names... if you don’t know it...ask! And never forget what it means to be human and alive. Young or old we all find strength and life those small interactions.
Viva Terlingua
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