Rescue 471

by Peter Canning

  Rebecca gets her second code save. Pam Duguay becomes a medic, and I get called to back her up on her first code. She gets the tube, and an EJ, and we run through the drug box trying to revive the woman. Then Matt Lincoln and I do a power lift, rapidly carrying the large woman down three flights of narrow stairs without stopping. At the hospital, the doctor compliments Pam on a good effort. She beams and gives me a hug in the hallway, thanking me for helping. I am in the middle of the company in terms of experience now. I think of those with more years than me—Daniel Tauber, Meg and Rick Domina, Rick Ortyl—and of how they have helped me and others, spreading the craft, passing it on. I think about all the newer medics—Rebecca, Todd Beaton, Matt Hannon, Chaz Milner—and watch them gaining confidence, saving lives.

  There are days when I wonder about my future, what I am doing with myself and my life. I keep asking myself—shouldn’t I be in some other line of work? Something safer, more secure, with stability. But I ignore those worries and they pass, at least for a while longer.

  I stay working nights. I like watching the sun go down, then responding through the night, red lights whirling through the dark streets, answering calls for help. Just off Albany Avenue Chaz Milner and Missy Young deliver their second baby in two weeks. Annette O’Callaghan and Chris Bates respond to a chest pain on Park Terrace. On Squire Street Joe Stefano and Matt Rynaski work a shooting. Up on Tower, John Burelle and Jennifer Sabatini treat a young girl with asthma. Mark Bassett, Mike Carl, and Kim Quinn clear from their calls and go back on line. Downtown Chris Dennis loads a man with critical stab wounds into his ambulance and treats him while his partner, Dawn Jewiss, drives lights and sirens to the trauma center.

  I sit in a parking lot overlooking the highway and the capitol, and watch the Life Star helicopter rise over the city skyline, its bright lights shining, heading out to the countryside where a volunteer ambulance crew is treating a patient trapped in a car.

  Catherine Getlein, our dispatcher, calls my number, and my new partner, Kristin Shea, hits the lights on and we’re off on a priority one—difficulty breathing.

  We are in a tenement. I touch the man’s forehead, which is hot and moist. I listen to his lungs, which are decreased in sound. I talk to him in Spanish. His wife looks at me and says, “You like your job, don’t you?”

  I am a little taken aback by her English and her words. “Yes,” I say, “I do. Me gusta mi trabajo.”

  She smiles. “I can tell,” she says.

  We give him oxygen and carry him down the stairs, and though my back is tired, I stand a little bit taller on this night. “They’ll take good care of you here,” I tell him at the hospital, touching his shoulder with my hand.

  “Thank you,” he says.

  I head back out into the night.

  Postscript

  Public Health Commissioner Stephen Harriman withdrew his name for renomination to a second term as head of the department hours after an explosive public hearing in which legislators castigated him for his poor oversight of emergency medical services systems in the state.

  After an exposé in the Hartford Courant, the city paid for medical dispatch training for all its EMS dispatchers. Understaffing remains troublesome.

  Our union membership approved a four-year contract with our new company after voting down the first two contract offers. While the new contract limits raises for paramedics to 3 percent, it maintains full health benefits for all employees who have worked full-time for four years.

  Acknowledgments

  I would like to thank the men and women I work with on the road for their friendship and commitment to patient care. They remain the heart of the EMS system and anyone interested in improving the EMS system should listen to their voices and experience. This includes our company dispatchers.

  Thank you to my medical control at Saint Francis Hospital, Dr. Michael Gutman. Also thanks to Hartford Hospital Medical Control, Dr. Sara Knuth, and other physicians who take the time to help paramedics. We appreciate the broadness of the paramedic guidelines sponsored jointly by the two hospitals.

  Thank you to all the ER nurses at Saint Francis, Hartford Hospital, Mount Sinai, and Connecticut Children’s Medical Center, who are overworked and probably underpaid, but who still seem to always manage smiles for their patients and for us. Thanks also to the clerical personnel and ER technicians.

  Thank you to the dispatchers, Hartford police officers, and firefighters who assist us.

  Thank you to Angela Griffin and the Lives-At-Risk project at Saint Francis and Jackie Grogan and the Children’s ER, passionate advocates for their worthy programs.

  Thank you to my friends, Barbara Danley, Ross Wheeler, and Kristin Oberg for reading and commenting on the manuscript. Their insights and support are invaluable.

  Thanks to my agent, Jane Dystel and my editor, Susan Randol.

  And most of all, thanks to Michelle.