I am sitting on the bench outside of Station 3 after breakfast with my second cup of coffee. I am looking at the beautiful lilac bush in the park next to the station. In my own backyard, my lilac bush never seems to bloom in the spring. It is a puzzle I cannot unlock. A lilac bush needs at least 6 hours of direct sunlight to bloom. Pruning the lilac bush so that sunlight gets to all of the foliage is key. I have trimmed carefully trimmed the lilac and it gets more than the required 6 hours of direct sunlight. After a long conversation with the lilac lady at the Flower Bin, I am aware there is nothing more I can do to make the damn thing bloom.
The rose bush that is across from the lilac is in full bloom. It always blooms that way despite the way I take care of it. Last year, I trimmed it back so severely that I was sure that I killed it. When I am at home and open the sliding glass door, you can smell the roses.
The smell of roses is the official start of summer for me.
I need to get on my laptop and do a search for the garden expert (I can't remember his name) who was doing a segment on lilacs.
I can't get away from the feeling that there is something more that I can do to make the damn thing bloom, but there really isn't anything more I can do. I walk into the station to power up the laptop and find him when the familiar voice comes over my hand-held radio.
BEEP BEEP BEEP
“Engine 3, Paramedic 3, respond highway 66 for semi vs bicycle rider.”
Lilac rescue will have to wait, I hope it is nothing. I am listening for additional detail from dispatch to get a better idea of what we will be heading into.
Jeremy, Chris and Tom are in front of their lockers and putting on their gear. Jeremy is a 24-year-old, who has been a firefighter for much longer than he realizes. Three years of experience that today looks more like a decade on him. My radio is turned up, he looks up when I am standing in front of my locker.
“You hear any more info on the call?” Jeremy asks.
“Not a thing, hopefully it is a quick ride out to the highway 66 and you get to spend the rest of the morning washing the engine." I said smiling.
He smiles, nods his head "I sure hope so."
“Engine 3 in route, status 4”
Worst case scenario, I always believe worst case. Tools break, radios go dead, and it is always worse that dispatch says it is. I start running down the list in my head. Heavy Rescue truck is Longmont and is 20 minutes away. Air Life is 20 minutes away and I am wondering if I should put them on air standby, so they are in the air if I need them.
The extended silence on the radio, is making me nervous. The Weld Sheriff or the Battalion Chief should get there by now. I have learned that the first bit of radio traffic from the person who arrives and does the initial radio report will let you know how bad it is.
When they come up on the radio, you will be able to hear in their voice how bad its. For some of us the calmer the radio traffic the worse it is, for others their voices betray them. A calm voice with a bit of an edge puts me into overdrive.
Although very few of these accidents are the same, I run through a catalog in my head of similar calls. In addition to additional FD resources, do I need to think about a crane, heavy duty tow truck, or a hazmat response?
We are going emergent, but I remind Chris to drive slowly and stay focused on the road and not the radio traffic. I can see the scene about a mile ahead and see Paramedic 3 pull up. From this distance, it does not look like much.
“Paramedic 3 arrival, establishing 66 command.”
I listen more intently now; paramedics are there and can give me an arrival report that will tell me what I have. Time slows to a complete halt. The silence on the radio says volumes, are they too busy to give me a report? Are they too busy dealing with a larger situation than was anticipated or reported? On this section of the road, it is either really bad or completely nothing.
“Paramedic 3, cancel all further response, continue engine 3.”
The relief in the engine is palatable. We both look at each other and smile without trying to look too relieved. It is an interrupted quiet morning. I keep listening hard until I can put my eyes on the accident scene. I need to see it with my own eyes to confirm it is an interrupted quiet morning.
The accident comes into view and the relief I was feeling is turning back into the worst-case scenario I planned for in my head. The highway is shut down; the roads don’t get shut down unless there are plans for an extended incident. The State Patrol is notorious for pushing to keep the roads open.
I see a large gravel semi parked by the side of the road and the driver has his head buried in his hands and is visibly sobbing. All of the relief is gone, and I am trying to look at everything here and understand what we have for an incident.
“Engine 3 arrival, assuming 66 command”
There is a bike that is bent in the middle of the road, and debris all over the road. I can’t tell what it is but there is nothing in the road large enough to be a body. The bike is bent but not in the way it would be if it was run over. The paramedics talking to the CSP officer have a tight serious look on their faces, I can feel that familiar ice ball in the pit of my stomach.
It has to be bad. I am thinking that Air Life needs to be on airborne standby and if this is an extrication, I need to keep Engine 1 coming to this location.
A crowd of lunch time bystanders at the two roadside restaurants close to the accident is getting larger by the minute.
I get out of the engine and tell everyone to stay with the engine and listen to the radio. I walk over to the paramedics and recognize Lee. Lee is an ex-marine who never stopped being a marine.
Before I can ask him what he has he says, “This is bad”.
I cringe to hear Lee say that. Lee has seen bad things and never calls them bad. Bad things for Lee mean really bad things. Shifting gears now with my game face on, I need to think about the resources I need and to get my crew moving.
“What do you have?” I ask.
“A Recovery” Lee says and points down to the road debris.
A recovery is the term for a death where we will be called on to remove the body from a place where a coroner can investigate the cause of death. Recovery means that the body is in a place that will require our crew to remove it from a place where it is trapped or somewhere the coroner cannot determine the cause of death.
I automatically look back at the semi-truck that looks intact and start to ask the question.
“Where?”
He points at the debris field in the distance and says that is where the recovery is. It takes me a minute to process what he is telling me. There is not a piece of debris that is large enough to be a body there.
For the first time, I notice how hot is out today.
“She was riding down the road on that bike and pulled in front of the semi. The semi swerved to miss her, and she was pulled into the back dual wheels on the truck.”
“And that?” I point to the debris field.
“Is her” Lee said.
I understand now that we have a long afternoon in front of us. I can feel sweat roll down my back, and I take off my jacket, we are going to be here for a while. I look back over to the engine at the crew and get on the handheld radio and ask them to come to where Lee and I are standing. As the incident is explained, I see an expression of anticipation come across their face that makes me cautious. I have found out through the years that there is no reliable way to predict how people will react to calls. Calls will stay with you when there is a subtle connection to the person, place or thing. There are no gauges for you to determine when, how, or if you will connect to person you run on.
There is an army of trained professionals who can help you deal with the imagery after it embraces you. No one can tell you how to keep these calls from sticking to you in the first place. I have incidents from years past that can be brought to the forefront of my mind when I smell a certain smell or see something at a certain time of day. No horrific images of traumatic injuries, although I tend to remember how people were injured. The smell of fresh rain on a hot asphalt road still reminds me of the kid with big feet on Father's Day.
I look at Jeremy and hope this does not stick in his catalog of bad things. Despite the traumatic injuries, some calls will not register regardless of horrific they are.
“Coroner is on the way” Lee said reading my mind.
“Ok, we will just sit tight then.”
A death in the field is considered a crime scene and today we are going to be relegated to helping the coroner.
I am back at the engine talking to the crew. I remind everyone to stay focus of the mechanics of what we will help the coroner with. Don't look at the face, the extent of injuries, or the mess that a sudden trauma like this leaves behind. For the brief time we do this, these people are our sons, daughters, mothers, and dads. Don't look but remember we are helping loved ones by giving them back as much as we can. Help the people that loved them start the grieving process and let them start to say goodbye.
The coroner always takes forever to arrive. It is about 1PM in the afternoon and starting to get really hot. We are positioned in front of the debris field but not looking at it, we are there to keep anyone from accidently walking close enough to see it. We are making small talk to avoid focusing on what we have in front of us.
People are continuing to cautiously walk out of the restaurant and trying to get a glimpse of the accident. Here is my public service announcement for anyone reading this. Never look, the images that I have inadvertently kept in my catalog of bad things that I have seen are the ones that I did not intentionally try to see. You never do get to choose the time or day when the sharpness of these images' fades from your memory.
From the opposite side of the road, I see a nicely dressed lady who is crying hard and walking toward the debris field. I get out of the engine, and I am walking over to intercept her and see her being pulled back by a older looking lady with a name tag. The name tag lady has to be a victim’s advocate.
Victims' advocates do not ever get recognized for the tremendous work they do with families during the moments when grief becomes bottomless. She pulls the nicely dressed lady over into an adjacent building and I breathe a sigh of relief. In a situation where a lot of emotions are just below the surface it takes a coordinated effort to keep them there until the work is done.
“The coroner is here” I say pointing to the white van that has pulled up by the State Patrol Officer.
Another name tag lady is walking towards the engine and is waving to us. I want to give her all the support that she needs but I don't want to know the details of the bike lady. It is really helpful to not know the back story, so you can focus on the mechanics of cleaning up and picking up after an accident. We are supposed to rescue and recover and let the painful things get sorted out by the people who are trained to do so.
The victims advocate walks over to where we are and starts to tell us that there are 8 people in the next building, and they are all related to the bike lady.
Damnit, she is going to tell us the bike lady story. The victim's advocate is genuine, sincere, and seems to be impacted by the story she is going tell us. I can't tell her not to do this and I really want to. I don't want the bike lady to go home with anyone from my crew today.
She says the bike lady was riding her bike to the restaurant to meet her family who were waiting for her for a lunch celebration. After a tough year, the bike lady had a run of exceptional luck. She was a nurse and had met a man she fell in love with. After proposing to her, they found a home to buy and were in the process of moving in. Her fiancé was picking up newly bought furniture and was going to meet the family at the restaurant. Anxious to see her family, she jumped on her bike to meet the family a little early.
The family was waiting for her in front of the restaurant and saw her ride up on the bike. They were all whooping and waving to her when the accident occurred, they witnessed the entire thing.
The family has been moved to a meeting room at the seed company across the highway until the situation has been cleaned up. There are victims' advocates with them, State Patrolmen, and clerics.
Fuck
That is more than anyone of the guys on Engine 3 needed to know. I wanted each of these guys to focus on cleanup and not the person. The things that we need to move, collect and help catalog are a very real person now. I am hoping against hope that the bike lady does not go home with anyone from Engine 3 today.
“Can you guys give me a hand” the coroner says unrolling heavy plastic bags from a roll.
“Sure can” I said, and I pull everyone aside before we go into the debris field.
“If you don't do this, it does not matter at all” I remind them.
“It's not important to see and no one will know that you did not do it.”
“We are good” they say, and I look at them hard again. I remind them to move quick and not to look at the larger debris field. Focus on what is in front of you.
I look at the debris field and take my own advice. This is the cleanup, the part of the job that does not get talked about at all. It is one of the hardest parts of the job. We train hard as a crew to avoid anyone having to see or deal with what we are helping clean up right now. And as I write this, I realize that there is no way to describe how seeing something like this assaults the senses. You do not gain a single insight when you see something like this. For me, it has always made me realize how fragile our lives really are.
The heat and the smell of the afternoon are getting increasingly hard to ignore. Initially fast, Jeremy is starting to slow down and linger on the larger more recognizable parts. I talk to him so that he will look at me and stop trying to see her. He is getting progressively quieter and says less but is not looking around anymore.
The corner asks for more help with the smaller parts and produces large gallon clear plastic bags. I pull Jeremy aside and have him check the north side of the road to make sure it is blocked off. I am worried the bike lady will go home with Jeremy today. I need to make sure to get him away from the work that is being done now.
He looks relieved to be walking back to the engine.
I help for another 30 minutes, and I tell the coroner, I have done as much as I can and walk back to the engine towards Jeremy. Time and distance always tell me when I have reached my limit. No excuse needed or required, seeing things like this does not give you extra insight into anything. It is a weight without purpose in a profession where there is already plenty of unnecessary weight waiting to be picked up.
State Patrol is asking us to hose off the road. The heat has made smaller debris stick to the road and it requires one firefighter working the hose and another with a stiff brush scrubbing the pavement. Jeremy is at the pump controls on the engine and Tom has mercifully grabbed the stiff broom.
We are coming to the end of the call, but the damage is already done. The bike lady will go home with Jeremy today for a period of time that only he can determine.
"Highway 66 command terminated, Engine 3 in service" I tell dispatch.
We are finally at the end of a very long afternoon. A State Patrolmen pulls up next to the engine and motions me over. He is asking us to follow the truck as it parks behind the tractor dealership and a hose on the back tires of the semi. This is the call that refuses to end.
I tell Tom to jump up on the control panels and I grab the handline off the front of the Engine. I drag the hose to the truck and get it cleaned up quickly. I don't look, try to make sense of what happened or be at peace with any of this.
In the weeks that follow, I will reach out to Jeremy and work through the organization to put him in touch with a professional that can help do the things that I am not trained to do.
Several weeks later the crew stops at a Starbucks at the end of a shift to get coffee and talk about an upcoming get together. We are still wearing our uniforms when we walk in and start to talk about the logistics of the BBQ at Chris's house.
There are two nice looking blonds at a table by the door having an intense conversation and they don't look up as we walk in. I am putting sugar and cream in my coffee, and I look up and both blonds are staring at me.
Worst case scenario, I always believe in worst case scenario. My hand drops to the fly on my uniform pants which is mercifully closed. I scan the front of my uniform and find no food or tears, and finally wipe my face for the food that I am sure is there.
“You were there” the taller blonde says.
I have run on a dozen calls since the bike lady and she did not go home with me that day. Bad with names, bad with faces I do a quick review of last week's calls and try in vain to figure out what and who they are talking about.
They realize this and tell me they recognize me from the semi vs bike call and one of the blonds introduces herself as the sister of the victim. I cringe inside, I know there is nothing to say or do except express the genuine regret that I have at their loss, which I do. For the brief time we had her, she was our sister and friend also and we treated her recovery that way. I am hoping they do not ask me any questions about the incident itself. I have no detail to add that they have not already went through a dozen anguished times.
I am painfully aware of what I do not have here, no other words that will help her process such a loss, no wisdom to dispense and no words to comfort. She is a person again to me, but I am able to leave her again at the Starbucks with her sister and friend.
I know that there is almost nothing I can do that could help them here. If I had the words, I would tell her that I mourned the passing of her sister in the way firefighters do, regret for the sudden loss and regret that there was not more to do. She is not my nightmare or my pain, but the bike lady will always forever be this woman’s sister forever to me.
We still run this stretch of the road and have performed a dozen remarkable rescues that no one will ever hear about. We drag those remarkable rescues out over a beer now and then and compliment ourselves. Occasionally someone in the local watering hole will ask me if I was there that day for the girl on the bike and I will tell them I wasn’t.
I was involved in a brief minute of cleanup that does not compare to her whole life. The last tribute I can pay to her was the acknowledgment of how little a role I played in any part of her life that was meaningful.
We rescue and recover and let the professionals sort the rest out.
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