My legs are still sore from last night. There was just no way to get comfortable sitting on that old hardwood gym floor last night. I arrived at the gym last night on hour before the annual Christmas play to grab 4 seats. Arriving an hour early only netted 2 hard plastic seats reasonably close to the stage. Laura and my mom can sit in the chairs. Megan and I will have to find a place along the wall where we can still see.
Over the next hour as parents and family file in, the air in the gym becomes increasingly stale. The gym is starting to smell like a gym that regularly has a bunch of sweaty little bodies in it. I brought a book to pass the time but did not even open it. Seats this close to the stage are a premium and every time I stretch my legs, I don't stray far from those two seats. I am a veteran of Christmas pageants and know how coats and gloves on seats fall off seats so parents and grandparents who arrive later can sit together. When that has happened to my saved seats, I have never been able to claim seats back from tired looking grandparents whom I found sitting in my saved seats.
This is the last elementary school Christmas program, and I am already feeling nostalgic. Except for the first one and the last one, every Christmas program has been an endurance test. Children change your perspective on time. Counting the time to save seats, I will have spent a couple hours waiting to see Jake's 10 minutes of fame. The really strange thing is that is always feels like time very well spent.
The kids are lined up to walk to the stage. Everyone in the seats has turned to watch them march up to the stage. As the kids walk by and despite the fact that I have spent the last couple of hours with Jake (who has been pressing his luck all afternoon), I feel compelled to whisper his name and wave my arms at him.
They gym becomes a sea of arms and whispered names. You can tell almost every kid in line hates that their loved ones are behaving this way. They wonder their parents will wave their arms and whisper their names a little too loudly when they walk by. Jake did not turn around when I whispered/yelled "JAKE!" when he walked by and waved my arms. I wave my arms for a reason I don't completely understand. I know he has seen and heard me because I saw a patch of crimson on his cheek as he walked by.
Jake has dodged a bullet, he managed to escape having a speaking part in the Christmas pageant. He was assigned to be one of a dozen stars who are the designated backup singers for the main characters. He is lined up with all of the other yellow stars on the bleachers on the stage. He is easy to see because he is a head taller than his classmates. Seeing all the stars assembled it occurs to me that stars are silver and not yellow. He will never wear the yellow sweatpants and sweatshirt after tonight and I don't blame him a bit.
The gym lights blink on and off a couple of times and the portly music teacher comes up to the podium in front of the stage and taps his baton and the room goes quiet.
As I watch him perform, I am pretty sure that he will not sing or dance for a living. He is looking as worried as a 5th grader can look. Jake seems to be mouthing the words to the songs he may have not completely memorized. He is also throwing up his hands a half second slower than everyone else when the stars start to move. Despite all of this, every time I see him up there, I just swell with enormous pride that he is my son.
Jake and Megan will realize how much they were loved when they are sitting in another tiny bad smelling gym watching their own kids do the same thing.
The memory of last night is interrupted by the familiar green light and voice.
Engine 3, Paramedic 4 Respond to 287 and Yellowstone for an Unknown Injury Accident.
Mike, Randy, and Chris all grab radio's and get on the engine without saying a word. This crew has the OCD that all good firefighters learn to develop. As they are getting buckled in, they are patting themselves down to double check that they have two of everything they will need.
Engine 3 responding status 4
Engine 1 will know we are coming with a full crew. We will not be the first engine to arrive, and we are all waiting to hear updates on the radio. As it is often the case, these calls are either a nothing or are complex calls that will require every person we have. The radio traffic will give us more specific information of what we will find when we get there. Fire is always in the back of my mind on these calls. The mantra is expecting the best but be prepared as a crew for worst case scenario.
I am checking the pockets of my own bunker gear while waiting for the radio to update me. I have gotten in the habit of carrying two of everything (hoods, gloves, trauma shears, windshield punches, nylon bands for doors, carabineers, safety glasses and latex gloves). I will never be the guy who has to ask for a needed tool or a basic protection for myself when all hell is breaking loose.
Engine 3, Paramedic 4, State (Police) is reporting multiple parties pinned.
"Real Deal, make sure you put latex gloves under your extrication gloves, and everybody wear eye protection" I tell the crew on the headset.
"We are not going to be first, when we get the assignment, Randy, you and Mike grab the portable (extrication tool), spreaders and cutters."
"Chris, bring the jump kit and collars."
It is worst case today, but we are ready for worst case. You cannot plan ahead for worst case; worst case will unfold in front of you while you are working. The only thing that you will be able to count on is that you and your crew will have to change gears multiple times during a call.
As the busy highway comes into view you can see traffic is stopped and headlights are pointed in all kinds of different directions. Chris is weaving through the traffic that is stopped to reach the knot of cars in the merging lane.
Engine 3 Arrival
We have arrived at the accident; the command officer will give us an assignment as soon as he knows we are here.
Engine 3, Battalion 2 on channel 2
Engine 3 ok
The Battalion chief who has arrived on site wants to speak to us on an operational channel. After a brief update, the Bat Chief has directed our crew to a white car in the middle of the string of cars and trucks. This white car looks like it has sustained the most damage. The front of this small two door car is embedded in the grill of an oversized diesel truck.
"The white car is ours" I said pointing to the car.
"Pay attention, look and smell for fuel, other patients, or anything that looks out of place." I tell the crew as we make our way to the car.
The worst thing to get in a complex tangle of heavily damaged cars is tunnel vision. There is a myriad of things that can happen when you are working amid cars that have been heavily damaged. Things that can hurt or injure crew members. As we make out way towards the white car, I am looking at everything in front and around me. I am looking for other patients or anything leaking from these cars that will pose a risk to the crew. I am not seeing anyone else and no exposures that are threats.
We approach the white car, I am on the driver's side and Chris is on the passenger side, we are both shinning our flashlights into the car. There is a very large man slumped over the steering wheel. wheel.
Even for an impact as large as this was there seems to be an inordinate amount of blood on the dash and the steering wheel. I have to take my helmet off to lean into the door to check his carotid pulse. The whole side of his head has blood on in and that does not make immediate sense to me. The point of impact is on the front of his face, not on the side of his head. He has a strong bounding carotid pulse.
"GUN, there is a handgun on the seat!" Chris says in a normal but urgent voice.
I feel a momentary panic as a look down and see the gun in the passenger seat. His hand is still on the gun, and I am leaning into the car without my helmet on trying to assess our patient. I always expect the worse and plan for the best, but this is the first time I have had to navigate a patient with a handgun. As I remove myself quickly from the car, I shine my survive light on this side of his head and notice a gaping wound above his ear. It starts to dawn on me that he has been shot at point blank range with a gun.
"Leave the tools, we are going to regroup at the engine until State can clear the car" I motion the crew back to the engine. I am frustrated with myself, as much as I think I am prepared for worst case, I did not consider that a gun could be involved in this accident. I get on the radio and ask for the Battalion Chief and a State Patrolman to come to the engine for a face to face.
I brief the Bat Chief and the State Patrolmen on what we found when we approached the car.
"He is still alive?" the State Patrolman asks me.
"He had a bounding carotid pulse, and he has an entry wound on the side of his head, above his ear" I tell the State Patrolman.
"I'll clear the car and let you guys know."
After a quick 5 minutes the State Patrolman walks back towards us and tells us the car is clear.
"Is he still alive" I ask him, and the State Patrolman nods yes.
I tell the paramedic's we have a patient with a gunshot wound to the head that we will be working to extricate and pass to them. The bring the gurney and are prepping IV's that they will put in as quickly as we get him out. I feel for his carotid pulse and find a strong bounding pulse before we start to cut him out. If he is no longer living, it is a crime scene, and we would wait for police and the coroner to clear the removal of his body.
He is very alive but nonresponsive. I cannot believe that with the amount of blood and trauma that he is still breathing on his own with a pulse. The door to the car is quickly removed and we position the long spine board to pull him out and give him to the paramedics. Routine procedures like putting him in a spinal collar and securing his head to the spine board are made almost impossible due to the amount of displaced tissue and continued bleeding. I cannot believe that his pulse continues to be strong, and he is still breathing on his own.
The paramedics have activated a trauma team at the hospital and are working to stabilize him. They have asked for a rider, and I volunteered to ride in to assist with what I can. I hand Chris my bunker coat and get back into the ambulance and start cutting his clothes off. The paramedics are working to get large bore IVs into his arms.
The 20-minute ride to the hospital is an exercise in patient perseverance. The small space and the trauma in that very small place is daunting.
At the hospital, I take my bunker pants off and I am given a t-shirt at the hospital and directed to an area where I can clean up. I wait for the engine to pick me up outside of the emergency entrance with the security guard.
It's late when the engine arrives with everything back in place to go back to the station. As I am looking up in the sky on the quiet ride back to the station I am looking up in the sky at the stars on a clear night. I am not really sure what color stars are, it looks to me like there are yellow stars in the sky.
The next day when I go home, I find Jake's yellow (star) sweatpants and sweatshirt under the bench in the front yard. I pick them up as I head into a quiet house.
Time travel is the concept of movement between certain points in time, by an object or person who uses a vehicle or a portal connecting distant points to an earlier time or to a later time, without the need for body to experience the intervening period in the usual sense.
I read in the paper that the guy we transported (and who died that evening) was despondent during the holidays and shot himself. He selected that part of the road that narrows down to 3 lanes to not only take himself out but also to take as many people with him as he could.
I am a firefighter, who time travels all the time.
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