Just Beyond the Door

I blew the steam from the top of the styrofoam cup, then sipped slowly so the hot bitter liquid would not burn my tongue. That first swallow of the first cup of the day always tastes the best to me. I savored it, letting it rest on the back of my tongue for only a moment. As I looked around the room, the rest of the squad milled around joking with each other as they prepared for that days shift.

I reached for the lapel mic that sits just above the top button of my shirt to let the dispatcher know I was in service and ready to meet the day. As my thumb searched for the lever, the earpiece that sits in the canal of my ear brought her familiar voice, "Perry 43, be en route to the Holiday Inn reference an unconcious man." Her voice was steady giving nothing away. After years and years of sending officers to the worst of calls, voice control was second nature.

Perry 43 was the officer assigned to that area, he could get there the fastest. As a supervisor that night, it's my job to go from call to call in case there are problems or additional help is needed. The battle inside my mind began; to sit and enjoy the only cup of coffee I may get that night, or head out to the motel "just in case".

I grumbled to myself when the coffee hit the drain of the water fountain as I headed out the door. The dispatcher would have followed protocol on this, or any, medical call, so an ambulance and the fire department first responders would be dispatched as well. I wasn't in any hurry as I turned onto Sam Nunn Boulevard since these calls usually sound worse than they are.

"Perry 43 to Dispatch!" came across the net. It was the heightened tone of the voice and the rapidity of the words that caught my trained ears. It was the sound of adrenaline hitting the human body. "Be advised, I have a white male in full cardiac arrest ... starting CPR!"

The adrenaline hit my system milliseconds later as the accelerator found the bottom of the floor. I reached down on instinct, flipped one button and turned another. The blue lights and siren caught the cars in front of me by surprise. They pulled to the right hoping it wasn't them I was coming for.

The red and blue strobes from the fire trucks and ambulance turned the back of the motel into an open air disco. Sprinting into the lobby I began to yell for directions. Already knowing, the clerk was yelling back at me giving me what I needed to know.

As the elevator carried me to the second floor, I took the second to gather my thoughts. Like a yoga student, I inhaled one large breath and exhaled it slowly, then another. My lips moved silently as I said a short prayer for the man who was at that moment fighting for his life.

I rounded the corner in the hall. Jack, who was Perry 43 that night, was at the far end of the hall with a small group of people. Tears rolled down the face of one of the women, as another pulled herself into the arms of a man standing in shorts with no shirt. His head was buried into the nape of her neck, hidden in the long brown hair that flowed over her shoulders. This would be the family or friends, it wasn't the first time I've seen those looks.

I heard someone off to the side giving what sounded like a play by play in any sporting event. I found the source of the voice, a young man, maybe in his mid-twenties, was standing off to the side with a cell phone to his ear. "You've got to be kidding me", I thought. My only hope was that that man was not on the phone with this guys wife or mother giving a play by play of what might be his last moments in life. "I don't know ... I don't think he's breathing ... he's blue ... they are working on him now trying to get his heart going ..." It was probably the first time I cursed modern technology and the cell phone.

The man lying flat on the ground was a big man. I estimated his weight at close to three hundred pounds easy. A firefighter was on the side of him, his arms extended down and locked out as he administered chest compressions. One of the paramedics was trying to force a tube down this young man's throat so that precious oxygen would be forced into his lungs.

Through conversations being thrown back and forth in the heat of the battle, I learned the man was only in his twenties and had been complaining of illness throughout the day. He walked to the bathroom when a friend heard him crash to the floor. Because of his size, he had to be dragged out into the hall to get enough room to work on him.

The fireman doing the compressions was breathing heavy now. The wear and tear of the physical exertion was showing. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a bandanna and wiped his forehead and face. I kneeled near for another minute watching as the paramedic continued to struggle with the breathing tube, his curses getting louder as the tube refused to hit the sweetspot and slide gently into the lungs.

I tapped the firefighter on the shoulder and told him I would take over. He gave an almost appreciative glance as he collapsed to the side. I put two fingers on the breastbone to get the right spot, centered the palms, locked out my elbows and pushed. "Got it!" the paramedic cried out as he attached the balloon device on the end of the tube.
"One, two, three, four, five .... squeeze" I see his chest rise. I begin again, counting the compressions as I go. The chest rises again as the paramedic squeezes another blast of air into the mans lungs.

As the adrenaline subsides in your body, you start to recognize things. I remember asking myself if the air conditioner was on? As I leaned over this big man, pumping his heart, sweat literally rolled down my nose and dropped onto his chest. He had no shirt on so the path of the sweat continued down his side and onto the floor. It was a July evening and it was humid and hot ... a typical south Georgia evening. I'm in full uniform, bullet proof vest with about twenty five pounds of gear hanging from my duty belt. It wouldn't seem like pumping on someones chest, short bursts of energy up and down, would take much, but in just a few short minutes, I felt like I was on the back-end of the New York marathon with the end no where in sight.

The paramedics had placed small circular pads on the sides of the chest. Wires ran to a small monitor just above and to the side of his head. As I compressed, the green line would spike, then go down, spike, then go down. He had a heart beat. A renewed hope as the fight swung in our favor.

A second paramedic told me to stop compressions and I moved off to the side much like the firefighter had before me. I had ended up near the doorway across the hall from where the man lay. Leaning against the door, I panted in short breaths and watched as the fight for this man's life continued.

I heard it now. I had not heard it before in all the commotion, but as I sat with my back against this door, I could hear it plainly. It was the sound of laughter. Not just laughter, but laughter mixed with arguing mixed with playing. It was children. Maybe four or five of them inside the room playing as kids cooped up inside a motel for the night will do. "Did not!" The reply came, "Did to!" "You better stop or I'll tell Mom!" "Tell Mom, see if I care!" the argument waged on ...

"Resume compressions!" the paramedic yelled. I lurched forward back into position and again began the rythmic motion as they prepared to transport this man.

My body fell back into the task at hand, but my mind remained focused on the sounds of the children. How ironic life is! In a hallway, a man was losing the battle for life. In a room, not a few feet away, kids played, having no idea what was happening just outside their door. Not just the kids I guess, cause in other rooms people were maybe making love, or maybe sharing a joke and a beer, or maybe just relaxing and watching television ... who knows?

It was life ... at its worst I guess, but none the less ... it was life.

I walked out to my patrol car and got in. I bowed my head and said another prayer, but this time for the man's family. They would be told the bad news that we all knew having had worked on him. He didn't make it. It was going to be a long night for them I knew.

I reached for the mobile radio microphone and told the dispatcher that I was back in service ... life everywhere else trotted on.