The Calm Before the Storm

The Calm Before the Storm

                   

It was gorgeous that night. The skies were clear and the stars seemed to dance across it. The moon was full and bright. We all stood on the back porch of the station sharing a smoke before we continued our movie night. We laughed and joked, which was strange for some of us but we hadn’t had a call all day so everyone was still well rested.

“Ten bucks says everyone in the damn county calls us tonight,” James joked as he blew the smoke into Annie’s face. She balled up her fist and punched him in the gut.

“Is that what you think?” She snickered, “If that’s the case I will be more than glad to go home and you can take every call all by yourself.” He obviously didn’t think that was too funny being that she had left the poor old guy alone one, or two, or ten times before.

         Time ticked on and we still stood outside laughing and telling each other’s business to everyone else. It was like our Friday night ritual; eat, movie, gossip, another movie and sleep. Whenever we got calls we took turns taking them and everyone else continued without us. But something felt weird tonight. We hadn’t had anything really interesting or bad in a few weeks now. Most of our calls were for kids or elders falling, chest pain, and my personal favorite of the week; “I broke my ankle, I swear it was bruised black and blue a few minutes ago! You should have seen it!” Yeah, that was a fun one to deal with. But we had not had anything hard to deal with, and as most will tell you, we refer to this as the calm before the storm.

         Everyone took their last drag and moseyed back inside. Tray had cleaned the bay and checked off all the trucks, thank the lord because no one else loved that job nearly as much as he did.  All six of us settle back into the sofas. Michael already looked like a chipmunk even though he had just smoked, and Al was already half asleep before we even pressed play. Some movie Annie had picked out was next. It was about the typical star crossed lovers who can never be together but you know somehow by the end of the movie they will. A few minutes into the movie my phone started going off. It was my brother, Cory. He was basically like my dad but never understood why I didn’t like him acting like he was my dad.

“Where are you???” It read. I just shook my head and replied,

“The station. Staying here tonight.” A few minutes went by and I hadn’t gotten anything back so I put my phone back down and tried to engage myself into this pointless and predictable movie.

My phone lit up again, “okay promise me that you will stay there…” I paused for a few minutes puzzled.

“What are you talking about? You know I stay here all the time. Yes I’m gonna stay here?” I didn’t know if I should be mad as if I was being accused of something or if I should be concerned. I just shook my head and tried to relax. “Slow deep breathes,” I thought to myself. I felt my stomach start to ball up and twist into knots but didn’t know why. The hands one the clock had stopped. I just sat there, pale faced and stared at it. But time stood still.

“No, Jess, don’t leave on any calls or anything. Okay?” As soon as I read the text, tones dropped. It was our crews turn so we got up and fumbled for our boots and radios, then ran for the steps.

“Five patient MVA” Al hollered as he ran down the steps behind us, “Everyone is getting sent out!” My phone went off several more times but I never bothered to open the text. Everyone piled in the trucks, both medic units and the crash truck took off. Michael opened up the lap top and starting pulling up information.

“Where we heading?” I asked but I wasn’t sure if I wanted to know the answer yet, I generally did better in situations that surprised me.

“Top of 60, my girl is there and said a truck with four guys in it got hit by a SUV and went off the road.” Trey was shaking his head, “The truck is up in flames, so a few of us will have to help out the new guys.” He paused for a moment, “Looks like it was the calm before the storm.” We were all quit the rest of the way up. But when you’re going up 60 at eighty miles per hour when the speed limit is on fifty-five, that’s truly not a bad thing.

         When we got there it was obvious that it was bad. The truck was still down over the bank, spitting flames out from every part of it. Hoses where laid across the road going down to it. Firemen ran like mad men back and forth past us while we got the trauma bags out of the truck.

“Meet the new guys,” Michael laughed as the firemen ran by us again.

“I’m thinking we are going to need an extra back board or two, you want to grab those, Trey?” He nodded his head and walked away. Michael and I walked over to where the boys were laying. One they had pronounced dead and had covered with a sheet already. “Oh, shit.” I mumbled.

I knelled down next to one of the boys, I could see his chest rising a little the collapsing back down. I asked if he could hear me, but no response. I grabbed his hand in mine, told him to squeeze it if he could hear me talking to him, thankfully I felt pressure against my hand. So I laid his hand back down, and grabbed his wrist.

“Pulse is still up, breathing is a labored and shallow. Can I get an oxygen tank?” Trey turned back around and headed back for the truck. I continued to look the boy over. He had a large gash in his head that I covered and wrapped. His lip was busted open. The poor guys was beat up past the point of even looking like he had a real face. I put a collar on him after checking his neck and moved on. I patted down his chest and palpated his stomach, he cringed in pain. So I pulled his shirt up to check it out. Everything was bruised. With nothing to do, I moved on.

         A few minutes had passed now and I could hear a woman wailing. We all looked away from our patients to see a woman trying to bust past the cops. A man grabbed her as she collapsed to the ground crying.

“That’s my baby, no you don’t understand! He’s my baby boy.” She scream, but couldn’t break loose form the man holding her. I studied him for a moment. He was tall a built like my brother. He knelt there on the ground holding her as she frantically swung her arms and kicked trying to get away from him, but he just held tighter.

“What do we have ma’am?” the officer towered over me.

“No I.D. He is responds to me talking to him but has not talked, trauma to the head, so far the neck looks okay, which is surprising. No major bleeding anywhere other than his head but his entire body is bruised. And he has a deformity on the left tibia. I’m waiting for that idiot to get back with an O2 tank,” I answered without looking up at him, while I braced his injured leg.

“What about your partners?” He still stood there. Apparently he still didn’t care much for what he referred to as rookies, and was going to spend the rest of his night breathing down my neck.

“I don’t know what Michael or Annie has. Al jumped in on the fire fun since these other boys were making it worse and we are running the other two to death getting us stuff. So would you like to help me or stand there and be useless?” I smiled sarcastically up at him. The fact of the matter was that it would be at least a good three years before this man even gave me a chance so I didn’t plan on trying too hard to make him like me until then. Plus it was best for me to just not think about what was going on so I could do my job. He shook his head and knelt down next to the boy.

“I need an I.D. on these boys, I have parents to call.” He paused for a moment and we both looked at the screaming woman. “It looks like one has already found out about her boy.” He watched her for a moment and it almost looked like tears were dwelling up in his eyes. My heart broke watching the woman. I couldn’t even imagine being on the other side of this situation. I  looked back at the boy and began working again. Trey got back with the O2 tank and hooked it up.

“That’s not even ours?” I questioned him. “We should have two extra on the truck.”

“The rookie fire fighter got them,” He just shook his head. We rolled the boy to one side, while Trey held his head I checked down his back, which didn’t look good either. There were a few knots and he would cringe when I hit certain spots. Most of his spine was bruised and about half way down it seemed to disappear. While we had him on his side I pulled his wallet out of his back pocket. I wanted to open it myself to find out who he was but something told me that I shouldn’t. I handed the wallet over to the officer and proceeded to back board the boy. We loaded him on the stretcher, and pushed him to unit three. Annie was already in the back with her patient sitting on the bench. I couldn’t see his face yet. She was unhooking him from the machine.

“Trey, go ahead and load him up.” She looked past me. I hopped in the truck anyway.

“Jess, I’m so sorry.” The other boy mumbled. I turned at looked at him as if I had just seen the devil himself.

“Jake, what happened. Where’s my little brother?” I started to panic. My chest tightened up, and I was struggling to breath.

“Jason is fine, the man ran us off the road. It wasn’t his fault. Please don’t be mad, please.” My hand started to shake and everything went blurry. I pulled my phone out of my back pocket and opened the text.

“Jess, promise you won’t leave there!”

“Hello? Are you ignoring me?”

“I’m going to be there to get you soon, just stay put.”

“So much for staying put.” I said, my voice shaking. We got him hooked up to the machines and monitors, and Annie started an IV in his arm. I started looking him over more carefully trying to figure out which of my brothers friends this was but there was nothing about him that looked familiar anymore. Now that we were in a closed area, I could smell the alcohol on the two boys in the truck. This mad my already twisting stomach even worse. It was one of those “Oh shit” moments that you never want to relive. I knew at that point that my brother was most likely driving, and I also knew that he would also smell like alcohol. He was known for it. He stumbled in at all hours of the night, when he actually came home. It was nothing for us to be in a panic for two days looking for him and then find these boys together passed out in the mountain somewhere. But I also knew that it was best for me not to work on him, I knew I needed to wait to see him at the hospital. But I was worried sick, the rush of trying to get my patient taken care of and loaded up was gone now. Time was freezing and my heart was racing. It didn’t make since. It wouldn’t register with me, I started to fall into a haze.

         The third ambulance finally got there. They loaded up the fourth boy from the truck in it, my brother. Michael ran over to me as I was hopping out of the truck.

“Jess, stay. They are taking him to meet the chopper about a mile up the road. They are doing everything they can for him.” He put is arms on my shoulders. I looked at him and started to lose it.

“I can’t do this now. The other two boys are loaded and ready to go. The driver of the SUV is in our other truck. Let’s hit the road if we are done here.” I pushed his arms down and turned towards the truck.

“Are you sure you are okay?”

“For now. Are you driving?” I got back into the back of the truck. It wasn’t a question rather or not he would be driving, there was no option there at all actually. It was simple, straight lined and to the point, he wasn’t going to have his way tonight.

I calmed down enough to run all my vitals a few times and call in the report. I filled out my paper work by time we had reached Madison Heights and the boy was starting to come to when we were a few minutes away from the hospital. I sat down beside him and started to talk.

“Hi, I’m Jess. Do you know where you are?”

“No.” he mumbled underneath his breath.

“Can you tell me your name?” I asked.

“Yeah, David.”

“Okay David, you are in an ambulance on the way to the hospital. You and your friends where in a wreck. You are stable and will be just fine but we have to get you looked at.” I pulled the lap top back out and started filling in the blanks. I knew everything about this kid; where he lived, what he drove, who is parents where, hell, I even knew where he kept his collection of dip and beer. Sad thing was, I could recognize his face.

         We finally made it to the hospital and unloaded him. I pushed him to his room, we transferred him to the hospital bed then Michael took the stretcher and lap top. I stood there and waited for the nurse, when she finally came I gave her my report and headed for the front desk.

         The helicopter had already landed and Jason was sent into emergency surgery before we got there. His ribs had pierced one of his lungs and an artery. The internal bleeding was server. I also found out that his sternum had been broken during CPR and while he was in surgery they were going to repair that and his busted leg. When he came out he would have to have more scans done to check the trauma to his brain. They believed that the front part of his brain, which allowed for body functions like walking and talking and movement, was damaged. They would also need to check his spine. His friend that died had broken his neck in the wreck along with several vertebrae. This was due to being ejected, and it was his mother that was on the scene. She saw the wreck when she was on her way home from work. Jake got out with the least damage. He was the only one wearing a seat belt. He came out with a broken arm, a cut on his face from broken glass and a few bruises. David however wasn’t so lucky. He had the highest alcohol percent in his blood out of the four boys. His back had been broken in four places, luckily not busted bad enough to paralyze him though. He also had a cracked skull, a concussion, broken tibia, and a few busted ribs. He too was sent in for surgery.

         The rest of us just paced. Cory finally came and found me. He was still crying when he walked up and hugged me. The dead boy’s mom had just left the hospital. I wished I had known this boy, but he was new to the group of friends and I hadn’t been around him. I hugged my brother back after standing still for a few minutes. I didn’t want to cry, I couldn’t. My body was still numb and in shock. Time was standing still again. Cory pushed me away a bit and grabbed both sides of my face.

“You know you are the most hard-headed pain in the ass, right?” He was doing this dumb thing he always did when something was wrong. He wanted me to laugh, it made him feel better. So a shook my head no and tried to smile a little, but when I did tears started to pour.

“But I don’t know what I would do without you, I love you sis.” His voice was cracking. I looked down and buried my head in his chest. And I stayed there.



I was once warned that nothing about this job will be easy. That I would see things that I didn’t want to see and that others could never handle. I, along with my coworkers have been forced to look at death in a different way than the average person. But everyone in this field is going to have that one night that changes their career. That one moment in time where they break down, and think they can no longer do this job. When their body goes numb to their surroundings and the task at hand seems to blur. Tonight was that night for me.