I don’t know about this author but I cannot
paragraph my submissions or they pick which
paragraph goes after which , I mean the machinery
does it, not a person, so no one can make a lick
of sense out of mine.I have to leave paragraphing out.
Non-fiction / Typical
Aug 23, 2005
Its been a busy night. We’ve only been on shift for 5 hours and we’ve already had a DOA and a 5 person multiple-casualty incident (MCI) in South Central. The day started slow. My partner and I stood around the station and did nothing, totally useless for almost an hour until another crew came off-shift and gave us their rig. Well really, they brought us our rig. Her name is Antigone, not so much after the famous Greek play, but after one of me and my partner’s favorite band, Antigone Rising. So after we get our rig, we head to Sepulveda and Avalon, where the gas station is, and we get a call for an “unconscious” in 127’s district. The call is right down the street from us so we are first on. Ryan grabs the jump bag, clip board and throws a backboard on top of the gurney that I’m pulling out of the back. Outside there are people crying, hugging each other. I think to myself, “Full arrest.” We walk inside and a LA County Sheriff meets us in the living room.
“go on and do your thing guys, but she’s gone.” Ryan nods and heads into the back of the house. The smell hits me, a combination of rotting food, urine and dead body. Dead bodies, freshly dead bodies anyways, have a certain smell that is as instantly recognizable as that of decomposing bodies. Neither is very pleasant and neither is easy to get rid of. Ryan and I walk into a dark, dank room, littered with trash and a layer of some unknown liquid on the floor. Ryan starts tossing trash out of the way and clearing a path to the body. I try and get some light into the room. When we can finally get to the lady we see she is wedged into the corner of the wall and the floor, under the door of the oven, beneath the open freezer door. All of the food in the freezer has melted already so we know she’s been gone a while. Ryan grabs one arm and I grab the other and we half carry, half drag her into the center of the floor. Her body is stiff and unyielding. Ryan rolls her face towards the ceiling and a torrent of saliva and vomit comes pouring out her nose and mouth. I hear Ryan gag and he runs outside. I go to the living room and the paramedics are walking in.
“breathe through your noses, gentlemen, she don’t smell too good.” I say as they walk into the room and perform their mandatory assessment. They call her onscene and Ryan and I pack our stuff and go outside. The sunlight is blinding and the air is so fresh. I joke with the medics as we load our gear into the rig, quietly, mindful of the family sobbing on the porch. I’m hungry now, so we grab a bite to eat and make our way into Lawndale. A shooting victim goes out on the fire radio and we hear 4341, the dedicated Inglewood car get it.
“Be safe, guys” I think to myself. “hope it’s fun” we get moved up to cover Inglewood and Ryan starts talking about the possibility that we’ll get a second unit call as he listens to the traffic on the fire radio.
“4322. Second in guys” I hear dispatch say. Ryan and I high-five as I hit my lights and get my siren wailing. We haul to get there and the red-light god is smiling down on us because we hit every green all the way down century blvd and we are there in record time. There are 2 engines, an ambulance and at least 10 patrol cars blocking the westbound side of Imperial Hwy. More cops are trying to get the crowd out of the crime scene and the cars off the street. I see 4341 still working their patient. He’s face-up in he alley. I cant see where he’s hit nor how much blood there is but I can see that they are assisting ventilations and starting IV’s. I see a flash of light. A medic is trying for my attention. I look over and he calls that the second patient is in the stairwell. Ryan and I grab all our equipment and work through the crowd. Ryan takes the spine board inside while I lower the gurney and release the straps. Then I see him. He’s probably 10 years old, a cute kid, the kind that smiles and gets away with murder because his momma loves him so much. He’s sitting just to the left of the stairwell door, his knees curled up to his chest, rocking silently as tears run rivers down his cheeks. I wonder where his parents are, why the deputies have left him here alone. I start in his direction but Ryan hollers for me and my patient is my first priority. I make a mental note to get him help. I start up the stairs and I see feet hanging off the top step. Big feet, but big little boy feet. I get up to a position that I can help from and we roll the patient onto the spine board. It’s a kid, maybe 14 or 15. He’s calm, quiet, wincing a little as we strap him in. “hello there” I say with a smile. He gives me a weak grin and a ten pound weight has been lifted from my chest. i hate it when little kids die but those kids, trying their damndest to be sdults in this crazy world. those are the ones that really get me. I find out later he was shot in the back as he ran up the stairs from the gunman. We carry him down the steps and I feel, not for the first time, insanely grateful that Im not a small person, that i have th estability and strength to do a job like this. My heart stops for a second when his father asks if he’s okay. “it aint no big thang. I’m cool” he replies. I look around but the crying child is gone. I hope he is safe in someone’s arms. We load up as 4341 is loading theirs. We find out someone has discovered a third patient and a third rig is on the way. 4341 is going to Harbor UCLA’s trauma bay. So are we. I follow them and we fly down the streets, hop on the freeway and bully everyone out of our way with the secondary lights. As I pull into the parking lot I find that it is full. All 20 spaces are occupied by one sort of emergency vehicle or another and rigs are starting to double parking themselves. I follow suit. We let 4341 go in ahead of us, as their patient has completely crashed and they are now doing rolling CPR. We go into the ER and the first thing I notice is the blood. There are trails of blood everywhere, leading to and from the parking lot, across the ER, going to and from the CT scanner. There is blood everywhere. The poor maintained crews are standing around, unable to clean anything up because of the sheer number of trauma patient in the ER. I have never seen so many trauma patient in one place. All three trauma bays are full, one is in CT Scan and 4 medical beds have been ghetto rigged into trauma beds. Our kid is gonna be just fine. He got lucky, real lucky. 4341’s guy gets called almost at the door and a deputy is assigned to his body since his death is a homicide. We learn later that there was a 7 victim shooting in another city in Harbor’s jurisdiction at the same time as our 7 victim shooting. Because Harbor is the only trauma facility in the area, since Killer King Drew was closed, they got swamped with every patient. Ryan and I wait until the third crew from our shooting pulls in. theirs is a gunshot to the head. The kid, maybe 20, 22, will die later from it. He is slowly dying as they wheel him in, the intracranial pressure and injuries to his brain making him combative and wild. He is fighting a good fight for his life but he will lose eventually. They almost always do. The rest of the night is slow. Ryan cleans and I play my guitar. I’ve learned a scale. I’m proud of myself. You have to cherish the little things in life, especially when you are reminded constantly how short this whole gig is, and how unexpected to curtain call can be.
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Chow reviewed Version 1 -
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My first review: wow, you certainly get across the details of your job and the gritty reality of it. Two comments. Firstly, and please don’t take this the wrong way, I’m talking about the text, in parts you come across as, not sure how to say this, not callous and uncaring, but a bit too much the cool guy who sees blood and horror every night. Then we see more of your feelings, but because it’s about the kids it doesn’t have the same impact. Hard guy, but still feels moved by a dead kid. A lot of my friends work in the hospital and ER, so I know you have to protect yourself so as not to crack up, but maybe in writing you could let go a bit more.
Second, I don’t know if your text is part of a book or intended for publication, but I’d have liked you to take more time on each case, a bit more description. We were kind of rushed from one bloody scene to the next.
Hope this helps. Enjoyed reading your text, so far from my daily life and yet you made it real. Simon
PS Just saw your age, funny from the text I imagined you were older. You sound as if you’ve been doing the job for quite a long time
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JackWolf187 reviewed Version 1 -
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This was an entertaining slice of a pretty exciting life. Your description is rich, and I felt as though I was there with you and the gross things you encountered. I wonder, though, at your intentions for writing. It might be nice to have this piece of non-fiction carry more of a message to it. All I feel is that death is “unexpected,” so it’s important to pay attention to the small details. Perhaps giving your non-fiction more meaning might even make it more meaningful to you. Keep up the good work—the writing and the “cleaning.”
RyanFleming reviewed Version 1 -
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Very interesting day. If the wording can be tightened up a bit, this would make an intersting professional read.
Dencruiser reviewed Version 1 -
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What I like best about this piece is that you didn’t over write it. Too many new writers want to overpower the work with the overuse of adjectives and suspect gerunds. You let the story speak for itself. I felt like I was there on call with you.
There is totally no excuse for some of your bad proofing. And it is bad proofing because you do know your grammar and punctuation. You are much to good of a writer to be sloppy like that.
“Ryan cleans and I play my guitar.” Great ending. I gave this a 9.
Loekie reviewed Version 1 -
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I wish there were more pieces like this out there. All too often, we take people like yourself for granted and don’t get a glimpse of what you go through except through the excesses of Hollywood.
The only thing I feel hurts your piece is the formatting. It is hard to read. You just need to break up some of the parts into paragraphs and it will flow better.
Otherwise, I felt I was with you, seeing the dead woman vomit or the conditions in the ER. Good piece.
RandomHero reviewed Version 1 -
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This was a really cool story but it took me a split second to identfiy what these people where . I think that with how you mixed in the character info and Emergency technician lingo was creative. i like it It could be stretched out longer though
dellessa reviewed Version 1 -
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Very vivid.
The only thing I would reccemend would be seperating the paragraphs a bit, it would make it a bit easier to read.
the_engaged_few reviewed Version 1 -
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A moving piece that is obscured and difficult to read by the lack of paragraph breaks and several spelling, punctuation and grammar errors. But your descriptions are good and your chronological treatment is appropriate. Your ending is also nice. Going back to what is supposed to pass for sanity is an adequate contrast to what appears to be your regular work day.
michaelpowers reviewed Version 1 -
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This was interesting. Nice little peak into the ER and thankfully you didn’t write about George Clooney. I think that you should rework the ending a little bit. It doesn’t seem to end organically. It seems like you forced the ending.
Mr_Pebbles reviewed Version 1 -
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This was an original piece. Well written. Interesting. I think that you might want to go easy on the technical jargon in your first paragraph. It makes the piece hard to get into.
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