I am an EMT, and I am a female EMT and I always care. The point of teh story is indeed in the last paragraph. It is that no matter how hard I try to remain impersonal, on calls like this, it hurts. I want the reader to feel the hurt for what you rightly call “soemone who we dont know and dont care about” and the “paramedics who we dont know and dont care about.” Thank you for the advice though and I will try to make the point more well known in teh next version.
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Short Story / John
“It’s a beautiful night.” I say, tilting my head back and taking in the star-studded sky. Ryan takes a drag off his cigarette and grunts. We are leaned up against the ambulance in a tiny patch of comunity grass. A siren wails in the distance and Ryan cocks his head toward the sound.
“P.D.” he judges, “Going up Prairie.”
I nod and the radio crackles. Opening the passenger door I hear a call for a gunshot wound dispatched. Ryan takes a last drag and says,
“Jump it.” He flicks his cigarette away and jumps in the driver’s side.
“22.” I say into the radio. “22. We can take that GSW.”
“Copy that 22, show you enroute….” The dispatcher rattles off the address as Ryan buckles up and we pull out of the parking lot. He hits the light switch and I flick the siren on.
“118th West of Normandie” I tell him as we speed down Praire Avenue. There are few cars on the road and we make good time.
When we pull up, everyone is standing around. Standing around usually means either a bullshit call or a call that’s so serious the only things that can be done are the things that the paramedics do. This truns out to be one of the latter.
I hop out, pulling on gloves and open the back doors. The lights cast eerie shadows over everything and Ryan’s face is washed with alternates of red and yellow as he unloads equiptment. We turn to the victim and we see the kid is young, maybe 20 years old, and has no gang markings, no gang colors. He is sprawled face down in the street and although we are in the nicer side of Unincorporated Athens, the Sheriffs Deputies rest their hands on thier guns while they survey the crowd that has already gathered. I see immediately that the patient has quite a few extra holes in his body. The medics have already intubated him, and started IV lines. Someone’s gloved hand is shearing off what’s left of his clothes. Ryan and I share a glance. I can read his face like a book and his thoughts are almost audible in my head.
“Hell yeah, this is gonna be good.” While we put him on the spine board, and get cpr going, I start counting holes. Extra hole number one is just below his collarbone, not bad but not good either. Number Two is just inside his left nipple, a pretty bad spot. Three is right below his diaphragm, center chest, another not so good spot. Four’s in his shoulder, no big deal. Five and six are in his back, not sure if they are exits or entrances. Plus a graze that isn’t really important.
We get him on the gurney and into the rig. I hang the IV bags from the ceiling and take over ventilations. A fireman jumps in and resumes CPR. Another fireman closes the back doors and bangs his fist on the window. Ryan hits his siren and we pull away from the scene. I can feel the tension from the firemen in the back with me and the temperature rises from so much adrenaline. I flick the A/C on and glance down my patient body. Mentally I check off what I see.
Blown pupils. Check.
Tube at 21 at the teeth. Check.
GSW. Check.
Distended Abdomen. Check.
Wait. My eyes travel back up.
“Guys.” I holler over the A/C. “Distended abdomen.” I point with my head and the medic curses. This is a sign that he is bleeding into his chest and belly. This also brings his survival chance from a maybe-with-an-angel’s-help to no-way-in-hell. He’s a goner. There is nothing we can do from here. I turn around, hands still automatically opening, closing, breathing air into the victims lungs. I look out the front window and see the hospital coming up. Ryan meets my eyes. I shake my head and turn back to my patient.
A few minutes later the siren cuts off and I turn the A/C off as well/ There is silence in the rig and I can hear the sound of the lights, a low whoomp-whoomp. Then it stops too and the back doors open. I hand off the ventilation bag, pull the IV bags down, tuck the wires in and follow the gurney out. The fireman doing CPR rides the edge of the gurney and I push with one hand and Bag with the other.
The trauma center is full of yellow-gowned people. We side up next to the trauma bed and ten people are talking at once. The ventilation bag is taken from me and all availible hands grab the victim adn pull his body across to the other bed. Ryan and I watch the yellow-gowns work on him, cutting open his chest and inserting tubes and lines. Finally, they call him and call the coroner’s office.
I pull the gurney outside and start washing it. Ryan joins in and we start discussing ballistics and angle of entry. We are arguing over which bullet had likely killed him and it hits me. Like a nine-pound hammer in the chest, it hits me. This victim, this patient, he is less human to me than the stray animals on the street. To me he’s not even a John Doe, he doesn’t have a name. He’s just another ‘gsw’.
“Don’t think about him as a person.” Ryan says softly. I meet his eyes and I see a emotion flash across them.
“What?”
“When he becomes worth thinking about, he becomes worth grieving. Imagine if you started thinking about his family? His mom? His girlfriend? What his last image was? No. It’s not worth it.” There is a solid truth in Ryan’s words but still I find myself thinking about him. tears well up in my eyes and I choke them back. No. If I think about him, I’ll fall apart. We get in teh rig and as we drive away I think,
“I’m sorry, John Doe. I’m sorry that you died this way. I’m sorry that you died alone. I’m sorry that we desecrated your body and more than any of that, I’m sorry that for my own sanity I have turned you into just another statistic. I hope that maybe we’ll meet again some day, in whatevers after this life and then, maybe, hopefully, you’ll forgive me.”
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lluuiiissaa reviewed Version 1 -
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typo: community, equipment. their…there are many little ones i just stopped there.
at first i thought this was going to be a sort of love scene, with ryan being the badass boyfriend and the girl is looking up at the stars so it surprised me when i realized they were firemen. your descriptions of the action in this story are good but what i particularly liked was when the main character realizes that this person was not a person to him at all. i often wondered that about people who save other people’s lives, how they dont get sad over everyone. the last paragraph was a little cliched but it wasnt bad
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squarehopper reviewed Version 1 -
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This was a good read. The action flowed smoothly and I was engaged right from the beginning. The dialog was real. No grammar or other errors hit me in the face as I read and that is good as I am very attuned to such things. But edit for them just in case :)
The main character is interesting and very human. My only desire would be to have more reflection by her before, during, and after crying for the dead boy. Why did he connect to her? Did he remind her of someone? Did she have a recent event happen to her to maker her sensitive to this event? I say her because she felt like a her but it could be a he. I want to see why she is feeling the onslaught of emotion. Did some young person in her life have bullying issues? Gang issues?
Maybe throw in a few clues throughout the story of her having the connection with the boy dieing.
Otherwise, a good write.
Brooklynmonk reviewed Version 1 -
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the imagery is good and the scene seems authentic. are you actually an EMT or paramedic?
The story is the problem. there is no story. you have an event, a real sounding event with a lot of detail but no story. also your characters have zero development. i dont know who they are apart from the fact that they are paarmedics who smoke.
develope the characters, give some information and background about them. also create a story., a story is base don conflict. there is no confilct here, no problem. just soemone who we dont know and dont care about died when he was being rescued by paramedics who we dont know and dont care about.
The final paragraph seems to be the point of the story.
““I’m sorry, John Doe. I’m sorry that you died this way. I’m sorry that you died alone. I’m sorry that we desecrated your body and more than any of that, I’m sorry that for my own sanity I have turned you into just another statistic. I hope that maybe we’ll meet again some day, in whatevers after this life and then, maybe, hopefully, you’ll forgive me.”
it rings completely untrue. why did this guy suddenly care? we assumne he never cared before. but we also know nothing about him so that is just a weak assumption.
the story can remain exactly as it is just develope the characters adn tell us why he never cared before or why it is so shocking that he cares now adn we need to know why he cares now.
chindubb reviewed Version 1 -
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I really enjoyed this piece. Makes you realize how tough a job being a paramedic really is. I think this would have an even huger impact if instead of REtelling the events, tell them like they are happening right before your very eyes in the hear and now. I think this will create more excitement and make the revelation at the end more impactful.
July 07, 2006
Deleted User
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A-ha! So I read your John Doe and said to craft it into a story and you had apparently already done that, so my bad.
I’m really into your descriptions of the scene. So, for starters, I think you could make it even more descriptive. Loved the way the lights were on Ryan’s face. That kind of stuff is very real and makes the story an event instead of just words on paper. You mentioned a line about cops standing with their hands on their guns, scanning the crowd. It would be neat to get a glance at who is standing around. People in pj’s? People walkig their dogs? Are these people the kind of people who expect to see a dead kid or is this a shock to them?
I feel a lot of conflict in the narrator. He’s into his job, he cares about people but at the same time it’s an emotionally draining job and sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do to get through it.
I’d almost like to see this expanded. Maybe we can go out on a couple of calls with Ryan and our narrator. Has the narrator ever saved anyone’s life or is it all like this dead kid? I think this EMT has a long, long way to stretch and I think he could be a wonderful, multidimensional character that readers could really relate to.
mannythepoolshark reviewed Version 1 -
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This was a good story over all. There are a few mispelled words and some phrases that are a bit confusing.
Comunity should be community
“and glance down my patient body” should be “and glance down at my patients body”
“grab the victim adn pull his body” adn should be and
“they call him and call the coroner’s office” this is a somewhat confusing phrase maybe “they call the time of death and then call the coroner” would sound better
“We get in teh rig” teh should be the
“We get in the rig and as we drive away I think,” this should be the beginning of the last paragraph.
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