Grady Medic (eBook)

Tony Trimble (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2023 | 1. Auflage
400 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
979-8-9891735-1-8 (ISBN)

Infos

You are about to vicariously live a paramedic's life where there is little connective tissue between the chapters, and this was done intentionally. As a paramedic, you never know what the next call into your ambulance will bring into your professional life. I wanted you to have that self-same experience in your comfy chair. The tales may be funny, tragic, or make you scratch your head as you say, 'What the hell?', or leave you with a sense of relief and wonder. That is the world that my Grady Medics and I have lived throughout our careers. You may be taken to training or see things as a field supervisor sees it happen while working with his employees. The timeline of this story begins normally with how a country boy from the rural area of Jackson, Georgia got into this outlandish field as one of the pioneers of EMS and found himself working at Grady EMS. After that happens, strap in for a rollercoaster ride through history. Yes, the stories and tales told are all true to the life of a medic; some are mine and other calls belong to my friends from that era. Let me begin by saying that I had a job that I truly loved. Hell, I probably would have done it for free because it was that much fun. I spent 27 years as a paramedic working for Grady Memorial Hospital's Emergency Medical Service (1980 to 2007). Grady EMS, at that time, ran 200 to 300 calls in a 24 hour period. These stories are about the calls run by our paramedics and EMT's. These men and women who wear the title of 'Grady Medic' are my heroes. They provided emergency medical care in the worst possible situations within the inner city of Atlanta, Georgia without seeking praise or glory for their performance. I plan to introduce you to people who are actual 'unsung heroes' because their stories need to be heard.

---

Have you ever looked at a passing ambulance's flashing lights and screaming siren and thought, "e;What are they doing?"e; or "e;What's going on in there?"e; You are about to vicariously live a paramedic's life where there is little connective tissue between the chapters, and this was done intentionally. As a paramedic, you never know what the next call into your ambulance will bring into your professional life. I wanted you to have that self-same experience in your comfy chair. The tales may be funny, tragic, or make you scratch your head as you say, "e;What the hell?', or leave you with a sense of relief and wonder. That is the world that my Grady Medics and I have lived throughout our careers. You may be taken to training or see things as a field supervisor sees it happen while working with his employees. The timeline of this story begins normally with how a country boy from the rural area of Jackson, Georgia got into this outlandish field as one of the pioneers of EMS and found himself working at Grady EMS. After that happens, strap in for a rollercoaster ride through history. Yes, the stories and tales told are all true to the life of a medic; some are mine and other calls belong to my friends from that era. Let me begin by saying that I had a job that I truly loved. Hell, I probably would have done it for free because it was that much fun. I spent 27 years as a paramedic working for Grady Memorial Hospital's Emergency Medical Service (1980 to 2007). Grady EMS, at that time, ran 200 to 300 calls in a 24 hour period. These stories are about the calls run by our paramedics and EMT's. These men and women who wear the title of 'Grady Medic' are my heroes. They provided emergency medical care in the worst possible situations within the inner city of Atlanta, Georgia without seeking praise or glory for their performance. I plan to introduce you to people who are actual 'unsung heroes' because their stories need to be heard. I am humbled in their presence because these men and women are the best at what they do: saving lives.You watched the news; we lived it. To quote one of my medics, Bill Marbury, "e;When you see people running away from a situation, we're the crazy ones running in."e; Before you begin to read this novel, please understand that paramedics are unique in their approach to daily life. If you're easily offended or have delicate sensitivities, please close the book now. Our reality, and that of the people we served, is a brutal existence in the high poverty areas of Atlanta. We were the voice of our patients and acted as gateway into the medical care system for Grady Memorial Hospital's emergency rooms for some of the poorest areas of Atlanta. Our Grady Medics hold themselves to the highest standards of delivering compassionate, high quality emergency medical care. It is, was, and will always be our core belief. If you have the nerve; strap in and let's go to work.

Textauszug

 

Chapter 16

Somewhere in Atlanta

I often tell people that I was shocked to discover that I was actually paid to do this job because I would have kept coming back to work for free. It was that amazing.

Waiting on the back bumper of an ambulance is a favored past time of many paramedics. It allows you to enjoy the weather, scenery, and conversation. Granted, the situation does not include sitting on the steel back bumper of an ambulance in the middle of a concrete interstate highway under the Georgia sun during the dog days of August. However, some emergent situations require you to exercise patience while you wait for the proper authorities to take control of the scene and allow for your departure. As such, my partner and I found ourselves cooking slowly under the summer sun.

The wail of a distant siren was a welcome sound to us. In our minds, we believed that we could happily turn over the scene with a concise report to law enforcement and be on our merry little way. I suppose I should have remembered that everyone, at some point in their public safety career, is a newbie. The Georgia State Patrol has their newbies, just like EMS. However, the problem with a newbie (no matter what field) is that they tend to believe that they know more about handling a situation than anyone else at the scene.

The brand new spit-polished state trooper stormed out of his patrol car and immediately began shouting at us. From his perspective, he saw a motorcycle shattered to pieces, a badly damaged car, a motorcycle rider lying with his torso halfway under the car, and two lazy-ass paramedics sitting on the bumper of their ambulance with a motorcycle helmet resting between them. Yes, I can see where this might have been a touch irritating to an arriving law enforcement official.

Rather than ask the simple “what happened,” the new trooper launched into an ear-shattering lecture on extricating and resuscitating the fallen motorcycle rider. It was rather readily apparent that he believed paramedics perform only if given simple instructions in a decibel range guaranteed to be heard several states away. I will give him credit for paying attention in the police academy class on first aid, as his knowledge of the treatment protocol was pretty much accurate for the situation.

The lecture on our “duties” came to a screeching stop when my partner raised the closed face shield of the motorcycle helmet to reveal the decapitated head within. With a sigh, my partner quietly inquired of the trooper, “Have you got any superglue?”

In EMS, no single person works in isolation. There are always two people: a driver and a technician. You occupy one position and the other person in the truck is your partner. However, a partner is far removed from just an assignment to the ambulance if it happens on more than a one- or two-day team assignment.

This begs the underlying question: What is a partner? In truth, “partner” is a difficult word to truly define because it can and does carry physical, emotional, and spiritual aspects that vary from medic to medic. If you ask any medic at almost all levels of pre-hospital care, they can say either the person working as their partner is a good, bad, amazing, difficult, or shithead medic without knowing exactly why that is. So … Let’s examine what they are talking about with respect to the other medic.

Here’s the first truth. You are spending anywhere from eight to twelve to twenty-four hours with this person on a frequent basis. That is a lot more time than most people spend with a spouse or significant other. The mesh of the personalities carries quite a bit of weight with respect to the teamwork required to run an ambulance call. The funny part of this mix is that you have one type of person in mind, only to find that someone who is your total opposite fits perfectly with your skills and actions as a medic. Truly, you just don’t know how you will mesh until they are with you for several shifts.

I had been assigned a flaming queen with AIDS that EMS management wanted to get rid of during my military tenure. In truth, they thought that my blunt style would prompt him to seek greener pastures elsewhere in the hospital. Jimmy Miller was as flamboyant a gay male as anyone could ever possibly imagine. Jimmy’s life outside of work and effeminate presentation alienated quite a few people on the job before I returned to work from a military assignment.

I was given a brief overview of the situation and told that Jimmy would be my partner until he left Grady. Supervision wanted him gone and decided that I was the perfect tool to reach this goal. The problem with their idea is that I am not and will never be anybody’s hatchet man doing their dirty work.

I got in the truck and we departed for our assigned station. Jimmy was about as unique a human as one might ever find walking Earth; think of Nathan Lane in the movie The Birdcage. The stereotype of a queen was modeled after Jimmy with the alto voice, hand gestures, and body movement. I would not have been surprised to see him coming to work in high heels and a tiara. He had not made many, if any, friends at Grady EMS before my arrival.

As was my norm, I was sitting in the tech seat while reading a novel as we drove north on Piedmont Avenue in heavy traffic. Jimmy was blathering on endlessly about his experience thus far at Grady and had no illusions as to the “why” of his assignment to me. I finally had enough of the noise emanating from his side of the truck.

I looked across at him and growled, “Look, Miller, I don’t give a shit about any of that and won’t ever give a shit. I ain’t gonna kiss you or fuck you either. If you can pick up your side of the stretcher and do the fucking job, we’ll get along just fine.”

The ambulance veered across three lanes of traffic to stop along the sidewalk. He was shocked, “What?”

I repeated myself and added, “We have a job to do; that’s all. All I give a damn about is if you can do the job.”

Jimmy Miller drove the rest of the way to our assigned station in stunned silence. As it turns out, Jimmy was one of my best partners in my twenty-seven years at Grady. We worked together as a team for almost a year. Our assignment was truly The Odd Couple come to life. He remained a flaming queen, and me … well, what you see is what you get. He became a beloved friend of mine and remained so until his death from AIDS a year and a half after we started together. He’d gone blind from the disease and had returned to his family home in New York.

Jimmy had a kind soul that always had him looking for the best in people while shedding all of the negative remarks made by co-workers like water off a duck’s back. Jimmy and I had a hand-in-glove operation when it came to the delivery of patient care and enjoyed our conversations together between calls. He loved to embarrass me by telling patients and their family that I was “his sweetie” while flittering around the room.

One of the hardest days that I have ever experienced occurred when I was called to the back office where Ray Hawkins notified me of Jimmy’s death. The woman in his office was Jimmy’s mother. She had traveled from New York to bring me a final message from my partner. She said, “Jimmy made me promise to come meet you and tell you this. You were the only person who ever treated him like a man, and he loved you for it.”

I cried like a baby without any shame in Ray’s closed office for the internal pain I felt with his loss. Ray was silent and I think a bit horrified to see me crying. I finally dried my eyes, gave Jimmy’s mother a hug, and turned to glare at my EMS Director. I snarled, “If you ever utter a word about what you have just seen me do, I will hunt you down and gut you with a rusty spoon.”

Ray looked over his pipe with a grin and said, “There’s my boy. I was worried for a minute. Now … Get back to work.”

I had so many partners over the years, some amazing and some were frigging horrible, that I find myself struggling to define the ineffable quality that makes two people click into a solid team. In truth, it’s something in the mesh of the personalities that creates a bond so tight that it defies words. It works, and you know it works. It is the “how and why” that eludes us. Teamwork at this level requires an implicit trust. You just know that the person with you shares the focus and drive needed to make a good team.

Preconceived notions and bias by either person can rip apart the potential before the team has a chance to coalesce. The best advice is simply to be open and receptive without judgment when the assignment is made. You do your job while seeing how it goes for several shifts before deciding for yourself.

Sometimes it is the oddballs with a bad reputation that make the best partners. I was given “Slow Joe” Thomas as a partner. Joe had a reputation for doing things in his own way while not caring what anyone thought about him. He seldom drove on the interstate; choosing to stick to secondary streets while driving at a speed well below the speed limit on emergency calls. Joe did exactly what his job required of him, nothing more. Joe Thomas was as predictable as the sunrise. He would always be found sitting in the driver’s seat of the ambulance, smoking his pipe, while he waited on his assigned partner to complete some tasks.

I was initially frustrated at the thought of hours spent in his company. I’m quiet most of the time; Joe is more like an ambulatory rock. We’d worked together for a month or more when I finally asked, “Why don’t you ever use the interstate to get to a call?”

Joe puffed...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 10.11.2023
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Biografien / Erfahrungsberichte
• ISBN-13: 979-8-9891735-1-8 / 9798989173518