Deep inside every EMS professional is a storage bank. A file of faces, sounds, scene’s, and stories. A nightmare bank, you might call it. Imagery is my life. Before I wanted to be a medic, or a doctor, or a tank driver I wanted to be a photographer(I opted out because I wanted to make money! What was I thinking!!). I remember things by color, shape, texture and style.
I remember people by faces. Soft, pale, wrinkled, weathered, gray, bloated. Faces are my connection to the past.
Week two of my internship. I’m very unsure of who I am. Of what I’m doing. I feel like every call I am doing something wrong. Everyone keeps dying. I know, I know. People die. Everyone dies. But up until this point I had never had someone die in my hands. I’m not sure I’m capable of doing this. I’ve just run back to back arrests and we’re en route to… my first ped’s code.
I am trying to stay calm. I’m looking down at little hands. At tiny feet. I’m looking down but trying not to look. I’m trying to not look his face. 18 months old. EIGHTEEN FUCKING MONTHS OLD. I look up.
I can’t figure out what is worse. Feeling such a tiny person squeeze in my hands, hearing the sound of BVM ventilations into tiny lungs, or looking up and seeing the man responsible for it all. We knew from the minute we walked in that this didn’t just happen. This baby boy didn’t just die. Healthy baby boy’s don’t just die. He was shaken. Violently. The back of his head had been pulverized like crab legs in a Pacific Northwest diner.
I walked to the truck. My gear half gone, my heart missing, my soul crying. I sat there. Just waiting. My preceptor says to me… “sometimes it isn’t about them. Sometimes it is about us.” But this isn’t about me. This is about a little boy who will never see another birthday. Who didn’t get to see the fireworks, or the Christmas trees, or the fucking Easter Bunny. This is about a man so sick that he took the life of his own son.
The nightmares come. The nightmares go. I remember very little about my patients. But a few of them have found a way deep into my soul. They keep me going. They make me work harder, think harder, try harder. The nightmare bank eats at you as time goes on. The only thing you can do is fight to push the nightmares out, and good days in.
Now I sit here. I look at my boy. How sweet, how pure, how innocent. I have a hard time not putting the face of a little boy I met a little over a year ago. I didn’t know that boy’s name–and that saddens me. All he is to me is a face. I’ve found my peace, but he is still there. Do they ever go away?
Also on MedicThree …
- Stand By for Tones – June 27, 2009
- When God Made Paramedics – June 4, 2009
- Being an EMS Dad – January 12, 2010
- Memorial Day – June 3, 2010
It's hard, isn't it? I'd like to tell you that it gets easier, but I'd be lying. The best thing you can do for yourself is talk it out with someone – anyone.
Just remember that you are never alone. The rest of us are out here and we're with you.
Hi M3,
Im afraid that with a job like this one, they never really go away (completely).
You will move on and 'forget' about the little one, for some time, maybe even months or years, but out of the blue, even if you havent thought of the job for years, something will remind you of it.
The only positive is that it will get less and less harsh!
Personally I dont like to forget, I like to have things dealt with and filed away, but in an absurd way, I feel its sort of a duty of mine to remember, especially in cases like yours.
I used to be a theatre (O.R nurse) nurse, working in cardiothoracics. I was part of the donor retrieval team and when we went to harvest a heart and lungs, I always went to the head of the table before we started and lifted the blue sheets so I could look at the patients face. Everyone thought I was really weird, but I felt that there should be some recognition of the gift they were giving.
I have said in the past on my log that I am not a religious man (as far as God, heaven and Hell), but I do believe in a spirit world/life. If the deceased are around us and looking on us, I want them to know that whatever has happened to them, they have moved me, they have had an impact on another humans life, and I will remember them.
That was a bit of a long winded comment, and you'll probably be thinking I am a right nut case, but thats how I deal with it.
Thanks guys. 999, that is how I feel too. Sometimes the faces just won't file away.
I have to admit I never focus on the eyes. Maybe it is less real that way, i don't know. I only focus from the nose down, all I need to intubate. I look at the eyes purely for reactivity, and never give them a second look. It's how I keep my sanity.