Tales from an Ambulance: Episode 1 - D.O.A.

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It was my second call after finishing training. I had been on for 11 hours without a single patient all through the night. The rising sun had woken me up about an hour prior, and I was just snoozing in the bunk when the pager went off.

A call. My second one ever. Let’s go to work.

The radio crackled to life and the dispatcher’s voice came across.

“Washington ambulance, 54 year old female, unknown medical, 440 Holly Street, apartment 17”

Unknown medical? Could you please be more vague?

Speculating about what kind of horrific scene I was going to walk into, I threw on my duty shirt and jumped into my boots. Walking briskly down the hallway, I made it to the garage bay well in advance of my partner that morning, who was responding from home. I climbed into the driver’s seat, hit the garage door opener, turned the key to the ignition, and picked up the mic.

I have always been confident on the radio. I have the Army to thank for that. I keyed the mic, paused for a split second, forced all my anxiety over the call out of my voice and calmly said “Dispatch, Ambulance 481 staged”

“Roger Ambulance 481, staged” immediately echoed the confirmation from the speaker behind my shoulder.

I hopped out and walked around to the passenger seat. I was “teching” this shift, which meant I was the primary patient caregiver while my partner was responsible for driving and helping me out. I had this role for two reasons: first, I wasn’t signed off on my driver training yet and second, my driver wasn’t signed off to tech. He had an even lower level of medical certification known as an EMR, so he legally wouldn’t be able to help me with much at all besides CPR if it came to that. This would be my show.

A minute later my partner’s car rocketed down the driveway and into the parking space by the garage door. He jumped in the ambulance and we took off.

“Morning,” I said, trying to sound as bored and un-terrified as possible. “Know where you’re headed?”

“Yeah,” he replied. “Apartment complex on the corner past the water tower.”

He keyed the mic as we sped off. “Ambulance 481 responding,” he mumbled, managing to sound even more bored than I had.

The ride was short. It was still early, so we kept the siren off most of the way but since we didn’t know the severity of what we were responding to, he put on the lights and applied a liberal amount of speed. A few cars got out of our way and we were making great time. At a four way stop he flicked the switch for the siren. The wail pierced the early morning silence. I couldn’t help but let a small grin tug the corner of my mouth up.

This is so cool.

As we closed in on the apartment complex, the dispatcher called over the radio with more information. Apparently the reason for the lack of details was because a friend had dialed 911 after being unable to contact our patient by phone all morning. She was worried something was wrong, and so they sent us to find out.

Finding the apartment number involved a little trial and error as we realized the complex was split in two and we were on the wrong side of the road. We finally pulled up to her place and parked right in the middle of the parking lot. Looking around, I saw we were the first unit on scene, which was somewhat unusual. Typically someone from the fire department or one of the first responder EMTs would beat us to the call.

Here we go. Just be ready for anything. You can always call for more help if this is a disaster.

I grabbed my gear and stepped out of the truck. A neighbor was out walking around and I looked over to him.

“You all here for John?” he called. “Apartment 22?”

“No, we’re headed to apartment 17,” I said, pondering for a moment the tragedy of being the guy that everyone assumes the ambulance shows up for.

“Oh, Janet? Yeah her place is right there,” he gestured to a door.

My parter and I walked up purposefully to the front door. The lights were off inside. I knocked on the door assertively. No answer. I knocked again, harder that time. Still nothing.

“See if it’s open” my partner said.

I gave the handle a turn and it moved. I felt the latch sliding out of the doorjamb.

This is it. Brace yourself

I pushed forward but the door didn’t budge. It was stuck on the deadbolt, which was apparently locked.

Well, that was a freebie.

“What now?” I said to my partner, who just had a blank look on his face. He was probably still half-asleep too. Just then, I noticed a third person walking over and a wave of relief washed over me as I saw the uniform: local police.

“Door’s locked,” I called to him as he joined us. “Glad you’re here. What do you want to do?” I said, thinking about the pry bar we keep in one of the compartments on our rig.

But the cop’s battering ram would be so much cooler.

“It’s a bottom-floor apartment, it’ll have a door around back. Let’s have a look,” the officer said.

The three of us headed through the grass and around back. As we rounded the corner, we saw a car sitting in the back yard area.

She killed herself by carbon monoxide poisoning! my mind started.

When the cop and my parter walked right by the car without a second look, I sheepishly realized the idiocy of my theory.

You have to be in a garage to do that, moron… But she probably is dead.

We reached the back porch and the officer took a look inside.

“Yep, there she is,” he said with a hint of curiosity in his voice.

Oh gosh, I hope it’s not a mess. Women don’t shoot themselves. I hope it was just pills.

He knocked on the door.

How is she gonna answer the door?

A woman appeared in the doorway and opened the door. She had a puzzled, sleepy look on her face.

“Ma’am, someone called us to come check on you. Is everything OK?” the officer inquired.

“Y-yes, everything is fine. Who called?” the woman replied, placing an upward emphasis on the word “who”.

“Dispatch said it was a friend of yours. May we come in?”

The woman let us inside. I asked her a few questions. We confirmed that nothing at all was wrong. She checked her cell phone and sure enough, 12 missed calls. We left the way we came in.

Well that’s a relief. Glad she’s OK.

I reflected on the call as my partner drove us back to the station.

“You know,” I said to my partner. “When we were heading around back, I thought we were about to find a dead body. That would have been my first DOA.”

“Yeah it would have been my first one too. Glad it was all a misunderstanding.”

As I reflected on the lessons to be learned from this call, the list filled quickly: Put on pair of gloves next time. Bring the laptop with you. Get vital signs.

But most importantly of all: Don’t Over Analyze.

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