Sometimes Miracles Happen

This weekend, so far, has been a miracle.

Nothing has happened. Not a thing. Car 65 went out on four or five runs, Car 69 went out on one. There is, granted, still 9 hours on, but for the moment and the last 15 hours, nothing has happened. Maybe we paid our dues on Thursday. Tough to think that one call with vomited blood makes up for five to seven runs but I will take it. I won't think twice.

You always want luck like that, but it is rare that you get it. Somehow the gods have you marked for doom when the long shift comes up. However, I have been dreading this since last weekend. The shift we had six weeks ago was wretched. We had one run at 2200, one at 0800 (an unsuccessful CPR call), then a string throughout the day and then another unsuccessful CPR call around 1630. It was a LONG weekend and fruitless to boot.

On the other hand, the person at 0800 had made peace with dying and it was a fast deal - no getting a shockable rhythm, no long work up, just doing what we could until they called time of death at the hospital.

If only the second call with CPR was like that. The patient was one we'd been to before; generally a mess. The patient had been sitting up, speaking and suddenly that was it. Game over. Not quite. We'd be ready to move and for a second, there'd be a workable rhythm. We'd go through the whole thing and then nothing. This happened several times. The extended family was there... so as soon as we'd get some out, more came in from other doorways. Nice house - far too many points of entrance. Maybe there is something to be said for smaller houses.

In the EMS world, you are either in a huge house (with too many family members and too many entrances into the room we're working in) or a tiny house with piles of stuff with paths that might be 12 across and I need to get the jump kit (with O2 and all kinds of supplies) and the stretcher through this to get to a 300lb person that in a month of Sundays will not fit.

The middle ground? There is none.

Heavy people are on the top floor; skinny people on the first floor. This is our world. There are almost no exceptions to the rule. We don't have too many rules: Rule number 1 - people die. Rule number 2: we can't change Rule number 1. This is simple. Every so often we buy them time on the first rule. And every so often there is a real CPR save. But most of the time, Rule number 1 is still inviolable.

We learn to live with the rules.