Rocked To The Core - 1. The E Now Stands for Ewwww

Monday

Today's shift started like any other Monday. Just hanging out at the rescue squad building with the other five folks on the schedule for the day, and anticipation that something strange will happen because it almost always does on a Monday. Danny Parsons, Dennis Josephs and I were primary for the first call that may or may not come in. We're affectionately known as the 'D' team. Not because our first initials all start with D, or that we're dicks, but because we all got a D grade in history at least once. I was the champion in that regard, having gotten one 'F' as well. Not to mention my bout with history was more recent. Danny's 22 and Dennis is 25. At 19 1/2, I'm the baby of the bunch. Barry Smythe, Barrett actually, Aaron White, and Carol Tomlinson were the secondary team today. Damn, did I wish that was reversed.

The first call came in at 8:05.

"They're starting early today," Dennis said.

I replied "Ooof. And it's a PD referral."

Those were never good, coming through the police department. In this case it was a domestic disturbance call. Strike two.

"And there's strike three," said Danny, "a bleeder."

We grabbed our gear and headed to the ambulance. It actually ended up getting a fourth strike when we heard the address.

"Oh, shit. There's never anything but trouble at the Wilson Estates." I added.

The Wilson Estates were so badly named it was a running joke. They were one of the worst low-rent housing projects in our half of the county. We always took bets as to whether the injury was inflicted by a bullet or a knife, or simply fists. Fists was usually the longshot. Bullets were the favorites on weekends at TWE. Since it was a Monday, we all had our money on a knife wound. We were mostly right, but it wasn't like any knife wound any of us had ever dealt with before. Not to mention, not just a knife wound. However, guns and fists were not involved.

We roll up to the building and are told by the policeman securing the scene it's apartment 1D. Prophetic to some extent. We walk into the apartment and there's a man lying on the floor, pantsless, bloody hands holding his crotch, more blood on the floor beneath him, and the worst part, his genitals lying in the middle of a puddle of blood next to a bloody carving knife. One 'D' had been removed from his body in apartment 1D. Danny and Dennis start attending to the patient. They were the other two people that knew I was gay. They saw the detached member before I did, so they thought it would be funny to let the gay guy deal with the dick. Of course, nobody laughed about it at the time. That came later, after the patient was delivered to the hospital. It took just about every ounce of control I had to not contaminate the scene with a load of vomit. I actually had to swallow a tiny bit. This was the most disturbing scene I'd ever run across. And then it got worse.

I gloved up to place the man's penis into a plastic bag. When I picked it up, it wasn't whole. Part of the scrotum and one testicle were detached. And that portion wasn't a clean cut. I had to look up at the suspect at this point. Yep, his mouth was bloody too. There was no keeping breakfast down at this point. I dropped the body parts and ran to the front door. Fortunately, I made it completely outside the building before I no longer maintained possession of the bagel, ham, egg, and cheese I'd eaten about an hour and a half before. After taking an additional minute to steady my nerves, I returned to the apartment. The patient was now on the gurney, but the dismembered body parts were still on the floor. I steeled myself to the task and picked up the pieces, put them into the plastic bag, sealed it and put the bag into the cooler that we keep in the ambulance. I got behind the wheel and started the trip to the hospital. There was no way I would be able to look at our patient without continuing the process of losing whatever may have been left of my breakfast.

After delivering the patient, we returned to the ambulance, where I promptly became the butt of my partners' jokes.

"Oh, God, Derek. You'd think you never saw a dick before."

Thanks Danny.

"Yeah, especially one that had been in someone's mouth."

Fuck you too, Dennis.

"Go ahead, laugh. You guys were pretty green two weeks ago when that pregnant woman miscarried all over the back of the bus. At least I didn't have to clean up all the blood today."

They both turned green again with the memory.

"Fuck. I'd almost forgotten that. Thanks ever so much for the reminder, Derek."

"My pleasure, Danny. Remind me again in another two weeks that I have something I want to tell you."

We were quiet almost all the way back to the squad building.

"Shit, who's going to tell the others about this one? You guys know we always share the details of our calls." Dennis asked. Of course, Danny had to keep the jokes going.

"I say we let Derek handle it. He already handled it once."

It's a good thing I was driving. If it was one of those two, they would have wrecked us laughing so hard. I did have to admit to myself though, that was a pretty good line. And yes, I did handle the sharing of the details. I had to. My partners couldn't keep from laughing as I told the story.

The rest of the day was reasonably tame. Both teams took two calls, but fortunately nothing close to the first of the morning occurred. A heart attack, a broken arm from a boy who crashed his bike, and a bout of apparent food poisoning rounded out the day. The seven-to-seven shift ended, our replacements arrived, and we went our separate ways. Most days I headed home first before I called Jeremy, my boyfriend, to see if he wanted to get together. Today I called him as soon as I got into my car and told him I was coming over. Between the morning incident and dealing with a 9-year-old boy with a compound fracture, I needed his company. Jeremy knew that every so often I had a bad enough day that I needed to vent immediately. If today didn't qualify, nothing ever would. Or so I thought.

"Hey Derek. Bad day, huh?" Jeremy asked as he opened the door to his apartment. That was another reason I headed there. I still lived with my parents. There was no way I was going to talk about what happened with them. He was only a year older than me but had a good job as an electrician's assistant and could afford to have his own place.

"The worst yet. The easy call was a nine-year-old boy with a compound fracture to his left arm."

"Ouch. Bone through the skin?"

"Yeah, and not just a little bit. And what a set of lungs on the kid."

"Sorry, man. What was the worse call?"

I explained to him what had started the day off. He understood a little better than Danny and Dennis what really bothered me about the whole situation. As I indicated before, the suspect was another man. So, it was a gay couple where one of them bit the other's scrotum. Danny and Dennis also couldn't tell that the bite came first, then the slicing. I had held off eating dinner at the squad knowing it would have been a mistake explaining to Jeremy what happened with a full stomach. As it was, I had to stifle a couple wretches during the telling.

But the absolute worst was still to come. I almost never had a terrible call two days in a row. Somehow, Tuesday ended up being worse.

Tuesday

Three on and three off. Today's the second day of this cycle. After yesterday, I was wishing for that off cycle was already here. Wishes don't often come true. And even when they do, they're never really exactly what you wished for. I get to the squad at just before 7 AM, on time. Sometimes there are stragglers. Today's one of those days. Danny and Dennis tend to show up about 15 minutes late if we're not first up. It's not like we punch a clock, and we get alerts on our cell phones when we get a call, so even if we're not here, we can still make the call. I don't like going to a call in my own car, so I'm (almost) always on time. Shit happens to prevent it once in a while, but I've never been so late that I missed a call. Barry, Aaron, and Carol are all here within a couple minutes of seven. It's a good thing, because I didn't sleep well last night, and if one of them wasn't here, I'd be hopping in the ambulance for the first call of the day. We back each other up in more ways than one. Usually only if someone's missing for some reason. If a tech knows they'll be out, sick, or for whatever reason, someone from another crew gets overtime. But if they're just not here when the call comes in, someone from that day's backup crew simply jumps in.

Anyway, today's A-Team heads out for a traffic accident, and I take advantage of the quiet and close my eyes. Never expecting to fall asleep, I get awakened almost a half hour later when Danny noisily enters the building.

"Must be nice. Getting paid to sleep."

"Must be nicer, getting paid to not even be here."

"Are we rolling? No. I'm not late if there's no call."

We bust each other's chops a lot. If we didn't, slow days would be brutal. Dennis shows up a couple minutes later. Carol's team comes back after being out for a couple hours. Only one victim, but it took time to extricate him from his vehicle. A little later, it's our turn. Stomach pains. We get back quickly because by the time we get there, the patient vomited and was feeling better. He had a nervous Nellie for a wife. We see it all. I get volunteered to pick up lunch and I'm just getting back with a sack full of burgers and fries when the next call comes in. An accident at a construction site. Multiple injuries. Both teams are dispatched.

We get there and the house that's being built is half standing. The roof collapsed and trapped three workers under the rubble. I look around because this is Jeremy's current work site. Jeremy's an electrician's assistant. I don't see him. As I'm hearing the details, I'm beginning to freak out. Jeremy and his supervisor were running wiring. One of the carpenters was replacing a wall that wasn't supposed to be load bearing. Someone fucked up and it was indeed load bearing. When the carpenter knocked out the wall, the roof fell in.

We're carefully removing lumber, constantly asking if anybody can hear us. No response could mean one of two things. One is they're all unconscious. I don't even want to consider the other. As usual, I'm working with Danny and Dennis. Enough wood has been moved and we see a leg. We clear a little more out of the way and pull the man out. Good news and bad news time. The bad news is it's not Jeremy. The good news is he's alive, but unconscious. The job foreman indicates it's the carpenter. Carol starts evaluating his injuries. We didn't want her climbing on the rubble, so she was assigned triage. Barry and Aaron continue searching in the section they're covering, finally locating another victim. They indicate it's an older gentleman. He's pulled from the wreckage. I join Carol at the triage area to start taking a look at the electrician. It's not good. He's got a crushed arm from a section of roof that landed directly on him. But worse, he's very likely got a fractured skull from that same roof section. I don't want to leave, because they haven't found Jeremy yet, but Carol and I load the first two victims into her ambulance. Dennis joins us, driving to the hospital so we can both work on our patients.

We get to the hospital, give the ER staff an overview of the patients and their injuries. After they get all the details they need, Carol and Dennis suggest we head back to the squad. I argue that we need to go back to the site. I need to know about Jeremy. We all check our cells; the other team hasn't left the site. I'm assuming that means they haven't found Jeremy yet. You know what they say about assuming. I'm frantic, so Dennis and Carol give in, and we go back to the site. I get out of the ambulance, look around, and immediately collapse to the ground.