{"id":3808,"date":"2020-05-02T20:41:52","date_gmt":"2020-05-02T19:41:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.szinapszis.org\/?p=3808"},"modified":"2020-05-02T20:41:52","modified_gmt":"2020-05-02T19:41:52","slug":"a-tough-shift-on-the-ambulance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/semmelweis.hu\/hok\/en\/2020\/05\/02\/a-tough-shift-on-the-ambulance\/","title":{"rendered":"A tough shift on the ambulance"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was a very hot day. It was already 23 degrees when your shift started at 6:30 am. You were planning on grabbing a cup of coffee before your first call but plans scarcely ever work at this job \u3161 you didn\u2019t even make it to the kitchen before the station phone rang.<\/span>
\nYou have your first patient.<\/span>
\n26-year-old girl. Took a bunch of pills with the intent to kill herself.<\/span>
\nYou get a lot of suicidal patients. It\u2019s one of the worst parts of the job. Saving someone from themselves- often against their own will-, it\u2019s hard. It\u2019s really hard. And it\u2019s especially hard when you had already seen someone close to you in that exact situation.<\/span>
\nShe was gonna be fine, thank god. Physically. She said she was having some problems with her boyfriend. Your partner whispered: \u2019Over a relationship? Really?\u2019. But she never said what was wrong with the relationship. It could have been \u2019just\u2019 a break-up. Could have been abuse. You\u2019ll never know.<\/span>
\nThere\u2019s three of you working together but since she doesn\u2019t need immediate medical attention they leave you alone in the rig, to stay with her. She doesn\u2019t want to talk but there are questions you need to know the answers to. She withdraws into herself further and further with every question.<\/span>
\nYou spend the rest of the ride in silence and it takes a lot of willpower to not think about what she must be feeling like.<\/span>
\nPlease just be okay, you think as you leave her at the hospital.<\/span>
\nThe next few cases are \u201ceasier\u201d. Heart attack, hypotension, heat stroke. Just the usual.<\/span>
\nYou can\u2019t forget the girl\u2019s face. That hollow look in her eyes.<\/span>
\nPlease somebody take care of her, you pray.<\/span>
\nIt\u2019s getting hotter and you\u2019re getting hungry and you\u2019re not fully focused anyway, not since that first patient, so you\u2019re really looking forward to going on that 20-minute break you\u2019re allowed to have during a 12 hour shift.<\/span>
\nBut you don\u2019t get around to asking for your break because your unit number is called on the radio.<\/span>
\nUnconscious patient.<\/span>
\nCould be anything.<\/span>
\nYou can\u2019t get to the exact location you were given- it\u2019s in the middle of a forest. You grab the equipment needed for resuscitation, before you head to the patient. Just in case. You never know.<\/span>
\nYou\u2019d never been there before but it doesn\u2019t look like a forest where someone would go for a stroll.<\/span>
\nYou get a weird feeling. You start looking at the ground for plastic packages and needles and foils.<\/span>
\nIt takes a few minutes to reach the patient. Your back and arms already hurt from carrying all that equipment.<\/span>
\nAnd then your unit leader examines the man and he yells at you to prepare for resuscitation.<\/span>
\nHe also warns you to be careful where you kneel \u2013 the ground is full of needles.<\/span>
\nYou get to work.<\/span>
\nYou only did this in real life once before. But you practiced it, hundreds of times. It\u2019s nothing like practice, of course, but you still know the drill. Your whole team falls into a rhythm. You barely have to talk, everyone knows their job. You keep taking turns doing compressions and it only takes a minute or so for you to start panting. CPR is very physically demanding in general \u2013 it\u2019s even more so when you have to do it in 33 degrees.<\/span>
\nThere\u2019s a guy standing around, he says he\u2019s a friend of the patient. He\u2019s the one who called you. But he has no idea what\u2019s wrong with him. No, he doesn\u2019t know what those needles scattered around were used for either. Of course neither of them were doing drugs. What even are drugs, right.<\/span>
\nYou wish he wasn\u2019t lying to your face but you understand. The police will be here soon.<\/span>
\nYou\u2019re trying to get an i.v. line secured when the patient\u2019s phone starts ringing. His mom is calling.<\/span>
\nYou\u2019re not allowed to pick up and you\u2019re busy anyway, but even if you could, you would never want to have this conversation.<\/span>
\nBut nothing\u2019s working. You push all the adrenaline you can, you keep doing compressions, you keep bagging him, you\u2019re at the verge of yelling or crying in frustration. Nothing helps.<\/span>
\nTime goes on. Nothing changes.<\/span>
\nYou\u2019re in the middle of a random forest, doing chest compressions, for over an hour, on a man you didn\u2019t even know existed until now. And you\u2019re exhausted and your shirt soaked through a long time ago and you can barely breathe anymore and your hands feel like you\u2019re breaking them with every new push. But you don\u2019t stop, you can\u2019t stop because his mom keeps calling and because this just can\u2019t be happening, people can\u2019t just die in random forests at the age of 45 from something as stupid as drugs.<\/span>
\nThen your unit leader tells you to stop compressions but you can\u2019t, you just can\u2019t, because this can\u2019t be it, this is not how stories end. But then there\u2019s a point when you\u2019re just too tired to go on anymore and deep down you know there\u2019s just no use. So you finally stop and it feels like you yourself killed that person with that simple action. And you loathe yourself for not being good enough to save him.<\/span>
\nAnd you\u2019re just kneeling there, looking at his face for a while, and then you help lay the bag over him.<\/span>
\nAnd you\u2019re just a 23 year old kid who only ever wanted to do some good in this world.<\/span>
\n(He probably didn\u2019t even overdose, technically speaking. It was a very hot day and drugs tend to work differently in different weathers. How random is that. So senseless.)<\/span>
\nThen the police come. They recognize him right away. Turns out he was a known junkie and criminal. His death meant a lot of closed cases, so they were actually happy with what happened.<\/span>
\nAnd all the while his mom keeps calling.<\/span>
\nAnd on your way back to the station, your team keeps telling jokes about addicts and people who OD. That’s how most paramedics deal with their job. Even if you don\u2019t take part in all that, you can\u2019t show that what happened affected you in any way. You\u2019re a paramedic. It\u2019s your job.<\/span>
\nAnd you\u2019re sitting in the back of the rig, spent, parched and starving and with bruises already forming on the back of your hands from doing compressions so hard and so long. And you\u2019re staring at your uniform pants and you think about how proud you used to be to have the privilege to wear them but now you just wanna tear them off because it just feels like some twisted dress up.<\/span>
\nYou don\u2019t make it back to the station. You get about 7 minutes of freedom, you manage to buy a bottle of water and that\u2019s it, the operator calls your number on the radio, there\u2019s a new case you have to get to.<\/span>
\nAll you want is to go home and get a drink. Or two. Three.<\/span>
\nBut there\u2019s a drunken teenager who needs your help.<\/span>
\nYet another person who got themselves in trouble.<\/span>
\nSo you go, and try to help them, and they kick you (you\u2019re sure she didn\u2019t mean to but still) and throw up on you and your team tells you to deal with her on your own because she\u2019s your age and anyway, she\u2019s a foreigner and you\u2019re the only one on the team who speaks english.<\/span>
\nAnd you think about all the times you had to drag people up off the floor where they\u2019d landed themselves, all the times they hit you, all the times they screamed at you and lied to your face.<\/span>
\nAnd you get angry, because why do you have to get caught up in others peoples crap? It\u2019s not like anyones forced to do drugs or drink way too much. Why do you have to get involved in someone\u2019s self-destruction? Why should you care if someone you\u2019d never met before dies as a consequence of their own actions? Why should you care about someone who doesn\u2019t care about himself?<\/span>
\nIt\u2019s been a lifelong dream of yours to save someone\u2019s life with your own two hands. And it\u2019s actually happened before. Multiple times. But there\u2019s a point where the bad just so evidently outweighs the good that an idealist like yourself just can\u2019t stay anymore.<\/span>
\nSo you quit at the end of that shift. And you went home and drank, and hated everyone. For days.<\/span>
\nIt took a week but eventually you called your team leader and told him you\u2019d like to go back to work. Yes, your last shift was horrible. But you can\u2019t not work on the ambulance. You can\u2019t not help. You can\u2019t not be where you might be needed. And it\u2019s not because you\u2019re such a great person. It\u2019s just what you need to do. What you want to do.<\/span>
\nSo, welcome back to the team. I can\u2019t promise it\u2019ll get any easier. Especially not in these times. But we\u2019re all in this together, and you belong here.<\/span> \t \t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was a very hot day. It was already 23 degrees when your shift started at 6:30 am. You were planning on grabbing a cup of coffee before your first call but plans scarcely ever work at this job \u3161 you didn\u2019t even make it to the kitchen before the station phone rang. You have …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":101958,"featured_media":3810,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[591],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-synapsis"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"1970-01-01 01:00:00","action":"","terms":[],"taxonomy":"","browser_timezone_offset":0},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/semmelweis.hu\/hok\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/semmelweis.hu\/hok\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/semmelweis.hu\/hok\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/semmelweis.hu\/hok\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/101958"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/semmelweis.hu\/hok\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/semmelweis.hu\/hok\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3808\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/semmelweis.hu\/hok\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/semmelweis.hu\/hok\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/semmelweis.hu\/hok\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/semmelweis.hu\/hok\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}