The Ambulance Ride Nobody Expected
I've been an EMT for ten years now. In that time, I thought I had seen just about everything a person could see on this job. Drunk falls, car wrecks, old folks who just needed someone to talk to, kids with fevers scaring their parents half to death. You start to think nothing can really shake you anymore. Then you get a call like the one I'm about to tell you, and you remember how wrong you can be. It was a night, late, the kind of shift where the radio crackles and you brace yourself before you even hear the address. Dispatch said it was a house party that had gone bad, lots of yelling, someone hurt. My partner was driving, and I remember him glancing at me and saying, "This one sounds messy." He wasn't wrong. When we pulled up, the house was lit up like a carnival. Music was still playing from somewhere inside, but most of the people were outside now, standing in clumps on the lawn, phones out, some of them crying, some of them just staring. Red and blue lights from a police car that beat us there were bouncing off the front of the house. The grass was trampled, a folding table was knocked over with cups spilled everywhere, and right in the middle of the yard was a man on the ground. He wasn't passed out. That's what got me right away. His eyes were wide open, darting around like he was looking for something that wasn't there. He was shouting about cameras in the walls, saying somebody put them there to watch him, to record him, to hurt him. His voice was raw, like he'd been screaming for a while before we even got the call. A couple of his friends were crouched near him, trying to calm him down, saying his name over and over, telling him it was okay, that nobody was watching him. It didn't work. He swung out of nowhere and caught one of his friends right in the face. I heard the crack of it from where I was standing, and the friend stumbled back holding his nose, blood already running between his fingers. Everyone jumped back after that. Nobody wanted to be next. We couldn't get close to him, not safely, not with him swinging like that. So we waited. That's one of the hardest parts of this job that people don't understand, the waiting. You want to help, that's why you're there, but sometimes helping means standing a few feet back and letting the police do their part first. My partner kept the bag ready, I kept my eyes on the man's hands and feet, and the cops moved in slow, talking to him the whole time, telling him to calm down, that they just wanted to talk. It took three officers to finally get him to the ground and hold him there. He was still yelling about the cameras, about people watching, about how nobody believed him. Once they had him controlled, we moved in fast, got the straps on him, and loaded him into the back of the ambulance. His friends stood there on the lawn, looking shaken, looking lost, like they didn't know this night was going to end like this when they first put up the party lights. I climbed in the back with him while my partner got up front to drive. I started my routine, checking his pulse, looking at his pupils, trying to get a read on what might be going on, drugs, a mental break, both. And then something strange happened. He went quiet. His breathing slowed down. He looked at me, really looked at me, like he was seeing me for the first time that night, and he said, "I'm sorry. I don't know what happened. I'm really sorry." I've heard that line before, so I didn't let my guard down completely, but I'll admit, for a second there, I thought maybe the worst part of the night was over. I even said something like, "It's okay, man, we're going to get you checked out, you're going to be fine." I meant it too. That's the thing about this job, you want to believe people when they say they're sorry. Then, just like that, he grabbed my medical bag off the bench and threw it at the driver's partition hard enough that it hit with a loud bang. Before I could even react, he was lunging for the back doors, trying to pop the handle while we were moving fast on the highway. I felt my stomach drop. We were doing probably sixty miles an hour, cars whipping by us in the dark, and this man was trying to throw himself out onto the road. I grabbed him, wrapped my arms around him as best I could in that tight space, and I was yelling for my partner to keep driving steady, not to slam the brakes, just keep it smooth. My partner was yelling back, asking if I was okay, trying to watch the road and glance back at the same time, which is about the worst combination you can ask of a driver. The ambulance was swaying a little as he fought me, cars honking as they passed, probably wondering what the heck was going on back there. I had one arm locked around his chest and the other trying to keep him from getting a grip on the door handle. He was strong, stronger than I expected from somebody his size, and he kept twisting, trying to break free, still mumbling things about cameras and people watching, like none of this registered as dangerous to him at all. I remember my own heart pounding so hard I could feel it in my ears. I kept talking to him the whole time, low and steady, saying his name, telling him we were almost there, telling him I just needed him to sit still for me, that I wasn't going to let anything happen to him. That ride felt like it lasted forever. In reality it was about twenty minutes, but I swear every minute dragged like an hour. My arms were shaking by the end of it, not just from holding him but from the adrenaline, from trying to keep both of us safe while flying down a highway in the dark with him fighting me the entire way. I kept thinking, if he gets that door open, if he goes out onto that road, there's nothing I can do to stop what happens next. We finally pulled into the hospital bay, and I have never been so relieved to see those bright lights and sliding doors in my life. The second the doors opened, more hands were there to help, nurses and security coming out to get him onto a gurney and get him properly restrained. He was still talking, quieter now, exhausted maybe, saying sorry again, saying he didn't mean to hurt anybody. The nurses took over from there, moving quick and calm, like they'd seen this kind of thing before too. I stood there for a second in the hallway, catching my breath, my hands still a little shaky. My partner came up beside me and just said, "You good?" I nodded, even though I wasn't sure I totally meant it. We finished our paperwork, cleaned up the rig, and went on with the rest of the shift like you're supposed to. But that night, when I finally got home, I didn't turn on the TV or make food or do any of my normal after-shift stuff. I just sat down on the couch in the dark and stayed there for about an hour, not really thinking about anything, just letting my body settle back down. Sometimes this job is about saving somebody's life in the way you picture when you sign up, doing CPR, stopping bleeding, getting someone breathing again. And sometimes, like that night, the whole job comes down to just surviving the ride, keeping your patient and yourself alive long enough to get through the doors and hand things over to someone else. That night taught me that both kinds of nights count. They both leave a mark on you, just in different ways.