What's the worst thing....?

***Warning Graphic content/language. Reader discretion advised.***

We almost slept all night last night. I knew we would have to get up at least once to take a patient back to her home, and we did. Other than that, we slept most of the night until shift change. My partner and I had a EMT student riding with us yesterday. They are almost done with school and our student did pretty well. He was successful in all his IV attempts and graciously accepted all of our suggestions.

The longer I've been in EMS the more I dread the question, "what's the worst thing you've seen?", "what's the grossest thing you've seen?", and "what's the worst call you've been on?" The longer that I do this job, the more I see and the less I want to share. Most people who don't work in public safety or medical careers just don't understand what we do. They want to hear the cool things but they aren't prepared to hear about body parts on the side of the road or doing CPR on a 3 week old child.

Phillip asked me about the worst call I've been on, and thank god we got interrupted because about a month ago, I worked a car wreck where my patient's brain were sprayed all over the back seat of the car like paint from a sprayer. I can still see my patient's face, crushed by the B post on the driver's side of the car. I found an eye ball about 15 feet from the car. My patient was so horribly disfigured, it was difficult to discern what was car and what was body parts. It was difficult to identify certain anatomical landmarks.

It is somewhat eerie to look into a person's nasal passages and see the inside of the back of their skull without anything in the way. It's just not natural and I lay in bed at night sometimes picturing his face and it makes it hard to sleep. This is the first time in my 7 year career that I've ever not talked about a call much. I know there was nothing that we could have done, I mean the patient was dead likely on impact. But it's the loss of life, especially when it is so violent that is what I mourn.

It's my job to provide treatment and transportation to patients requiring emergency care. I find sometimes that the strangest thoughts run through my mind when I work calls like this, a fatality MVC. I must protect the patient, their families, and the general public. The media, thank god was not pushy and stayed behind the crime scene tape set up by the highway patrol. The general public isn't prepared to see the kind of things that we do, the kind of things that haunt my dreams. It is my responsibility to protect the dignity of my patient, even in death, and to advocate for them when they have no voice.

So, as I found an eyeball on the side of the road and stepped over blobs of brain matter I found myself wondering, "How in the hell is the funeral home going to make him look good?" I hoped like hell that the family wouldn't insist on a viewing. I assumed they would have to make positive identification by fingerprinting or DNA testing since there weren't any facial features left.

About 30 minutes after being on scene, I began feeling dirty. All I could think about was getting back to the station and taking a long, hot shower. I wanted to wash all the funk off of me, the death lingering like a cloud of nasty perfume. I wanted to change my uniform and put on clean pants. I wanted to scrub the bottom of my boots to get all the blood and brain matter off the bottom of them.

And then I realized that I hadn't eaten lunch yet. I was hungry.

I don't know how often I'll write, but I've found that it helps to write my thoughts and feelings down. Patient information will be vague to protect my patient's privacy to the best of my ability. Names (if used) will be changed, scene locations and call information may be altered. Patients will be referred to using either gender reference, regardless of what their sex is.

This is my blog. I make no bones about the fact that there will be graphic content, sarcasm, and morbid humor that most won't understand. But, I'm writing this for my own sanity, not yours. If my writing bothers you, then please refrain from reading it. I'll post at the top of each blog if there is graphic content, that way you can decide to read or not, depending on your comfort level.