Dissolution

dis·so·lu·tion

1: annulment or termination of a formal or legal bond, tie, or contract

2: decomposition into fragments or parts; disintegration

3: formal dismissal of an assembly or legislature

4: extinction of life; death

—

It’s a Code-2 response – no lights and no siren – and I’m in a morose mood as I make my way to the middle of the county. I’m responding solo and driving myself for once. The passenger seat next to me is empty. Scottie is responding from the other side of the county and I’ll meet him there. As I start to get closer I see others on their way to the same place. Uniforms in cars and ambulances, driving slowly in the same direction. I pass a fire engine with its cab full of new hires who are in the academy. I ponder the lesson that the brass is teaching them by having them take the day off from the hard work of the academy and attending a funeral: death is real.

As I make the turn into the cemetery I see the ambulance parked across the street. The cemetery happens to be at a normal posting location. Ambulances are sent to this intersection as it has easy access to a few different cities, as well as the necessities of a mobile crew: a bathroom, some shade, and nearby food options. Many of the cars parked along the wide streets running past the headstones bear county EMS stickers in their back windows.

Walking up to the small chapel I pass ten ambulances, four fire engines, and even a ladder truck. Our brothers and sisters from the fire service have made a good showing – every city in our county is represented, and we all appreciate their presence.

Walking over the small grassy hill to the chapel I see the sea of uniforms – I’ve never seen so many of us in one place before, and it’s overwhelming. Paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, firefighters, police officers, and of course the honor guard with class-A uniforms complete with swords. There’s even a mounted EMT from the equestrian unit – I never even knew we had an equestrian unit.

All are here to pay their last respects.

At any given time at least a third of us are working the streets and responding to calls in the county. But the 24×7 nature of our work and the size of our county makes it difficult to get so many of us together at one time and in one place. Today is the exception – they put out the call to neighboring counties for mutual aid. Other counties’ EMTs and medics came into our county, checked out our rigs, and opened up the map books to respond to our calls, allowing us to gather for this final goodbye.

There have to be over 300 uniforms standing around the chapel, yet Scottie is able to pick me out of the crowd and he makes his way through it to stand next to me. We have a comfortable silence between us. We’ve only been partners for about a month but spending twelve hours together on a daily basis can bring people together fast. I notice that many other partners have found each other and taken comfort from being together during this emotional time. There is one person who is unable to stand with their partner and that stands out that much more for his solitude.

I find myself in a line which is slowly making its way into the chapel; the honor guard stands at attention as we enter the doors. As I enter the chapel I realize that all the seats are taken and this is actually a line to view the casket – it’s an open casket funeral. I wasn’t quite prepared for this and that’s a strange thing to say. Unlike most people in the world, we get up in the morning and put on a uniform knowing that we have the possibility of seeing a dead body or even watching someone die. Somehow I forgot about that this morning and I wasn’t prepared to see a friend in a casket. I place the rose petals on his chest and file out the back of the chapel before I lose it.

Eulogies are given and a life that ended too soon is remembered. I look over at the crew that worked him in his last minutes and feel an unbelievable sadness. They were camping and hiking that day and too far away from any urban areas when they saw the skin signs. We all know the skin signs – pale, cool, diaphoretic – and the cardiac etiology that they speak to. They did CPR on a friend without their paramedic equipment and waited the 45 minutes for the ambulance to respond.

I can imagine the time feeling like hours as everyone does the sad math in their head. Only about 15% of cardiac arrest patients actually survive. Once in cardiac arrest the chance of survival diminishes by 10% for every minute of down time. I can imagine the absolute anguish of seeing the ambulance finally arrive only to find out it’s an EMT ambulance with no advanced life support equipment on board. The county where they were hiking isn’t as well funded as our county. The three medics and two EMTs that were with him could only use the most basic of skills in an attempt to save his life. The EMS gods were in a very bad mood that day.

The honor guard snaps to attention and the bugler begins the sad song of Taps. The flag is ceremoniously removed from the casket and meticulously folded to be handed to the family. The casket is slowly taken from the small chapel to its final resting place. The procession slowly walks past a double flank of hundreds of uniforms standing at attention with salute in place. One of our own has been taken.

The honor guard does a sharp left face and marches off. A final salute is given and the assembled uniforms are dismissed.

—

One week later Scottie is driving us to the post across the street from the cemetery. He angles the rig so we don’t have to look at the rows of headstones with flowers laid beside them.

“I don’t like this post any more.”

“Yeah, neither do I…”

 

~ by KC on October 27, 2010.