To all EMS workers, thank you.
Before the hospital buzzed with chaos as my banged up unconscious body was wheeled into the emergency room; before I had the trauma team, the neuro team, the ortho team all rushed to my case; before the entire world even knew I sat there practically lifeless in the driver’s seat on what was supposed to be just a quick errand after lunch . . .
Before my life would become consumed by appointments and meetings with physicians, nurses, radiologists, technicians, detectives, lawyers, physical therapists, vestibular therapists, speech therapists, occupational therapists, social workers, and my own personal therapist . . .
Before I had the love and support of my family, my friends, my neighbors, my coworkers, my colleagues, my graduate school faculty, and my own beloved partner . . .
Before there was everyone, there was only one.
It was just me and Dezirae.
. . .
Dezirae, a recently retired EMT, was at the intersection when it happened. She witnessed the most horrifying moment of my life and without hesitation, she grabbed her trauma bag and ran to my car.
Later when I learned of her existence and the role she’d played that day, I felt the obvious reactions of gratitude and appreciation, but my mind seemed hung up on just one thing. The brain hemorrhage caused temporary short term memory loss and at a time when I couldn’t even remember the moments or thoughts I’d had beyond a few minutes (eventually hours and days), there was one that kept playing back like a clip on repeat.
Four minutes.
That’s how long your brain can go without oxygen before permanent brain damage begins to occur. Brain cells are acutely sensitive to hypoxia (the lack of oxygen) and after mere seconds, those cells will begin to die. And by six minutes, you’re most likely dead.
It took six minutes for the ambulance to arrive that day.
The intersection — one that holds hundreds of cars at any given moment — was shut down and frozen at a standstill while our vehicles sat there motionless. But Dezirae ran on foot and made it to me in seconds. She did what she could to open my airways, keep me breathing, and stayed with me until the ambulance finally arrived.
In a moment of crisis, her split second decision would later become the reason that moment six months ago — and the days of the coma, the weeks in the hospital spent immobile and bed-ridden (and eventually back home as well), the months of living cognitively impaired and a mere shell of who I’d once been, the simultaneous heartbreak and rage that now seem to spontaneously erupt in me as I journey on this unchosen battle with PTSD, the debilitating sadness and despondency that renders me out of commission for days at a time at the drop of a hat with zero warning or reason, the isolation and loneliness of trauma after the statute of limitations on checking-in seems to run out once the initial news of the crash is quickly forgotten, relationships and friendships questioned and reassessed, and the entirety of all that would unfold and forever change my story — will always be nothing more than a pause and unexpected diversion of my life, not the final ending.
. . .
I’ve held many things about the crash and all that has followed since buried deep inside (and it will most likely stay that way until I am ready to talk) but I share these words now at the very least because this week is 2020’s National EMS Appreciation Week.
A dear friend of mine (and former boss) once told me that being an EMT was the most thankless job there is. The world thanks the doctors and nurses (nurses having only barely now begun to receive the recognition they so rightfully deserve), but seem to forget the ones who treated them before the rest of the world entered the picture.
In a medical crisis, there comes that initial moment where it’s just you and the first responder. The rest of the world is frozen in time and all you have is them. They assess, they triage, they treat and manage— all in a matter of minutes. They keep you alive. And in the cases where it’s ultimately not possible, you can damn well bet they tried their hardest.
Now when I see or hear an ambulance rushing down the road with sirens blaring, I don’t for a second feel inconvenienced by the minor pause in traffic on my way to the millionth doctor’s visit or the sudden raucous that disrupts my otherwise silent and vacant mind. None of that. Instead, I feel an utmost respect for the EMS aboard and a longing to somehow be assured that the passenger inside will not only survive — but thrive. All thanks to the split second actions of that trained EMS crew.
Six months ago, an EMS professional gave me a fighting chance. And she gave me a choice in a time when the right to choose had been so violently ripped out of my hands as my life became hostage to the actions of another.
I chose to fight.
. . .
To all EMS workers, thank you.
Because if you never hear it from anyone else, you’ll at least hear it from me.
To everyone reading, remember that in the midst of all this chaos, EMS are on the frontlines too.
In Memoriam — Brave heroes lost from complications related to COVID-19.