Chapter 5

It had been a quiet day, sunny but cool, as early winter in South Georgia often is. We had enjoyed the cool days after the heat of summer, able to work calls without requiring a shower and clean uniform after each one. It hadn't been a busy day either; we'd only run a couple of calls for each truck. All in all, it was a great shift. My wife and son had brought supper to the station, and we sat in the day room watching a movie after eating. Our other crew was out on a routine transfer from our rural hospital to the larger hospital in the next county. In the front bedroom, Dee was watching his racing shows, and already bedded down for the evening. Peace reigned over the station, as I sat talking to my son and wife. My partner sat on the other sofa quietly knitting something for her family. Then, in the span of a second, the quiet was shattered by the blaring notes of the Alert tones.

"COUNTY EMS, COUNTY EMS, YOU HAVE A VEHICLE PULLING INTO YOUR FRONT PARKING LOT, 29 YEAR OLD MALE WITH LARGE LACERATION TO HIS ARM. ETA 1 TO 2 MINUTES"

Startled, I jumped, the said to my partner, "Grab the truck; I'll meet you up front!" I rushed out the front of the station as she scrambled into the ambulance bays and fired up our unit. I could hear the sound of a vehicle traveling at high speed coming up the highway beside the station, and the roar of the ambulance coming around the station. She pulled the ambulance to a stop and jumped out, just then a SUV pulled into the lot, the driver screaming as she jumped out.

"HE IS BLEEDING TO DEATH, OH GOD OH GOD SAVE HIM"

In the back seat I could see two men struggling, but as the interior light of the SUV wasn't working, I couldn't tell who was injured or how badly. I grabbed my flashlight from my hip and shined it into the back seat. It looked as if blood covered every square inch of the vehicle interior, and I could see one of the men trying desperately to hold a towel on the forearm of the other one. Blood spurted from the wounded arm as the injured man fought and lashed around. Without thinking I reached in and grabbed his arm, applying direct pressure to the laceration, which looked to be approximately 6 inches or longer across his arm at an angle. It was deep, to the bone, with muscle tissue bulging out, and arterial blood spraying profusely. My partner reached in as well and helped me pull him out of the vehicle, and he started kicking and screaming at us as well. In the background I could here sirens as the sheriffs department pulled into the lot with us.

The other man was yelling at our patient to calm down, but his efforts only seemed to arouse the man further, so I asked him to step back and calm the females who kept trying to get close to him, yelling and crying drunkenly, "I love you Tommy, I love you..." Nothing like drunks to add excitement to your life, ETOH added to trauma always means Drama. At this point the deputies entered the fray, and attempted to help us control the man, who if anything had become more violent. My partner called on the radio for Dee to come assist us, but apparently the races were too exciting or too loud, and he didn't respond. Somehow in the middle of the action, I glanced across to the porch of the station only to see my wife and my son watching with horrified eyes at the scene unfolding. I yelled at my wife to get my son inside, and tell Dee to get his ass out here NOW. She moved my child inside, and in a few seconds, which seemed to us hours, Dee came shuffling out the door, "Gawd Damn, you young pups can't do nothing..." he broke off quickly and ran towards us, pulling gloves from his pocket as he ran. "Why the Hell you ain't told me you needed help Duke?"

He grabbed the stretcher from the back of the truck and pulled it alongside us as we struggled with our patient. One of the deputies joined us in attempting to get him onto the stretcher. As we all struggled with the young man, he continued to thrash about, kicking and swinging wildly, he managed to connect several times with each of us, but mostly with Dee who he kicked hard enough to knock the wind out of. My partner, a short female, was struck twice before one of the deputies managed to pin his arm. We lifted him onto the stretcher, and began to put it into the ambulance when his struggling and kicking overturned it. Had it not been for my grasp on his wounded arm, he would have fallen to the ground, for my effort to help him, I was rewarded by him kneeing me in the hip. We grabbed him up again and managed to get him loaded.

During this whole ordeal, he continued to scream and curse us, alternating with screaming at his "significant female other" that he loved her, that she was a whore, and that he was sorry. To us he kept yelling "LISTEN TO ME MAN, LISTEN TO ME."

Inside the ambulance, I help pressure on his arm as my partner grabbed a stack of 4x4 gauze bandages and passed them over to me. I applied them to the wound and elevated his arm, squeezing them against the cut, he screamed and kicked, then turned and spat at my partner. "Change up with me" I said, and we swapped off, her holding pressure, and I grabbed some cling to wrap his arm. We managed to get it bandaged, but it immediately bled through, so I handed her more 4x4's and she applied them. As our patient was showing signs of severe hypovolemic shock, I opened the IV box and began prepping to start an IV on him, Dee had already gotten the ambulance turned around and we were in route to the hospital, sirens wailing and the truck bouncing around.