Jumper

You never know what you are going to be doing that day. I think about it sometimes while checking my gear for the day. Be ready for anything.

The call goes out for a fall off a parking structure. We pull up to find the police already on scene as well as the fire department. I go to grab the backboard and collar bag as a state trooper comes over to me

"Do you have a blanket? I think they are going to pronounce her here"

I hand him a sheet, and walk over to the patient, not wanting to give up the only blanket I had in the ambulance.

She is an elderly woman, lying on her back with obvious angulated fractures of her lower legs as well as the left side of her face being uncannily flat save the large hematoma on her forehead. Her pupils are fixed and dilated and the ground is littered with teeth and blood as I kneel down and place her on the monitor.

The monitor shows V-Fib, the womans heart is still quivering.

"You have got to be shitting me" my preceptor says as I grab out the Defib pads as the fireman is doing CPR.

I get the pads on him and am turning to begin charging the monitor when my preceptor and I see that the rhythm has changed to a single flat line telling me there is no electrical activity.

We resume CPR while doing a quick assessment and cataloging the injuries in my head as my partner calls medical control. Its no surprise when the doctor on the other end of the line tells us to go ahead and presume. Due to injuries sustained she is not a viable patient.

Time on scene is less than 9 minutes.

Those are the calls in which time just seems to stop. You start doing things faster than you ever thought you could and everything feels like second nature. After the call you look at your scene time and find it hard to believe you were there such a short time.

I can't help but try to imagine why these things happen. How difficult it would be to just make that decision and step into the void. I can't imagine things would ever be that bad and I hope in my life they never get to that point.