The Knife Behind My Back

I believe that from the very first day as an Emergency Medical Technician I had heard people say, " We should really write this stuff down, nobody would believe some of this shit."

It's a plain fact that all Emergency Services Personnel from Paramedics to EMT's to Emergency Dispatchers, and any form of Law Enforcement have been in situations that we wouldn't have believed it if we hadn't been their ourselves. Our jobs can be exciting, rewarding, dangerous and terrifying all rolled into one huge hairball.

This story is about one of those times. My partner, Andy, and I were dispatched along with a Paramedic unit to a stabbing. Now, honestly, "stabbing" could be anything from a paper cut ( Yes, that's happened) to a fatal incident.

This stabbing was the latter. We arrived on the scene to find a very tiny lady, probably around 5' and 110lbs. (my size) laying flat on her back, her arms akimbo, eyes still open in a pool of blood. She was sliced from one side of her stomach to the other with some intestine showing.

We all knew that she probably wasn't going to be able to save her but we had to try.

The room was rather small so it was a tight fit for all four of us but we made it work. I was asked to to go up by her head because I could fit in small spaces. I was going to breathe for her using a bag valve mask. This is that piece of equipment that you've seen in any emergency room drama. It looks like a huge clear, heavy plastic balloon with a face mask on the other end. It's made to force air into the lungs, to essentially breath for the patients who can't breath efficiently for themselves.

This little lady was in complete cardiac arrest so I started bagging her while Andy did chest compressions and the medics worked feverishly to get to large bore IV's into her ( REALLY HUGE NEEDLES) arms. The objective is to replace the fluid that she had lost with saline. This team effort was an attempt to get her heart beating again.

We were all very busy, multi tasking when we had to it's a very organized chaos. The boyfriend was standing right behind my head, again a very small space in which his presence made it even tighter. He was frantically telling us how the hell this had happened to his dying girlfriend.

I was listening to my partners and bagging this beautiful lady. She had some violet in her jet black hair that was in pretty long thing braids. This man was so loud behind me, shouting out what had happened in his house. He was trying to tell me about a home invasion. I couldn't have that conversation that he so desperately wanted to have. I would reach behind my back every once in a while to rub his leg. I also told him we were doing everything we could to try and save her. In the beginning all I had heard was blah , blah , blah blah blah. but after hearing this tragic story a million times parts of it sunk in.

The story was that five huge guys had broken into their apartment and attacked them. I heard how he single handedly fought off these five armed murderers but he simply couldn't save his girlfriend. " I'm sure that was horrifying, Sir. You are very brave to have chased them away." I was still rubbing his leg as often as I could. He was shaking like a leaf. He had put his hands on my shoulders. I was really afraid he was going to pass out on top of me. I asked him to please sit down. He told me he was fine so I left it alone.

I was relieved when the Police Officers finally got to us. I knew they would want to take him from the room to get his accounting of what had happened.

I just want to shout out to the police for a second. We almost never had police with us on any calls. There just simply weren't enough of them to go around. The always came as soon as they could. If we had to fight with a patient then we had to fight with a patient. It's just way it wasn't their fault big cities can be like that.

The officers took someone out of the room for sure but it wasn't who I expected it to be. It was ME! One minute I was breathing for this sweet lady and the next moment I was very unceremoniously snatched out of the room and tossed into the TV. I was pissed off. I had no idea what was going on. I was trying to get back to my patient but I kept getting pushed back by my face. This Officer was huge. He wasn't letting me go anywhere.

The next weird thing that occurred was the boyfriend being yanked from the room.. There was all kinds of commotion going on. I could hear my partners still working on this lady but I wasn't going to be allowed back in. I still didn't understand what in the hell was going on. I have to, at this juncture, admit that I am a very tunnel vision person. It wasn't unusual for me to " not get it" when something like happened. I mean, to put this in perspective, the very first time I was shot at I thought it was a large bug that had hit the ambulance. I touched the top of my head, I wanted to make sure the bug hadn't died and landed on me. Andy was yelling at me to get in the truck ( ambulance) I was like, " hey, a huge bug just hit the truck." Andy did what he usually did when I was being oblivious, he grabbed my ponytail and threw me into the closest ambulance door. He then had a great laugh with everyone he saw for the rest of the day.

I watched as Officer #2 pulled a HUGE kitchen knife out of the boyfriend's pants. Did I mention it was FREAKIN' HUGE. I then turned into 110lbs of anger in motion. I started screaming at him. " YOU F--KING SON OF A BITCH. I WAS COMFORTING YOU ASSHOLE!!! YOU SHOULD BE THE ONE LAYING ON THAT FLOOR YOU F--KER!!! "

My fists and feet were ready to kick the crap out of this guy but Officer #1 wasn't going to allow that. I got one really good round house punch to his head though. I'm not proud of this but as I was walking out I turned around really fast and grabbed his crotch. I yanked his dick so hard I'm pretty sure he had no pubic hair. " That'll give you a head start in prison, Asshole!!!" Andy had come out of the room by then and had witnessed the penis pull. " Oh Dude, you made her mad, didn't you?"

Officer# 1 asked Andy to take me away. I'm not sure if it was because he was angry at me for getting my 4'11' 110lb body around his 6'4" donut eating ass. ( just kidding, I love my police)

Andy took my ponytail and pulled me out of the apartment. " I'm so proud of you." He was laughing his butt off at me again. I was still really pissed off, " HEY!!! I hope you choke on your own spit! "

We got back in the truck and immediately got another call. The days are always different but I'll guarantee you that we all have our own stories to tell and that there's always someone saying, " we should write a book."