More than an Eyeroll!

Emergency Medical Services, as with any public service, is very fluid. We go from job to job, ( "job" is the term we used instead of " call" ) We never know what we're going to be walking in on until we literally walk in. One of the best parts of the our job is that one day is never the same as the next and our " office" is our ambulance. Oh, and just so you know, it's not cool to vomit on the office floor.

If you've ever watched even one episode of " Cops", " LivePD" or " Live Rescue" you know just how fast things can change. One minute we could be dealing with a broken toenail and the next a beautiful white Akita dog who's been shot walks up to us. ( We took toenail guy to the emergency room and went back for the dog. She seemed to be waiting for us. My partner, John, took her home with him. He named her Aspen and she lived for John for six great years down at the Jersey shore.

One evening my partner and I were dispatched to a, " sickness." Sickness, definition: " No clue what the problem is good luck." There were times when I thought my eyes were going to get stuck in the back of my head from rolling my eyes so much upon hearing the word, " Sickness"

This story is so much more than an eyeroll but I'll let you decide for yourselves what gesture this deserves.

I believe it was around 10pm on a Saturday night. We arrived on scene to find a nicely dressed lady who was eating her dinner. She was our initial patient. She apparently had a cold that hung around for almost three weeks. ( insert Teresa Eyeroll here)

We assumed she was going to get up and come with us but you know what happens when you assume. She made it apparent that she wanted to finish her dinner before she left. She allowed us to take her vital signs which were all normal and in fairness she did sort of cough once. We again thought she would come with us as dinner seemed to be over, wrong again.

While we were standing there metaphorically scratching our heads and rolling our eyes her husband came home. It now made sense. That's why she was stalling. She was waiting for him to come and watch the children. We had noticed that there were items that indicated she had small children. There were baby items and toys for older children and even school books. Daring to assume again that the Mr. was going to stay with the kids we started walking to the door. She wasn't coming with us. What was coming toward us was her huge ass husband who was shoveling food into his mouth like a lion on a gazelle. It was truly gross.

We has already wasted about twenty minutes which was already ridiculous. We could hear via our radios that the rest of our teams were running their butts off. We needed to go. We mentioned that we really needed to be going now and to our great surprise the lady got up off the couch. It almost felt like a high five moment but that would be unprofessional.

We had made another very unwelcome assumption. It appeared as if Mr. " three weeks old cold" intended to come with us. We asked where the children were. The worst possible answer, " in the bedroom" came out of somebodies face. I can't remember who's probably because I was wondering why we were going to have to bring a husband and children to a busy emergency department on a Saturday night after 10:30pm.

We were told that the children were asleep in the bedroom. We were also told that a sister-in-law was coming down from the 21st floor. We were on the 19th floor, so using simple math 21-19=2. The babysitter was two floors up from us. We had now wasted around 40 minutes of wasted resources waiting for a) Mr. 3 weeks old cold, and now we were going to have to wait again for b) someone's sister-in-law. She could have probably come up and down those stairs sixty times and yet she hadn't. The Mr. insisted that she would be down in a minute. They were ready to go.

We couldn't believe what we had just heard. We were also now in a true predicament. These two assholes were ready to leave what were probably very young children alone. This was one of the better areas of the city but still not somewhere that I would feel comfortable leaving my children. We asked if they could please call her again and get an ETA. Mr. 3 weeks old cold started getting nasty after that. He told us that we had no say what he did with his children. Did I mention that this man was HUGE!! He was also wrong. We did have a say. We could refuse to leave until the babysitter came or the husband agreed to stay home with his kids but that could still mean that he would leave them alone by driving his own car to the emergency room leaving the kids at home.

We decided to take them to the emergency room and hopefully be given permission to go back for the children. The hospital was only five blocks away. I did, however, decide to try one more time. I asked if I could have the babysitter's phone number so I could call her. I just irritated the Mr. more so I dropped it.

If you were to ask anyone who works in any emergency service and ask what their worst jobs were they will always say anything that involves children. These children were now our responsibility. It was on us to protect them from the two morons who had created them.

My partner was a very smart man. I was in the back of the truck with Mr. and Mrs. 3 weeks old cold getting their pertinent information. I heard my partner asking for the police to be sent to the apartment. He told our dispatch chief that I would call him when we got to the ED.

I dropped Mr. & Mrs. Asshole ( yes their status had been elevated) with the triage nurse as fast as I could. I called the REMCS ( REMCS is the name of our dispatch center) I gave him the cliff notes version of what had just happened at that we didn't know how many children there even were but we knew could tell they were all young. . I told him about the highchair, baby walker, Lego blocks and school books. I also mentioned that Mr. Asshole had locked the deadbolt with a key. I told him about the mystery babysitter.

He stopped me from speaking because he could tell how emotional I was getting. He gave us permission to go back to the apartment with the Police and find out what the hell was going on.

The Police in our city, God Bless them, worked so damned hard for nearly no money. Their commitment to the public was so admirable that I always hugged them if we ever got to see them. This time they showed up with us. I didn't hug anyone. I just started babbling as fast as I could. I was very grateful to see them but that feeling just didn't last as long as I thought it would.

Get Ready, this next part is going to make you angry. You may even roll your eyes.

One of the officers tried to find the superintendent to come up with the keys. It was a great idea but we would have had a better chance of finding a Yeti in the elevator.

The Lieutenant who was on the desk at the Police precinct told the Officers that he was not going to authorize anyone to open the door because we my partner and I hadn't actually SEEN the children. I explained to the Officer that we were TOLD the kids were there. The LT. still said, " No." Now, these situations are hard when everything is going right but when you get someone who is supposed to be following the law telling you to basically break the law tempers are going to flare.

We were exhausted. The emotional part of this job could be so much harder than the physical part. My partner was already requesting our Chief who was on the road. ( There are always two chiefs on duty. One is in REMCS, the other one is working on the street with us.) . I think both Chiefs were saying the same thing to us. They wanted us to do whatever we had to do to get to the kids. The Chief on the road, was all the way on the other side of the city dealing with a very hectic mess. He just wanted us to keep us informed if things went South.

In lieu of the Lt's comments and the fact that we hadn't found the Super. We did the only thing we could do. We started pounding on the doors. " EMS!!!" EMS!!! IT'S OKAY YOU CAN OPEN THE DOOR, IT'S THE AMBULANCE." One of the Officers also started pounding with me. "POLICE, KIDS. POLICE. IT'S OKAY. OPEN THE DOOR KIDS."

I have to admit that I was still hoping against hope that a real adult would answer the door but that didn't happen. What did happen was that a small, beautiful, face with her eyes still partially closed pulled the door open. She was a little angel in her cute pink onesie. She was eight. One thing was true that Mr. and Mrs. Asshole said, the kids were asleep in the bedroom. This precious eight year old, with her adorable two year old brother and six month old sister were all in the bedroom. These kids were so innocent, as I said, this was a nicer building in the city but this was still a dangerous city. She was only eight and she opened the door for us. We wanted her to, of course, but on the other hand what if it had been someone who would do them harm.

I was livid.( I should probably mention that I have some Italian Ancestry that boils to the top sometimes causing me to yell, scream and even curse sometimes. ) These two assholes had left three tender age children to fend for themselves. What the hell could they be thinking?! This stupid bitch had a cold for three weeks and at 10:30pm on a Saturday night it's suddenly such an emergency that you need and ambulance to take you to the hospital and the asshole she was married to had to go with her!

Oh, but wait my friends this gets so much worse! SOOOOO much WORSE!!! Go ahead and get yourself some Advil, Tylenol maybe even a Xanax. This next part is going to make your head explode. Go ahead. I'll wait..

READY? TAKE A DEEP CLEANSING BREATH!!!

The freakin' apartment was full of smoke! The kitchen was on fire! Mr. Assholes must have forgotten to shut something off while he was eating like a big, huge, pig. He didn't give a crap about the kids but he sure did need to shovel enough food into his face to feed an army. I could hear his arteries screaming as the two of them were lying their fat asses off to us. ( Hey. Mr. Asshole.. I hope I get to attend your cardiac arrest and do absolutely nothing to help you!)

The fire department arrived quickly and put the flames out. The smoke was going to take a while.

We were getting the children dressed and ready to go to the Pediatric Hospital of choice in our city. The room the children were in was sealed pretty tightly but the smoke had gotten under the door. We were going to make sure they got the care they should have gotten from the sperm donor and uterus.

My partner updated our Chiefs. He told them we would be on our way in a minute but once again an assumption bit us in the butt. One of the Officers asked if he could speak with me in the hall. ( He should have picked my partner). He wanted to know where the parents were. I answered him honestly, " St. Michaels." I had no reason to lie.

The Officer then relayed this to his Lt. I had previously mentioned that the children were going to be going to University Hospital. I didn't expect anyone to have a problem with this because a) what the parents did by leaving the kids alone was against the law and they should have been arrested that night. b) children who have been exposed to smoke should be going to the hospital specifically for children.

Here's the part when the Italian Ancestry started to come out. I can hold me temper for a long time but it was around 1am by now. A person can only be surrounded by complete incompetence for so long until they explode, AND EXPLODE I DID. I don't think to many people expect someone my size to get so up in their face. I'm only 4'11" and at that time I was 110lbs. It's amazing how fast my hands can move and how loud I can get when I'm totally done!! This poor Officer was now going to be involved in a screaming match between me and his Lieutenant. Here's how it went.

Stupid Lt.: " Tell EMS to bring the kids back to their parents."

Me: " No, We're taking them to University Peds. ( YES! lets take them to the criminals that abandoned them)

Officer: " Lt, she says they are going to University."

Stupid Lt." YOU TELL HER I SAID TO TAKE THOSE KIDS TO THEIR PARENTS AND NO WHERE ELSE!!!"

Me as Officer keys up his mic: ( commence shouting and arm waving) I DON'T WORK FOR YOU, YOU STUPID ASS FUCKTARD! THE KIDS ARE GOING TO UNIVERSITY!! AND YOU CAN GO TO HELL!!"

I strongly believe that that man must have had a burger with some kind of secret sauce on it that consisted of butt juice. I didn't feel bad for one second over what I said. I did feel bad that at 1 am the entire building was probably wondering if Godzilla had entered the building.

My partner was just as angry but he redirected my attention to the kids. We were the highest medical authority on the scene and according to the law, which stupid Lt. didn't seem to know much about, it was our responsibility to make sure they were medically checked out.

It was now 2am. We had given the kids to trained professionals. The drama was had played itself out.

BUT WAIT, ANOTHER ASSUMPTION DASHED

We were already two hours past time for us to go home. Our REMCS Chief came down from dispatch when we called ourselves out of service. The Chief on the road was in his office. They both told us how proud of us they were. I started to cry. Praise doesn't come often in this line of work but when it does it's cherished.

We put our gear in our lockers, as we were walking towards the door the Chiefs called us into the office and again told us how proud they were of us. The Chief of the road says, " Teresa? Fucktard? Really?" He couldn't hold back his laugh. I was pretty much called Social Worker all the time because I was always so careful and over the top calm with things that would make other people crazy.

I mentioned that I had to call DYFS still but that my partner should go home. The REMCS Chief told me he would do that and not to worry. He wanted us to go home and sleep. (DYFS: Division of Youth and Family Services. in New Jersey)

My partner then noticed that the Chiefs were writing our names on two forms. They were writing out our life saving actions of the night. I hadn't even wanted to think about what would have happened had those children been left alone. They were putting us in for A class awards. These are awards that are given for people who go above and beyond the line of duty. This a very rare and special award.. It's also extremely humbling. I really started to cry and I hugged them both.

The reason that REMCS Chief wanted us to leave that night was because he didn't want us to hear what was being said by the Lt. He told our REMCS Chief that he was going to have my partner and I arrested for deliberately leaving the children in danger in the first place if anyone reported those parents to DYFS.

Guess what?! That Lieutenant lost some bars that night over a complaint filed by our Director of Operations. He got busted back down to Sargent and put behind a desk!

HAH!! Add that to your secret sauce you F--KT--d!!!!

If you felt anything while reading this story please light up my heart and if it really moved you tips are always appreciated. A girl needs her chocolate! Thank you.

""