back in the trenches

Week two at the St. Louis Fire Department. I'm through all of my classroom orientation, and I've worked three shifts on the streets. I had been jokingly predicting that I would be assigned to night shift in north city, because I'm the rookie, and that's the worst time and the worst part of St. Louis for violent crime. Good call. That's where I am.

And it is something.

In three 12-hour night shifts in north St. Louis I have seen a patient who was hit in the head with a brick by her son (incurred a serious brain bleed, went into cardiac arrest and died three times, and was revived)...an ex-marine cop come close to executing an HIV-positive satanist who spit in the cop's face in the back of my ambulance...several patients living in completely third-world conditions with no lights, heat, or electricity at all...some wicked car wrecks resulting from drunken urban street racing...and three heroin overdoses. So far, I've managed to avoid the plethora of shootings and stabbings that have happened since I started on Friday. [Interesting side note: my first night, we had an army medic riding with us. She was shipped to St. Louis from Cali-freaken-fornia for two weeks to get experience treating gunshot wounds before being shipped out to Afghanistan. Really? She was based one hour from Los Angeles. St. Louis is worse than L.A? According to her, the army's research shows that St. Louis and Baltimore have the highest rate of shootings per capita in the U.S.; they were offered a choice between the two cities. I got a kick out of that, and then I made sure I knew where we keep the bullet-proof vests on the truck]

I have to admit that I was really anxious about getting back into this field after what I went through last year, and the reputation St. Louis has, learning to sleep during the day again, learning to leave the comfort of being the EMT/driver and become the medic-in-charge, making huge, weighty decisions about peoples' lives and well-being in a split-second, the paperwork, all the extra responsibility...

I'm still being trained by another paramedic for the next few weeks - every shift I'm handed new responsibilities and given more leeway. So I don't know yet what it will feel like when at last the doors are closed and I'm in the back of the bus by myself with the patient, and there's no one there to bail me out.

But I can say that, to my great relief, I love it. I see this job in a different light than when I first got into this business four years ago. I didn't start this new job in St. Louis with any delusions of what being a paramedic is all about. I've been around the block - through the jadedness and cynicism that everyone experiences when they learn what it's really like. I know that it's not at all what you see on t.v. And I'm thankful for that.

May I keep my heart open, my mind sharp, and my body strong as I dig in and experience the underbelly of my hometown.