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11.76% Incendiary / Chapter 8: Chapter 8: CPR Call

Chapter 8: Chapter 8: CPR Call

“The State of New Jersey says I’m still an EMT.”

The traffic on Main Street at this time of the afternoon moved aside before the ambulance drove near. Chelsea wondered what angels had arranged it so the two-mile trek took a few minutes instead of the ten on a bad day.

“Dispatch Unit 79 on scene. What’s the ETA of the medics?”

“They’re enroute to the hospital with a patient. They expect to be clear in ten minutes.”

“Roger.”

Bringing the unit to a halt in front of the house, Chelsea shut down all but one flasher and jumped out of the rig. “Get the clipboard.”

“Check,” Brad answered and snapped on gloves.

Chelsea also pulled on gloves, and lifted the oxygen kit out of the rig.

She ran up the steps and pushed the door open to the two-story house. Much to her surprise, the patient sat in the front hallway up against a wall. The majority of injuries happened in the bathroom.

On the down side, his gray and sweaty pallor didn’t bode well for him.

The sight of Jake sitting on the floor next to the patient stopped her for a moment. That’s right, he lived next door.

She set down her kit next to Joe O’Malley, her best friend’s husband. “Hey Joe, I’m going to put on some oxygen.”

“Chelsea, I’m sure it’s just indigestion,” Joe gasped out.

That’s what everybody thinks. So much so that she tells her CPR students that it’s a pretty sure sign someone is having a heart attack. She glanced up at Sarah O’Malley and flashed her a reassuring smile. “Let’s take a look anyway.”

Sweat poured off of him. She put a mask on the end of the tubing coming from the oxygen tank, then filled the bag on it. “This will feel weird, but you won’t suffocate.”

Joe nodded and let her put the mask on his face. She put her gloved hand on his wrist for a pulse check.

Brad put a blood pressure cuff on his other arm and pumped it up. “One eighty over one forty.”

“Not good Joe, but we’re here to help. Brad’s going to listen to your lungs,” Chelsea said.

Joe struggled with the mask, knocking it off his face.

“Joe, it’s okay. You won’t suffocate.” She set it back on his face.

He struggled to speak. “Sorry. Can’t.”

“You need the oxygen.”

“Joe, do it,” Sarah commanded in between whimpers. Chelsea had forgotten about her friend, having blocked out everyone, but the patient.

This time Brad put it on him.

“Where does it hurt?” Chelsea asked.

Joe pointed to the middle of his chest, his hand shaking. His eyelids dropped and his hand fell into his lap.

“Joe?” Her hand went to check for his carotid pulse. Nothing.

Sarah screamed. “Joe.”

“Get him lying down,” Chelsea directed.

“What’s wrong?” Jake asked as he helped the patient to the floor.

“Brad go grab the AED.” Turning to Jake she asked, “Can you do CPR?”

He nodded.

“Then start compressions.”

***

Jake opened the man’s striped pajama shirt and landmarked for CPR. He searched his memory banks and out of the depths came his training. It had been two years.

Chelsea tore a bag-valve-mask and an airway out of the green oxygen kit. She inserted the airway into Joe’s mouth and placed the mask on his face. The other mask lay discarded still around his neck. “Count out loud.”

“Ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen.”

When he reached thirty, Chelsea squeezed air into the patient. Brad returned with the automated external defibrillator. “Medics aren’t clear from the last call yet.” He dropped to his knees to unpack the unit.

“Damn.”

Sweat poured off Jake as he watched the exchange and compressed the man’s chest. “Three, four, five.”

“Tell them to get Mercy Seven,” Chelsea demanded.

“Seven, eight, nine.”

Brad relayed the request to dispatch and began setting up the AED. “Let me put these pads on.”

Jake sat back on his heels as the other man applied the pads. Sarah sat on the steps and cried. He wished he could comfort her and leave the rescue to the EMT’s. He could run into burning buildings, but death and dying people unnerved him.

Brad turned on the AED. “Don’t touch the patient.”

A voice from the machine said, “Analyzing patient now. Do not touch the patient.”

Jake could hear his own breathing as he hoped for Joe to start breathing. He didn’t like the gray hue of the patient.

“Shock advised. Charging. Do not touch the patient,” an electronic voice said.

Jake moved further away. Chelsea pulled off the bag-valve-mask.

“Clear.”

Brad pushed the blinking green button on the AED. Joe’s body jumped a little, but not like in medical dramas.

Jake moved to continue compressions.

Chelsea’s red face worried Jake. She bit her lip. He’d never seen her this upset.

“One, two, three, four,” Jake counted.

“It’ll time it until it's been two minutes. Keep going until the machine says otherwise.”

He went to thirty and she put two breaths in with the mask. The machine cut in as he finished his fifth cycle. “Analyzing heart rhythm. Do not touch the patient.”

Jake expected to have nightmares about that voice. All three shifted away from Joe who remained still and gray.

Another squad member arrived and took Sarah and the clipboard into another room.

The AED shocked Joe one more time before the paramedics rolled onto the scene.

Jake made room, but watched as the rescuers worked as if in a play. Fifteen minutes later, the paramedics pronounced Joe O’Malley dead.

Chelsea led Sarah back to her husband’s body. The woman sobbed as the rescuers gave her room for her grief. The scene seemed surreal to him. He’d never watched someone die before this.

Chelsea leaned on the wall. Tears filled her eyes. Her fists clenched and released as she fought for control. He wished he could put his arms around her.

Jake stood and walked out onto the porch.

He hadn’t saved the man.


Chapter 9: Chapter 9: Adrenaline Fatique

Chelsea pushed off against the wall, the weight of her task threatening to make her stumble. She never felt sorry for the dead men walking, ones who had done something to deserve facing death. Instead, she pitied the person who had to walk the widow away after seeing her husband die.

Being the friend of the widow made it even worse.

Taking a deep breath, she put her arm around Sarah’s shoulders. Her sobs shook them both as they walked as one into a modest living room.

They settled on the couch and she gave Sarah a minute to compose herself. She needed the time also. She wiped her arm across her face.

Houses without outlet covers and with knickknacks in plain sight always amazed Chelsea. She wouldn't be able to keep Max safe in an environment like that. A whiff of lavender crossed her nostrils and she looked around for its source. Sarah’s voice brought her gaze back.

“He came down for a midnight snack. He didn’t come back,” she said wringing a tattered tissue in her hands. “He’d said he had indigestion earlier. I didn’t think anything of it.”

Chelsea put a hand on her arm. “You couldn’t have known, honey.”

Her friend seemed to look right through her. “He was my husband. I should have sensed something.”

“Sarah you can’t beat yourself up about this. I’m really sorry, but I need to ask you a few questions. Or would it be easier if someone else talked to you?”

Sarah shook her head and wiped her eyes again. “No, I’d rather you stay, Chelsea.”

“Did Joe have a history of heart disease?”

The woman wrung her hands then took a deep breath almost composing herself. “No, he’d just been to the doctor.”

The statement left Chelsea cold. A forty-year-old man dying of a heart attack seemed strange. She’d seen it before, but that person had been on medication for high cholesterol. “Was he taking any medications?”

Sarah nodded.

Here we go, thought Chelsea.

“Just a nasal spray for his allergies.” She moved as if to stand, but plopped back down on the couch as a new wave of tears washed over her face.

Chelsea swallowed back her own. “I’ll get it.”

Sarah waved her hand toward the kitchen.

Chelsea passed a wall with Joe and Sarah’s wedding picture on it. Their smiles spoke of the promise of a long life together. A promise that had just ended in their front hall.

Photos of children surrounded it, possibly nieces and nephews since they didn’t have any children of their own. She bit her lip, not wanting to cry again. Yet.

Max’s face loomed and she still couldn’t believe how blessed she was to have him in her life. Even if she’d lost her sister in the process.

She returned with the nasal spray to a still shaken Sarah. “Is this it?”

“Uh, huh.” Sniff. “He took it for allergies.”

Chelsea recognized the drug, but it didn’t help to answer any of her questions.

****

Half an hour later, Chelsea swallowed around a lump as she cleaned up the mess she and the medics had made. A white blanket covered Joe. Sarah’s sister had come over to comfort the grieving widow.

Shredded and empty, while her hands shook, she went about her task. The man had been too young to die. “What do you think happened?”

She turned to Josie, the female medic, who shrugged. “He could have had a heart defect that he didn’t know about.”

She tossed discarded wrappers into the plastic bag Chelsea offered. The woman seemed to be moving in slow motion, her gloved hand picking up then dropping bits of white paper and plastic. Her white uniform shirt contrasted with her mocha skin. Chelsea had never noticed this before.

She shook her head and blinked hard and every movement went back to normal speed. “I don’t understand why his oxygen level was so low. It was as if it wasn’t getting into his system.”

“Seems odd, but I’ve seen it before. We won’t know unless they perform an autopsy.”

“Mm.”

Something didn’t seem right to her, but she couldn’t wrap her brain around the answer. The medics gathered their kits and left. They expected the medical examiner out of Newark any minute. He’d decide to sign off or take the body into custody if he thought the death suspicious.

Chelsea held her suspicions.

Brad had put all the squad’s kits back on the rig. Chelsea stood over Joe as a hollowness settled into her soul. Was life ever short?

The man didn’t even have children yet.

Sighing she turned to look for Brad.

Instead she saw Jake talking to the other medic. He had always been far more sensitive than her about people. He complained that she could help people, but she couldn’t get close to them.

“I heard her scream from my house next door.”

Chelsea’s eyes flicked that way. She’d known he had moved there, but she didn't know who had told her that.

“We don’t save them all,” Bill said.

He squeezed Jake’s shoulder and walked toward the medic truck.

Strung out from the call, Chelsea couldn’t face Jake. Too much history. Too much emotion. Too much time passed.

But she couldn’t stay in the house forever.

He turned to look at her when the screened door slammed shut behind her. His brown eyes, even in the dim porch light, looked glazed over making her heart go out to him.

“Are you okay?” she asked, suppressing the urge to touch him.

He ran a hand through his hair. It left him with a cowlick she longed to smooth.

“I will be. Is it always like that?”

She nodded. “CPR calls are never fun. Especially if the person doesn’t make it.”

His scent wafted at her conjuring memories of the refuge she sought with him on some bad nights riding with the squad in their younger days. When the people she couldn’t save, walked through her nightmares. No one else had listened.

She swallowed.


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