How long does it take to make your heart take a back seat? To be able to do your job efficiently and yet keep your feelings out of the equation? I honestly believe that if you work in public service (law enforcement and ems), and half way give a darn there really isn’t an end in sight for the constant feel that you just weren’t good enough, talented enough, or fast enough to save a life or that your intervention was inadequate.
Jonathan recently had to be there for me in a big way. A few weeks ago, a page went out early in the morning about a premature baby- not breathing, no pulse. Parents were performing CPR. Staggering out of bed, I went to the call. Last I saw him the baby was breathing and had a pulse- on his way to the hospital in the ambulance. About 2 days later I found out that he had died in the hospital- all my intervention still hadn’t saved his life. I got this over whelming sense that I had failed him. About 2 weeks after that- I saw the baby’s face everywhere- literally! The Athens Banner Herald did a special human interest article on him, with a huge photo of his face plastered on the front of the paper. Everywhere I went his soul full eyes were haunting me, making me question myself and what we had all done. Telling yourself that it wasn’t your fault, or that you did all you could doesn’t make the hurt go away- or fix that nagging feeling that you could have done more even though you knew you did it all.
Jonathan has faced similar situations in his line of work. Except perhaps he feels slightly more useless than I do, as he is forced to listen to people’s tragedies through the telephone or attempt to help save officers’ lives over the radio. I can’t imagine sometimes what it must be like to be him in some of those situations. To have the fortitude to sit there and listen to someone getting beaten, crying, or pleading for someone to help. I often sit and wonder what it must be like to be the voice of salvation on the end of the phone- yet be unable to be their literal savior… but all too often their condemned martyr if it is all for naught. Recently, Jonathan had to do what I know in my heart I couldn’t- he was forced to listen to a woman bleed to death and literally die in his ear, as she bled out from one of her dialysis ports. I have lost 2 patients, but not once have I felt like I could do nothing- to be the last one a person hears, well- its too much for me to bear. My deaths have all been silent affairs.
It may seem as if the loads are getting heavier, but in reality they are all the same as they were when we were fresh and new. The trick is to lean on one another, and hope that a triumph continues to come- even every great once in a while.
