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| Only here is every night a potential for a water rescue, building fire, cardiac arrest or all of the above within twelve hours. Only here is every morning a chance for a multi-causality incident on the expressway, because here in a city with a population of almost one a half million people and one of the busiest EMS systems in the country those once in a career calls happen here more often then not. Only here is where some find love, where we bear witness to the rare beginning of life and more frequently its ending. Only, here is where we work night after night away from those we love only to treasure the nights we do have even more. In the intersection of streets amidst the tangled web of steel in car accidents, in the middle of the block standing in the background as smoke pours from the second floor of a row. Among the chaos, among the tears, among the struggle of hope in the fear here is another beginning. Another season with stories to tell and a snap shot of the lives lived on the edge.
Introduction Song: “Always” –Switchfoot
EMT’s and Paramedic’s in training are always taught the idea of scene safety, they learn to say “scene safe” in each practice scenario but in reality when dangerous situations take place you rarely see them until your knee deep in them. We respond to the report of a “fall” on the bus. When we arrive I park a little ahead of the bus and we both enter through the front door of the bus. Lying on the floor is a large male who is awake, talking and doesn’t at all appear injured. The bus driver says the male has been riding the bus for miles and just recently rolled off the seat and refused to get up so we were called. We ask the guy to get up and within minuets others are yelling at this man to get up. My partner and I take a few steps away and find ourselves between the angry women and the man who has now climbed to his feet and began walking towards us. Moments later I advised our dispatcher we needed police for a fight on the bus. But in this moment as the male began walking toward us we realized there were no escape routes on a bus. The man walks by, nearly fights with the women again but gets off the bus. It looked as if the situation was over but then as we were on the bus and the man off, he took off running for our truck and to us all we could imagine was this insane man stealing our ambulance. We take off running and at that moment another bus pulls along side the scene and the mans attention turns towards getting on that bus but our quick waves at that bus signals the driver to continue without opening its doors. With the second bus out of the picture the nearly three-hundred and fifty pound man with moves like the matrix has turned his attention back to us as we take off towards the truck. In the seconds where he charges at us like an angry elephant I had the radio in hand asking for a “police assist.” Our equivalent to the most urgent request for back up you can ask for, because within minuets the entire police district is on scene, as well as most of the boarding police district and the man is taken away in custody.
One night after our first police assist we arrived an hour early to relieve the day crew as they had asked. Our first hour wouldn’t involve a critically ill patient, wouldn’t be an overly easy patient. It wouldn’t be the response time to the scene we remember, or even the patient we would remember but the fight that took place in the middle of a nursing home. As we assessed the patient who had been assaulted by another person in the nursing home a staff member starts arguing with a totally different person in the common area. Within minuets the argument has degenerated into that person trying to break out of the nursing home. Moments after arguing with the staff member the elderly male is throwing a chair at the locked doors and all we can do is ask for police as he takes other objects around the room and throwing them around. After finally removing our patient from the scene I spent the entire ride to the hospital on the phone with medical command and my supervisor trying to get someone to sort out the disaster that was that nursing facility.
Segue Song: “Closer” –Kings of Leon
At 0700 in a city the traffic has already been in motion for awhile and the rat race is in motion. A gradual trickle of calls begins to flow into the 911 center and slowly squares are getting there last run of the night. At 0704 while sitting outside of McDonald’s instead of getting a quick morning breakfast we are dispatched to the expressway for an “accident with police involved.” We respond cutting through traffic and arrive before the Engine or Ladder. Sitting in the right West Bound lane is a police wagon that rear ended an empty school bus. Two officers stand outside the wagon and look dazed but not seriously injured. My second question to the officers to them was “does your wagon have anyone in it?” and what followed wasn’t what I expected. Ten prisoners sat inside, and of coarse all complained of something. My follow up report to the dispatcher was “I need five additional squads, and my supervisor.” By the time my engine arrived we had the officers in our truck, staging orders out for the mess of incoming squads. By the time my EMS Lieutient arrived, all the equipment was staged the police preparing for escorts of all the prisoners to the hospitals, and the surrounding hospitals capacity. We transported the officers before they began to remove the prisoners one by one, but saw the parade of squads followed by other police wagons. Twelve patients would be transported to two hospitals, and luckily there were no serious injuries except for the disaster of traffic that was left in the wake of our little mass causality in the morning.
The middle of October came, the thirteenth of the month to be exact. We working the evening of the twelfth this year but after midnight it officially became one full year I had been at my station and with my partner. My gift as it was for her was more of an arts and crafts project then anything expensive. Our original favorite snack was Triskets so I took a box, but covered most of it with paper and wrote humorous things either she said, I said or we’ve had patient’s say in the last year. Halloween is just around the corner, a potential second Phillies World Series Win, and then the holiday season. There is always something taking place in the city and as one Paramedic said in the city we get ten for everyone one of a call anywhere else. So stay tuned to the year ahead and everything that is bound to happen.
Episode Song: “Meet Me On The Equinox” –Death Cab for Cutie
Today’s Five Points
5-a whole family of people with hands on there shoulers
4-driving with his entire body outside the window
3-there literally cleaning hoarse sh*t off the sidewalk
2-“my stomach is being belligerent” –said the patient
1-R.G.S The Game
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| Friday, September 18th, 2009
| | Season Twelve: Episode Sixteen “Time of the Season” | The sweat of summer is almost gone, because I can feel the return of fall in the night sky. Something about the smell brings back so many memories. Memories of starting Paramedic school, or working day after night at Applebee’s before finally becoming a Paramedic the Winter soon after. Late one night we respond to a rental truck lot for a patient that others found walking around the lot confused. A few short seconds of assessment found a truck driver in his fifties with a genuine aphasic stroke. I’d ask him one thing that you could see in his eyes he would understand what I said but would be unable to communicate it to me. Being a transient truck driver Dana’s biggest fear after the call was the patient’s small dog we left behind in his car. With the encouragement of the hospital, the blessing of the dispatch supervisor we returned to the scene and retrieved the dog and brought it to our station. Dana would watch the dog for a few days until a family member of the patient finally arrived to retrieve the dog.
Introduction Song: “Run This Town” –Jay-Z f/t Kanye West and Rihanna
Towards the end of summer Candice, her daughter and I took advantage of a weekend off and traveled to Wildwood, New Jersey. A few months back her grandmother died and her house in Wildwood while on the market is being used by the family for a place to stay at the shore for the time being. Although the weatherman threatened a terrible weekend with a passing tropic storm off shore the only rain came over Friday night with Saturday and Sunday being beautiful shore days. We walked the boardwalk, spent an afternoon at the beach and visited plenty of local landmarks before it was time to return home late Sunday evening. One of the best parts about working such an amazing job is being able to have the time and the extra money to take the chance to do something like this. The ocean’s surf was too rough to venture any deeper then your knees but the simply beautiful blue sky and simple love of those who surround you can overcome any simple obstacle. In a few days it would be time to return to the streets and to the conclusion of the summer.
Add to the list of things you’ll never do while working outside the city is responding to and spending over an hour on a Marine Unit. Early one evening a “river rescue” assignment is dispatched in the area of one of the project apartment complex’s in the West. Two medic units are due on these assignments with the first sent to the scene we are sent to the Marine Unit. The only problem is my partner and I have no idea where Marine Unit 2 is. You can see the boat and its station from one of the local bridges but it took the Marine Unit communicating its location to us over the radio for us to get there since our attempt to call the dispatch center and get directions taught us they don’t know how to get to Marine Unit 2 either. We arrived finally and grabbing our gear jumped on the boat and like more fire related incidents the first fifteen minuets were exciting but two hours later I literally shook the officer on the boat begging him to get us of this boring boat. Watching the lighting crack across the skyline, the light rain fall across the river and units cross the water looking for a female in the river was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before. Sadly for this female’s family she was discovered days later in the water in an apparent accident where she fell into the river while playing with friends.
Segue Song: “On To The Next One” –Jay-Z f/t Swizz Beatz
Where else can you assist with a newly delivered baby at the end of one night shift and the beginning of the next night revive a man pulled from the river in cardiac arrest? The first call of the evening was dispatched as another “river rescue” assignment and following behind our Engine and Ladder we arrive on one of the streets that over looks the Schuylkill River to see a group of people with someone down and CPR in progress. We hustle back into the truck and around a few blocks until we arrive on the trail next to the river where the scene is unfolding. Bystanders report they pulled a man from the river after being down for about ten minuets. We are there with the Squad Company, Chief and within a couple of minuets a crowd has gathered a few feet away and News Helicopter are overhead. As we break out our equipment some guy in work out cloths is walking around saying “I can intubate, do you want me to intubate?” One of the firefighters on scene kindly pulls him aside and says “Let the medics do there job.” My partner takes the head and I work on access at the patient’s side. The patient is in Asystole but in short order his airway is secured, IV in place and the Epinephrine and Atropine have been given. Shockingly the patient regains a pulse; converts to a Sinus Tachycardia and soon after were applying diesel treatment on the way to the hospital. Like the three other patient’s we resuscitated in the field this year we arrive at the hospital and the patient soon after receives the Hypothermic Resuscitation Protocol and the doctor reports a few days later the patient is awake and talking. After the call we are restocking at the Squad Company’s station when the Officers stops each of us and asks if he has our name and payroll numbers correct for when he puts us in for a Commendation. The rest of the night, or the entire week for that matter will likely go by forgotten compared to this drowning by the river turned into our fourth field resuscitation.
Segue Song II: “Real as It Gets” –Jay-Z f/t Young Jeezy
For months the mayor has threatened lay offs and the closure of a massive amount of city departments and services if he didn’t get a tax increase. The greater the treats the more it seemed like Chicken Little was screaming the sky was falling. I feared in beginning I would lose the job, the partner and the station that make me the luckiest new medic around. But in the eleventh hour the state house and senate passed the bill into law that “saved” a doomsday in the city and tonight both new police officers, firefighters and medics can go to work knowing there not going anywhere for the time being. This season started eleven months ago with me completing my preceting in the falls and my beginning under the skyline. It’s only fitting that one of the most dramatic calls in this seasons conclusion would happen a few feet away from where our first call was on the banks of the Schuylkill River. A year ago to this day the season ended with thoughts of what would come when our class was let lose on these streets. Would we make a difference? Maybe four field resuscitations and a baby delivered among the thousands of other calls the answer is yes. Nobody can change this city alone, its something a million people together must do as I knew it would happen these streets have changed our lives.
Episode Song: “Time of the Season” –The Zombies
Today’s Five Points
5-aqua man does cpr and my first “Giant” LP Code
4-“tri-or something a milli ped”
3-critical patients shouldn’t back seat drive
2-the wet man with no shoes
1-critically low on snack food
Music from “Time of the Season” features Jay-Z and the new album “Blueprint 3” |
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| Thursday, August 6th, 2009
| | Season Twelve: Episode Fifteen “Rescue Seven” | Sometimes it seems like everyone in the city is trying to die in front of you. These are the nights that your partner is detailed to another squad. This was the night you extricate a man from his car in the middle of a late night summer rain storm. He crashed into a parked car and has a head wound so deep it soaks the inside of my truck with blood. Only in the city will your next call be a stroke patient. Because on a weekend night like this in the city you spend more time on the phone with the command doctor then you will with your girlfriend. After calls like that you just beg for your next to be one that doesn’t require two IV’s. I use to fantasize before this job about how many calls like this you could do now fantasy is reality. Multi-tube, multi-code, multi-trauma and critical medical calls happen all the time and all night long. Two am is the middle of an eight to eight shift and when by three you want to curl up on the stretcher night to the baby your transporting that is when your next stop is Wawa where standing in line you’re begging for these M&M’s and sandwich to give you a second wind. Hours later after the man with the massive head wound, your stretcher is still weeping blood lucky for you the patient is drunk and only you and the firemen your working with has noticed. The sounds of morning have started, the sun is soon to rise and the calls haven’t stopped, and this is the point you realize your second wind hasn’t come and oral glucose is a quick pick up when you’re transporting the seizure patient to the hospital. The fireman gives you a strange look when you arrive at the hospital, but its summer in the city and everything is fair game.
Introduction Song: “Fugitive” –David Gray
With summer comes “pop up” storms, full of thunder, lighting and drenching rain storms it always seems to be raining while I’m at work and sunny when I’m off. So when you apply Murphy’s Law to the city it means that when the rain begins people will begin to crash into each other, or in the worst case scenario a pedestrian crossing a busy street will be struck by a car. My Partner and I are responding from a hospital for a pedestrian struck on one of the busy local roads that is known for its accidents. We arrive seconds behind the Engine and find a male in his fifties in the fetal position who is bleeding from the head and very shallow breathing. It’s clear the patient has a massive head injury, but with a strong radial pulse the brain hasn’t told the body to die yet. We package the patient and move quickly to the truck. At some point the Engine crew either heard us shout in the middle of the rain for a driver or figured we needed it anyone and in the back my partner and I worked to keep the patient from arresting before we arrive at the hospital. I have two unsuccessful intubation attempts on scene and en route pull out the strait blade, attach it to the laryngoscope and with my last attempt manage to find the vocal cords and we are securing the tube as the truck pulls to a stop at the hospital. The patient later dies, and no matter how much blood you think you cleaned the next day after these calls you find more.
When it’s not raining during the summer it’s so hot that it’s only a matter of time before the shootings and stabbings begin. While between calls my partner and I are sitting somewhere between the West and our local downtown waiting for a call in whatever direction it may come. The next night when were the last squad left we parked next to the highway and just waited until we had a call and a direction to go. But this night we respond West for a stabbing and driving through back streets we again nearly beat the Engine Company to the call. The patient had been stabbed in the shoulder and while he wasn’t bleeding severely it was another night and at least this time a simple Trauma Alert. As the city continues to run with blood from the endless cycle of violence and people wait nearly a half an hour for EMS to arrive the Mayor announces his disaster budget plan. The mayor who after waiting for the State to pass a sales tax increase and pension funding readjustment said he’ll lay off three thousand city employees if he doesn’t get what he wants. Included in that three thousand would be one third of the police department, one hundred and twenty firefighters and forty paramedics in that number would likely include my job, my classmates and the medics that just completed the Academy.
Segue Song: “Bullet the Blue Sky” –U2
Last week the Mayor who eight months ago cut nearly an entire battalion of Fire Units from the city, announced a plan to do it again. He stood before the media and people and said that if the state doesn’t allow him to raise taxes then he’ll lay offs Firefighters, Paramedics, Police and close multiple other city funded services. The media in the city just like the previous time the mayor threatened cuts gives more coverage to city pools also known as free daycare, and the libraries instead of the Emergency Services aspect. There are no cuts to Emergency Medical Services in the city that won’t cause the system to fall further into chaos that it was just recently growing out of. There are no cuts to the Police department that will not cause a further decrease in the protection of citizens and increase in crime within the city. People have died in house fires located in the area where the Engine Companies were once housed before this Mayor arrived and if the State doesn’t allow the city to help itself I’m afraid not for my job but for the citizens who will suffer the consequences. We’ll find out shortly if these lays offs will happen, if it’s all political posturing or if the state will allow a tax increase. But until then all we can do is the same thing we do every night, get in the truck do the job every time were called to do it.
A week or so ago my unit celebrated thirty-five years as the first Paramedic Unit in the city. The modern Emergency Medical System began very similar throughout the areas, first firefighters trained in advanced first aid, then as EMT’s and eventually advanced trained Paramedics took to the streets. In this city these were first firefighters that were cross trained but in the years ahead Paramedics like me would be hired and serve only that role. Thirty-five years ago this would have been a much different city for the first paramedics to work. None of the modern vehicles, technology, radios, bags or equipment was present in the beginning. These Paramedics set the ground work for what we have today. I asked a patient once what people use to do before 911 and jokily the patient said “people just died.” This city still struggles every night because there are not enough Paramedics, and there are too many that abuse the system. But on that rare occasion we have a patient that is in dire need of advanced care, it’s those moments that this job makes you feel so alive. When your elbow deep in blood trying to secure an airway, or feeling the pulse of a patient that on your last round of CPR had none you realize why you do this job.
Episode Song: “Sway” –The Kooks
Today’s Five Points
5-the night of GI Bleeds and “that nurse”
4-The failed forced entry with oxygen bottle
3-“we can’t lose him!” –says the silly nursing home nurse
2-and people are surprised they get hit by cars
1-14 tubes to date in ‘09 |
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| Monday, July 6th, 2009
| | Season Twelve: Episode Fourteen “A Cottage by the Ocean” | Our vacation plans began long ago, see vacation plans are a lot more complicated then you could have ever imagined growing up. With over a week set aside and an idea how much we wanted to spend it started as a cruise and ended up as a rental cottage in New England. What the map called three hundred and eighty miles away turned into over seven hours of driving. The morale of the story there is to not work overnight into the day you leave for vacation. We traveled north, then west to try and avoid any New York City traffic and while the GPS is helpful in so many other ways when your constantly looking at your expected arrival time grow it can be a kick in your confidence when your stuck in traffic or another detour around construction. First through New York, then Connecticut, Rhode Island any finally East through Massachusetts. The final route we would travel was US Rt-6 which in the dark looked like nothing but a single lane traveling next to the Ocean and our only end in sight was the GPS that was finally indicating our destination was near. We finally arrived at our Cottage by the Ocean set under a perfectly clear night you could literally see every star you never saw under the city lights in the sky. Using the car’s headlights we managed to figure out which cottage was ours and after pulling the bare necessities from the car collapsed into bed.
Introduction Song: “Alligator Pie” –Dave Matthews Band
The sunlight of the next morning revealed the stunning sight of the area we would spend the next seven days. Our simple blue cottage was a few feet from an empty beach and Atlantic Ocean and a sign along one of the roads described the area best when it said “Rural Area.” We were hours from home and what seemed like hours from civilization and it couldn’t have been a more perfect location for a vacation. The next seven days would be unlike any we would have at home and seven days of memories we will have forever.
Segue Song: “You and Me” –Dave Matthews Band
On one of our many day trips during the vacation we traveled about seventy-five miles to Boston. Part of me wanted to see signs of civilization again; the rest was to see another city. As soon as we arrived we stopped for lunch at one of our favorite restaurants, and soon after began walking some of the scenic park areas near by. After we had our fill of walking found the Boston duck tour, and while it was a little expensive it was a lot of fun. It was a ninety minuet mostly historic trip through the city and when the boat entered one of the rivers the tour guide gave Faith a chance to drive. I tried to grab pictures from a few rows back, and he tried to steer the boat back away from the bridge she managed to point the craft towards. We made it home late that night and with only a few days remaining still filled vacation excitement but starting to feel that itch to return home. On some of our other trips we traveled to the edge of the Cap for a Whale watching cruise into the Atlantic Ocean. It was three or four hours long and wasn’t cheap but wasn’t an experience we could get anywhere else. To add to the adventures with a three year old you can add trying to get her to use the bathroom on a boat. There is hardly enough room for one person let alone two and try explaining to them that others are waiting to is useless. Other days we travel to a few small towns near by, at one we take a scenic train ride around the cape, and another we shop for souvenirs. In another town we stop at a firefighter themed gift shop and a unusual Zooquarium where there are a group of ducks that playfully chase each other.
After a week away from life it was time to pack our bags again, load the car and return home. In the week we were there the Ocean was never warm enough to swim in, and the Beach never really warm enough outside to spend a long time on. But with the few minuets we had left I took Faith down to the beach to find some seashells. For the last week she attempted to find every shell in the cottage and make them her own. If you ask me there is no value in somebody else’s seashells and the true fun comes in walking the shore and collecting your own. Even though her three year old attention span required me to do most of the finding she still found some I wouldn’t have spotted. I imagined the week we just lived in the footsteps we took alone on this beach. In the mini-road trip it took to get here, all the little day trips and the peaceful sound of the Ocean pushing into the shore at night. The sound of the Ocean at night is so foreign when your use to falling asleep to the sound of sirens. After finding all the seashells I could carry we walked back up the steps from the beach and towards the cottage.
Episode Song: “Little Shadow” –Yeah Yeah Yeah’s
Today’s Five Points
5-“goofy ghetto shit”
4-“p*** peek-a-boo”
3-tenth 09 tube
2-firemen follow simple tasks well
1-june, the only month without a code |
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| Thursday, June 11th, 2009
| | Season Twelve: Episode Thirteen “Blood, Sweat and Transmission Fluid” | There is a constant cycle of day and night and when you work our schedule this time of year you get to see the sun set just after the beginning of the shift around eight-thirty. Then about nine hours later after responding to countless calls the sun returns again. Most people haven’t even woken up yet to prepare to come to work, but a few cars are beginning to line the roadways. Shortly before the sun rises and after the violence has ended for now nearly every medic unit is back in the station and the crew taking advantage of the silence to sleep. It may seem sort of like a repeat to talk of another sun rise or sun set but if you have watched as many as me you’d begin to realize how often they are different. Just like each shift on these streets each can be so radically different from each other, and regardless of how long they may feel they always come to an end. Now another night, and another shift is beginning what is told may not have come from one twelve hour period. They still tell of our lives and the lives of those who pass through this part of the story.
Introduction Song: “Seven” –Dave Matthews Band
The boarder or city limits are spelled out without question. But in the dark of the night among the twist metal of cars, people lying across the highway and crowds gathering amidst the trees the boarder is blurred. My partner and I respond to a call for an accident at an intersection but when we arrive at the set location are directed by others further up the road into what some call the “neutral zone” between the city and county to our south. In this area a cell signal will travel to whatever cell tower it wants and tonight this was our accident and a man covered in blood was walking up to our truck before it even stopped. I left my partner to assist the first patient as I traveled up the roadway to survey the rest of the scene. I found what looked like three cars that seemed to be crumpled together into one mass of metal. This roadway was a winding two lane road that crossed between a park, were surrounded by people screaming “yo, there’s a lady lying out on da’ road man!” and I find a female in her thirties lying on her side crying. A quick assessment finds nothing urgently wrong with her and I tell her I’ll be back as I return to the truck to grab equipment to package her. At some point I broke through the radio traffic to call for an Engine Company to assist us and later gave them direction to where we were located. A group of others claims to be uninjured and I return to the lady on the road and with the assistance of bystanders place a C-Collar on her and put her on the long board. Some lady on scene is praying for Jesus to save the patient, someone else is trying to talk to the patient while smoking a cigarette. The patient is lying in some type of fluid that was leaking from the car, or cars and while packing her I direct the lady smoking to “get the hell back” before she blew everyone up and managed to splash myself in the face with it and cover myself with it. My supervisor would later arrive, call for another ambulance and at the calls end we would transport two patients and the other crew a third. It was another night in the city and tonight I would be covered in blood, sweat and transmission fluid.
In EMS when you’re dispatched to a call you’re typically given a set amount of information that was gathered by the dispatcher from a caller. Obviously you’re given the location of the call, then the chief complaint or call type as well as sex, age, and sometimes additional notes are added depending on the call. Specific words like “on the street”, “third party caller”, or “no caller” make you doubt if there will even be a patient. In our system a 911 call first goes through Police intake and sometimes a caller will hang up before they are ever transferred to a Fire-Rescue dispatcher and thus “no caller.” Then there are the call types that kick your adrenaline into gear like those for “shooting”, “cardiac arrest”, or “auto extrication” they are rare and often require every skill you ever learned. But most often when a call arrives on your computer screen its for “sick” , “fall”, or any number of general minor medical complaints. When one of the minor complaints turns our to be something radically different its that moment when your adrenaline explodes into your brain and says “damn” and that vey thing happened on a night we arrive on a “medical alarm” call which are typically elderly who have fallen and only need help back into bed but find the firemen yelling outside as we arrive “It’s a Code!”.
Segue Song: “New Divide” –Linkin Park
A rather obese female in her sixties is lying on the floor next to her bed with family around and a fireman is doing CPR as my partner and I walk into the house. I squeeze my way to the head as I wonder if people plan to die in the smallest place they can find. A daughter of the patient is standing what seems like six inches away and praying loudly as I intubate the patient. Like the last few times I’ve succeeded during the intubation I put padding underneath the back of the patient that helps all the anatomy of the airway come into view. The tube is successful and when I attach the ETC02 it shows the positive waveform and reading of over one hundred, which is three times higher then anything we ever saw before. I’ve told countless people that the higher the number the higher the survivability but never have I witnessed a waveform so high the peak is off the scale of the monitor. As the resuscitation continues the patient goes from Asystole, a flat line sign of death to Sinus Tachycardia with an incredible pulse. As we package the patient that for a moment saw as another field termination I report to the command doctor on the phone that we would be arriving with post cardiac arrest resuscitation within minuets. We are standing in the hospital room minuets later as the staff explodes into action and before we leave the patient is in the process of under going the Hypothermia Protocol. The hypothermia protocol cools the patient and unlike anything in medicine before has brought patients back to life. The next night I check with the doctor at the hospital and the patient is still alive upstairs processing through the treatment and I leave the city for vacation.
What is it to be a man, or to be an adult? Over the passing years I have learned that it isn’t a single event or moment that stands separate from the west. It isn’t the night you lose your virginity, or anything simple like that. It comes over time, like the time you tell a teenage boy that his mother is dead in the bathroom and there is nothing we could do. It comes over time, like driving two thousand miles around the country but mostly away from the life you were living. Then it comes it times when you take your first real vacation provided by your first real full time job. A vacation away with your girlfriend and her daughter away from the city streets and three hundred and eighty miles northwest to Cap Cod, Massachusetts.
Episode Song: “Via La Gloria!” –Greenday
Today’s Five Points
5-“it’s a competition to, of coarse it’s good”
4-“its ok he’s a member” –a nurse about a regular
3-shouldn’t we just tell some of these people to stand in the corner?
2-is the sky the same regardless of where you are?
1-airbourne ambulance |
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