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What is the worst call you have every been on??
I'm curious to know what your worst call has been during your career in Fire/EMS.
For me, it was a pedestrian vs Amtrak. We are all getting ready to hit the sack, it was approx 11:45pm and we were in the radio room shooting the sh*t. Up until that point, it had been a very uneventful shift.
The tones go off and call comes across as Pedestrian vs Amtrak...multiple stn's had been called out. We looked at each other and said "did we hear that right"....information is repeated and yes, we definately heard that right.
My partner and I were on the BLS truck that night...on the way to the call we were talking about who was gonna grab what off the truck...until proven otherwise you have to assume your pt is alive.
We grabbed our equipment off the truck and began our climb up the embankment to the tracks...it was cold...middle of Jan. He walked down one side of the tracks and I walked down the other...shining our flashlights looking for the victim....police were every where, helicopters flying overhead and other crews walking the tracks.
About a 1/4 mile down the tracks I found the first body part. His lower half, minus one leg bellow the knee.. my knee's were shaking from the adrenaline and this was the first time I had seen a dismembered body. As I stand there with the light on what I had found, my partner comes up to me and says " I would say this is a definative death"...a little further down the tracks is his torso, wide open and steaming in the cold air, then a little further from that was his head. Once the police radioed dispatch that the victim was dead we began our trek back to our ambulance. As we walked back we shone our lights to the ground being careful not to come across anything else or step on anything...we came across the odd piece of flesh, the size and shape of Saltine crackers....all in all though, it was a very "clean" scene. The impact had literally caused this victim to explode. .Neither my partner or I said one word as we walked to the truck. We put our gear back in the truck and headed back to the Stn. And again..not one word was said in the truck. The reality of what I had just seen had left me speechless and upset.
We arrived back at the Stn and parked the ambulance for the night. As soon as we got out of the truck, my partner asked me if I was OK , I immediately started to cry and he gave me a hug. We walked into the Stn and sat in the day room and talked briefly before the rest of the shift returned back. He went and talked with some of the guys about that call and as I sat alone in the day room listening to what was being said, I became more upset. The comments that were coming from these guys were insensitive and cold ( I now know that is how some of us deal with these traumatic calls)
For example....one guy says "did you see that baby, he was still smokin"..
One of the ALS guys that night came and sat and talked with me , he asked how I was doing and said "you've officially been baptized into the world of EMS"
He is also a flight medic and stated that through his 23 yr career that is the worse he has seen. We talked for well over an hr ....I ended up going home early and not finishing my shift that night. The next day the Chief called everyone involved regarding CISD and that if we needed some time off to take it.
Well, 6 people from that shift ended up taking time off, including myself. That call haunted me for a very long time. Every time I'd close my eyes at night and try to sleep that entire scene would replay over and over in my head. Day to day functioning for the first 2 days after that call was almost impossible...all I did was cry....and I couldn't understand why. NO, I did not know that victim, and at the time I wasn't quite sure why it was having such a profound effect on me. He was an 18yr old boy that committed suicide that night. He was someone's son, brother and friend.
The Chief suggested I go and talk to the County Shrink , I wasn't the only one that needed it. A couple sessions with him to teach you how to cope and deal with it helped immensely. After 2 wks I returned to work and carried on as though that call had never happened.
I was VERY fresh to Fire and Rescue when I had that call and thankfully, have not had to go through another call like that since. It is a call that will stay with me forever.
Some may call you weak when you show emotion in this line of work. Maybe I am weak...but it's because I care about the people we are here to help that sometimes I find myself getting emotional on some calls.
I think when we get to a point where we stop caring about our pt's , it's then time to leave EMS. If you don't care about the pt's you are there to help, then how can you possibly be a good EMT or medic. You have to care, to help!
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Fabulous Heather Days of Summer on
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Wow - this topic is opening Pandora's Box
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Permalink Reply by John Dobson on
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Last fall a pickup truck fire. The truck over turned landed on its side. The man driving was partly ejected out the drivers side window his legs were pinned by the roof of the cab his upper body out side the cab. He was laying on his back looking up at the truck as it burned down towards him. His face was not in the rising smoke he died from heat of the fire. Some ladies happened upon the scene and stood there and watched as all this happened. It happened in the middle of no where. and was in another township and they had us paged because in hopes we may have beat them there but we arrived at the same time. We could not find a VIN number left on the truck it took the ATF to find The VIN to find out who the guy was. We only recovered the torso up, I did not know the femers would compleatly burn.
I still think of what that guy went though. I wish I could have got there quicker with the engine. -
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Permalink Reply by George A. Laiacona III on
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My worst was my first dead kid. Nothing I could do at the time could fix the problem. It's normal to second guess yourself afterwards, but I did everything I could do with what I had, so I'm OK with it.
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Permalink Reply by Patti Walz on
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Not the worst (I would just as soon not think about the worst), but probably the most amazing one was a car accident. This guy hits top speeds passing a car, rolled it into a ditch, neither he or the passenger were wearing seatbelts. The climb out of the car and run (at the time when we first arrived the flew the scene), got toned out about an hour later, they had returned to the scene because they saw the flashing lights, he has brain matter missing, disgusting really, but wow even the cops were amazed. the passenger was found about 1/2 mile down the road hiding in blackberry bushes. Both parties survived, but it just amazed me. We were all shaking out heads over this one.
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Permalink Reply by Chris Weber on
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I have 2.First one is a refinery fire we were on in '95.Fire itself was intense(to say the least)but my one of my neighbors and a lady he worked with(I knew her too)we're killed in the explosion and fire.
Second was a suicide.All I'm going to say is high powered rifle was used. -
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Permalink Reply by Izzy ( J. Bade) on
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I gotta agree with Ralph and Mark. there's been a lot, and ya know what? I did put it all in a book. and yep, we all have a warped sense of humor, and our defense mechanisms are strange, to say the least.
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Permalink Reply by Jim Vieira on
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A couple of years ago when my long time friend had a EMS call at his house, when I walked in he was doing CPR on his daughter who came down with Swine Flu. I attended her wake, and was a total basket case.... this job really sucks sometimes!
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