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Speaker A: Hey everybody. Ryan and Eric, here we have
for you a digitally remastered rerelease

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of our very first episode.

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Speaker B: The first episode we ever did was a
culmination of several years of Ryan and I

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talking about wanting to do this. I had
wanted to share my medical stories with

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people and Ryan had always wanted to be
a podcaster and we felt that this was the

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best way to do it. I was very
proud to finally put it out there.

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I'm still very proud of this episode

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Speaker A: and the timing for this is pretty perfect
because Eric is going to be featured as a

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guest on the podcast. What was that like?

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And that episode's coming
out in the next month.

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You can check the show notes
for a link to that episode.

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Speaker B: Thank you for all of you who've been with
us from the beginning and thank you to all

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of our new listeners. I
hope you enjoy this episode.

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Compelling stories are not hard to find.

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You just need to know where to look.

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Join your host, Dr. Eric Schaller,
prosecutor Ryan Frank, writer Adrienne

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Bonenberger, and comedian Ryan Conner as
they interview ordinary people about their

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extraordinary experiences.

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This is Baggage.

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Hi and welcome to the Baggage Podcast.

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What we'd like to do with this show is
tell stories from the EMS and military and

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law world,

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share our experiences and maybe explore
some of the effects that it's had on mental

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health and our overall psyche.

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I'm Eric Shaw, I am a
pediatrician in the Denver region.

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With me today is Ryan Connor,
Ryan Frank and Adrian Bonenberger.

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I'll let them introduce themselves now.

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Speaker C: I'm Ryan Connor and I'm a comic and
writer and probably the least qualified

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to to talk about anything we're
going to be talking about.

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Speaker A: I'm Ryan Frank, I'm a prosecutor in
Virginia and service of time in the Marine

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Corps. I have some stories and I agree Ryan
Conner has very little to contribute to

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this entire endeavor.

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Speaker D: Adrian Bonnenberger I am Ryan Frank's
brother in law, journalist and a writer and I

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was in the army infantry for about seven
years, did a couple combat tours to

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Afghanistan, and most recently
went over to Ukraine to help Dr.

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Train Ukrainian soldiers before
their counteroffensive in 2023.

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Speaker B: What I'd like to do as far as the storyline
of this is start from the very beginning

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of my medical career which started
when I was in college at Virginia Tech.

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I joined the Blacksburg Volunteer Rescue
Squad and to start off I earned my EMT

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which was a basic provider skill level
there and most of what we did there was very

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simple and basic and
nothing was too crazy.

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This was before the mass shooting at
Virginia Tech, which luckily I was not

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involved.

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But just some of the experiences even
starting there kind of give you a feeling of

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what it was like to
move through this world.

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And so much of it is starting with
almost adrenaline and excitement.

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And you want to see trauma and you want
to see these crazy things, and you want to

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be the first one there to help out, which
kind of sets the tone for how you process

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things as you go. One of the first experiences
I had that was I'd always heard about

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this, but never knew how true it was, was
the first time I did CPR on somebody, and

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it was when I was in the hospital. I was
still actually doing my EMT training.

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And when you do the compressions, you
break people's ribs, and you can't quite

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describe that feeling until
you've actually experienced it.

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And the attending that I was working
with saw the look on my face as I.

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As I pushed down and
heard everything break.

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And she just looked at me calmly
and said, just keep going.

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This is what we're going to do. And it
was just an eye opening experience to feel

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that it's something that you can't
kind of prepare somebody for that.

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Speaker A: So how old are you when this is going on?

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Speaker B: 19. 19.

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The only other thing that I saw in Blacksburg
that was kind of a little stressful

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was my first traumatic death that I saw.

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And it was on a back road in Blacksburg
where a guy seemed to be racing his car and

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crossed over the double yellow
and hit another car head on.

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He did not have a safety belt, his airbags
did not deploy, if he had them, and he

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was dead on impact. And when we got there,
the lieutenant was kind of over by the

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car examining him. And I went over and
I asked, are we going to work this guy?

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Are we going to do something? And
he's like, look at him, he's dead.

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We're just not. And that never kind
of occurred to me as an option.

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And I always thought that we would do
everything and push as hard as we could.

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And he's like, no, this guy's
been dead for 20 minutes.

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There's nothing we can do. We're
going to help the other people.

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Because in the other car,

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the passenger, I believe, was not buckled
in, and she went underneath the dashboard

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and she'd broken her femur. And so we
pulled her out and we got her in the.

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In the truck and we're taking her, and the
driver was with her, and we were trying

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to kind of talk everybody down and the
driver looked at us and goes, what happened

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to the other driver? And there was
just this uncomfortable silence in the.

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In the truck. And we said,
well, we're taking care of him.

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You know, let's focus on your friend here.

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And no one kind of looked
her in the eye after that.

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It was just a very unsettling moment.

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From there, I graduated college.

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I was trying to get into medical school.

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I did not get it on the first try. And so
I moved to Richmond, Virginia, to start a

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master's degree there. And as I did that,
I was in the process of completing my

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cardiac tech certification, which, for
all intents and purposes in the Richmond

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system was the same as a paramedic. So
I was practicing now as a advanced life

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support provider, which is a huge increase
in responsibility and kind of technical

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abilities. So you go from taking blood
pressures and driving the truck to intubating

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IVs, drugs, and not only that, you're
also the lead attending on the call.

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So the fire department's looking at you,
your partner's looking at you sometimes the

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police force was looking
at you to make the calls.

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And so it was a huge jump. Um, and I was
only 21 at this point, so still very young,

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still very early in my career. And moving
to Richmond was a huge culture shock,

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which Richmond's not a huge city, was by
far the biggest city I'd ever lived in.

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And to kind of be living on my own for the
first time, starting a master's program

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and practicing professionally
now as a paramedic was a.

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Was a big jump.

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Speaker A: What, 2001 somewhere in there, right?

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Speaker B: 2002.

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Speaker A: 2002. So, Rickman, for anybody that
doesn't know around that time, pretty.

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Pretty decent violent crime rate, too.

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So you're seeing not.

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Speaker B: Not just. Not just pretty
decent, very violent.

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We would train these
Special forces medics.

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They had a partnership with. With mcv, the
medical school I ultimately went to, and

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with Richmond Ambulance
Authority, who I worked for.

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And so we would sometimes have the medics
or the special forces guys on the buses

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with us and ultimately in
the hospital system as well.

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As I started on with Richmond Ambulance,
you have to go through a preception program

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where you train under a paramedic,
and they basically clear you after you

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exhibit certain skills and show,
you know, appropriate judgment.

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And so me and another paramedic named Eric
were kind of the two junior partners as

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we started up.

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Even as I started, there was a kind of odd
moment that I went through, and I don't

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know why I found it so upsetting,
but it was just really awful to hear.

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We had to do a portion of the training
where we were in the call center and hear

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things from that side and kind of see what
the dispatchers were doing and how their

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process worked. And we got a call from a
bystander down by the river, some people

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that were. Whose friend was drowning.

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And this was happening in
real time over the phone.

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And you could hear the people in the
background just absolutely losing their mind

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and trying to get this person out.

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And then the bystander was
becoming more involved with it.

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And then our dispatcher
kind of walking here.

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Speaker A: So how are you tied into the call?

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Like you can hear the call happening?

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Speaker B: Yes. So I'm sitting right next to the
dispatcher, listening in to the whole thing.

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And so she's walking them through what
to do and trying to get this bystander to

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kind of help more and make sure that the
ambulance has directions to get exactly

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where they need to be. But it was just.

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It was very eerie and really upsetting to
kind of hear this happening and to hear

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these people or friends, you know, watching
their friend or seeing their friend and

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listening to their friend drown. And
that was kind of my introduction there.

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The next story was kind of my introduction
to Richmond Ambulance Authority and

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really realizing just how naive and how
soft I was and not realizing what I was

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getting into. So on my second night
there, it was my first time ever working

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overnight shifts. I'd done, you
know, calls and things like that.

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But this is the first time of like,
hey, you're going to show up at work at.

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At nine o' clock, and you're going to
go till nine o' clock the next morning.

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And this is it. I was paired that night
with the head of our training department and

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his best friend, who was
the head mechanic there.

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And these guys were an
interesting pair of.

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The head of training was what we
called kind of like a trauma squirrel.

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And these were people that just really
liked their job a little too much.

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They really, really enjoyed the big
traumas and the big action stuff, which,

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again, there's adrenaline junkie
kind of vibe to a lot of EMS stuff.

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This guy had it in spades.

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And so the nightmare.

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Speaker A: We should get them on this podcast.

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Speaker B: You don't want to talk to
this guy. A trauma squirrel.

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Speaker A: Yeah,

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have the, you know, psychopaths too.

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Speaker B: So our night started out and

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initially just like, we were basically
joking up with some homeless guys.

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And like, I, as a naive, not city dweller,
got ripped off for buying, like, some

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glasses to try to, like,
give this guy Some gas.

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He wanted gas money for his car,
but he's just ripping us off.

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And this guy and his partner are, like,
chasing him around Richmond, like,

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spotlighting him as he's, like,
running through the grass.

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And it was just. Wait a minute.

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Speaker C: They were fake glasses. What type?

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What do you mean?

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Speaker B: Yeah, just like drinking glasses.
The whole thing was just bizarre.

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I was picturing, like,
you know, some bifocals.

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I'm such a yokel. And I didn't understand
the whole just rip off thing that happens

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in the city. And it was just very weird.

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So, hold on.

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Speaker C: A guy was selling, like,
pint glasses on the street?

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Speaker B: Yeah, basically

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it was just weird, and I felt bad.

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Speaker C: How was it?

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Speaker B: In what way was it a ripoff?

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Speaker C: Did they have cracks in them or they
were just overpriced or they probably

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Speaker B: had lead in them, I don't
know. But he was just.

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It was just some sort of gimmick.

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Speaker A: Gotcha, guys.

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Speaker C: Gotcha.

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Speaker B: And my partners were like, what
are you doing? Don't talk to him.

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Don't engage. Why? Why are you doing this?

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And, yeah, I wasn't ready for this.

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So we get dispatched to a shooting,
and as we're going, I'm talking to my

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partners, and I said, hey, look,
I've never been on a shooting before.

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This is new to me. And he
put things really succinctly.

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It made sense. He said,
look, it's really easy.

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You plug the holes, you put them
on the backboard, and we go.

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We're not doing surgery
on them in the field.

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We're trying to get into the
hospital as fast as possible.

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So it's actually really easy.
And I was like, okay, that.

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That makes sense. Let's see how this goes.

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Speaker D: And hope at that moment, you pointed out
that if you'd bought the shot glasses, you

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know, they would have been used.

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That's. That's what shot glasses are for.

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Some sort of misunderstanding of that.

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Speaker B: So the fire department gets there before
we do, and they get on the radio and they

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say, hey, be advised, the patient's been
hit in the head, but he's still breathing.

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And I didn't understand that.

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I thought maybe it glanced
him, maybe it grazed him.

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When we got there, police had already
made sure everything was safe.

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The fire department was there. And
as we walk up, I can see I was wrong.

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He'd been shot in the forehead, and the
bullet had exited the back of his head, and

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his brains were all over the
ground, and he was still breathing.

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It had gone high, and it
missed his brain stem.

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And so as we go up, there's shell casings
around, there's brains on the ground.

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And as I'm getting under him to get the
backboard, I'm actually stepping in his

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brains. As we're picking him up, we get
him in the back of the truck and my partner

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says, okay, it's time to intubate him now.

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He's not stable and he's going to crash
any time, so go ahead and innovate him.

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And when you intubate somebody, you have
to put your elbow on their forehead to

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stabilize it. And he has brain bits
and skull sticking out of this hole.

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And at that point he starts to seize and
his whole basically system locked up and we

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couldn't even open his mouth. So my partner
then did a surgical crike in the field

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and we intubate him through his neck.

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Speaker A: Oh, the surgical crike.

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Speaker B: It's when you make a small cut across the
trachea and you insert the innovation tube

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through that hole from the outside.

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Speaker A: You're skipping the mouth. Yep.

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Speaker B: You're skipping that completely. And so
we intubate him, and as we pull up to the

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hospital, he begins to
go into cardiac arrest.

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And it was like what you see on tv.

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I was, I was riding on the side of
the gurney doing chest compressions.

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We roll into the, the
trauma suite in the ER.

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There's 20 people waiting
for us, and they are.

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We give the report and
we pass them off and.

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And I just about lost my mind. Like, the
amount of like adrenaline that was going,

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the amount of action that it was,
it was just completely overwhelming.

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And when I went out at this point.

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Speaker A: How long, how long have you been an
EMT between Blacksburg and Richmond?

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Speaker B: Uh, two, Two years.

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Speaker A: Did you, did you see that?

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Like veteran emt, people in that scenario
would kind of like phone it in a little

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bit. Like maybe they see what's. Or is it.

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Does everyone just treat it
the exact same, no matter what?

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Speaker B: Most of these people are professionals.

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I mean, there's exceptions, but
like, most of these people, like, do.

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They're there to do their job. And a lot
of these guys, again, they, they really

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like the adrenaline aspect of it. So I
never really saw phoning it in maybe like a

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challenge too, right?

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Speaker A: Like, this guy's probably
not supposed to make it.

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Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And as I, you know, as I got
into medical school, like with the training

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stuff, that, that definitely shown
through more, but for, for this guy in

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particular, my, the guy I was working with
that Evening, he was 110%, he loved this

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stuff.

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I went back, I got a quick

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Speaker D: question

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00:14:27,350 --> 00:14:33,190
on the subject of this gentleman
who had been headshot very severely.

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I realized we were talking
a little bit about.

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We were talking a lot about very difficult
things, traumatic things for you as

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00:14:42,510 --> 00:14:46,630
the person getting care, but also for
the person who is in need of care.

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Do you look at a thing like that and just
think, like, why am I even doing this?

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Like, the brain's outside the head.

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That's like, you know, that's
pretty much rescuing this.

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This human. I have to understand it's your
job to rescue him and to try to preserve

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them. Try to preserve their
life, you know, man or woman.

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But you look at the brains and you sort
of think to yourself, yeah, I mean, what's

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being preserved here? Like, automatic
breathing in, breathing out.

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Speaker B: At that moment, that didn't even occur
to me, I can tell you with in the future.

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It definitely did. And I have some things
that I'll share along that vein, where

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things started to kind of
get under my skin with that.

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But at that moment, it was system
overload, and it was pure muscle memory

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reflex. Just move forward, do
your job, and get them there.

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Um, and one thing, particularly for the.

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The medical staff at the hospital, there's
something that the residents will call

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like a training code.

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And this is where someone is beyond saving,
and they will work them 110%, and they

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will do every possible procedure and
thing that they can on this person.

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Not because they think that they can save
them, because they need to know how to do

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these things for the ones that they can.
And so that's basically what happened with

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this gentleman. Um, and when I walked back
in, I could see them doing the full deal

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where they'd done a thoracotomy,
where they dumped him up.

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They were doing manual massage
of his heart, like it was.

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They. They worked him hard until he.

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He expired. And when I was done,
I went back out to the ambulance

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and the other partner was back there.

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And there's a scene from
Bringing out the Dead, the.

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The Martin Scorsese movie with Nicolas
Cage where he's a paramedic and.

278
00:16:36,230 --> 00:16:41,670
And his partner is just mopping out
a absolutely destroyed ambulance.

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Just blood everywhere.
And that's what it was.

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There was a river of blood running
down the back of that ambulance.

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And we cleaned up and we moved on.

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And what happened later that night is what
kind of stopped me from quitting, because

283
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at that moment in time, I was
like, I don't know what I've done.

284
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This was not what I signed up for. I
don't really want to be here right now.

285
00:17:03,830 --> 00:17:09,050
I'm taking my ball and I'm going home.
That morning, our last call was to a drug

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00:17:09,050 --> 00:17:10,890
overdose, and it was a young kid.

287
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He was probably about 15, 16 years old.

288
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He was unresponsive.

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00:17:16,730 --> 00:17:22,050
We started. He wasn't breathing well, and
we got a line on him, and we gave him some

290
00:17:22,050 --> 00:17:25,410
Narcan, which I'm sure you guys are familiar
with now, that's been in the news a lot

291
00:17:25,410 --> 00:17:30,010
recently. And he improved a little bit,
but his respiratory status was still very

292
00:17:30,010 --> 00:17:34,660
poor. And with someone
who's still kind of.

293
00:17:35,220 --> 00:17:38,260
You're only supposed to innovate.
Someone who's completely unresponsive.

294
00:17:38,260 --> 00:17:40,220
And this guy was not
completely unresponsive.

295
00:17:40,220 --> 00:17:43,300
So we did something that I'm pretty
sure it's not even done anymore.

296
00:17:43,300 --> 00:17:47,700
It's called a nasal innovation, and where
you basically take the Innovation tube,

297
00:17:47,940 --> 00:17:51,900
you put it through their nose, and as you
drop it down at the back of your throat,

298
00:17:51,900 --> 00:17:55,060
you listen at the end of it, and you're
listening for them to breathe in.

299
00:17:55,700 --> 00:17:58,660
Because what happens when you breathe in
is your epiglottis moves out of the way,

300
00:17:59,120 --> 00:18:02,800
your airway opens up, and at that moment,
you stick the tube down further, and you

301
00:18:02,800 --> 00:18:03,760
get it into their airway.

302
00:18:04,640 --> 00:18:05,320
Speaker A: We did it.

303
00:18:05,320 --> 00:18:06,960
Speaker B: We got it. We got them stabilized.

304
00:18:06,960 --> 00:18:09,120
This is as far as his
respiratory status goes.

305
00:18:09,600 --> 00:18:11,120
And we transport him to the hospital.

306
00:18:12,240 --> 00:18:16,720
To know. I followed up on him later, to
know that that kid survived and did fine

307
00:18:17,360 --> 00:18:20,400
because of our interventions was amazing.

308
00:18:20,880 --> 00:18:22,640
And I went home that night.

309
00:18:23,840 --> 00:18:25,360
Speaker A: That. That is. That was.

310
00:18:25,840 --> 00:18:27,600
That followed the gunshot wound?

311
00:18:27,810 --> 00:18:29,330
Yeah, that same night.

312
00:18:29,330 --> 00:18:30,130
How far apart?

313
00:18:30,370 --> 00:18:31,330
Speaker B: Just a couple hours.

314
00:18:32,690 --> 00:18:34,530
Speaker A: And you said you follow it up.

315
00:18:34,530 --> 00:18:36,250
How often were you able to.

316
00:18:36,250 --> 00:18:39,290
You know, you go to a car accident
and someone's like, borderline.

317
00:18:39,290 --> 00:18:42,610
How often do you actually.
Would you find out the result?

318
00:18:43,410 --> 00:18:47,130
Speaker B: I would say pretty frequently. We would
talk with the ER staff and kind of get

319
00:18:47,130 --> 00:18:48,130
scuttlebutt there.

320
00:18:49,010 --> 00:18:51,330
Speaker C: Did you have, like,
serious trouble sleeping

321
00:18:51,330 --> 00:18:52,850
Speaker B: for a while that night?

322
00:18:52,850 --> 00:18:59,120
Yes. Um, and so I came home, it was 9 in
the morning, and I didn't sleep for almost

323
00:18:59,120 --> 00:19:00,960
two days. And it wasn't like.

324
00:19:01,360 --> 00:19:03,680
It was a combination of.

325
00:19:05,120 --> 00:19:07,720
Almost a high, I can't explain, from the.

326
00:19:07,720 --> 00:19:09,520
Saving the. The one guy. The one guy.

327
00:19:09,840 --> 00:19:11,600
It was just such a rush.

328
00:19:12,160 --> 00:19:17,280
Um, and to. To be a part of that was what
I think every person who gets into EMS

329
00:19:17,440 --> 00:19:18,160
does it for.

330
00:19:18,560 --> 00:19:18,880
Speaker A: That.

331
00:19:18,880 --> 00:19:24,040
Speaker B: There is that, again, this. This adrenaline
junkie factor that drives EMTs and

332
00:19:24,040 --> 00:19:27,530
medics as well as, like, the
altruistic portion of It.

333
00:19:27,850 --> 00:19:31,210
But it's a combination. It's not
all one, it's not all the other.

334
00:19:32,250 --> 00:19:34,570
And I was just exhilarated.

335
00:19:34,810 --> 00:19:40,130
I was hooked. And even though the shooting
thing had been so traumatic, it was still

336
00:19:40,130 --> 00:19:41,850
exciting. And

337
00:19:43,130 --> 00:19:46,290
I was like, okay, well, this is
what life in the big city is like.

338
00:19:46,290 --> 00:19:48,730
This is what it's going
to be transitioning into.

339
00:19:48,810 --> 00:19:50,810
Something a little bit
lighter, a little bit funnier.

340
00:19:52,040 --> 00:19:55,440
The guy that I worked with
the most, I'm thrilled.

341
00:19:55,440 --> 00:19:58,520
Speaker A: I don't know. This has been great
and I think incredibly humorous.

342
00:19:58,520 --> 00:20:00,080
So I don't know how you can make funnier.

343
00:20:00,080 --> 00:20:00,440
Please.

344
00:20:03,560 --> 00:20:06,680
Speaker B: The guy that I ultimately worked with
a lot, his name was Eric Hudgens.

345
00:20:06,680 --> 00:20:10,880
I hope I can get him on the show. We were
both trainees at the same time, and we're

346
00:20:10,880 --> 00:20:12,880
working under the same older medic.

347
00:20:12,880 --> 00:20:14,920
And it wasn't the trauma squirrel anymore.

348
00:20:15,080 --> 00:20:19,960
It was a different gentleman. And we would
take turns on calls, and we got called

349
00:20:19,960 --> 00:20:25,620
out to a man down, unknown cause, which 99%
of the time was a homeless person passed

350
00:20:25,620 --> 00:20:30,260
out somewhere. And we arrived on the scene
and it is a homeless gentleman asleep on

351
00:20:30,260 --> 00:20:31,860
a bus bench.

352
00:20:32,180 --> 00:20:34,500
And we just noticed that there's
just weird stuff about it.

353
00:20:34,500 --> 00:20:36,540
Like his pants were all
kind of rumpled around him.

354
00:20:36,540 --> 00:20:38,340
He's sitting on a bunch of newspaper.

355
00:20:39,060 --> 00:20:43,740
And it was Eric's turn, and he went over
and tried to arouse him and wake him up.

356
00:20:43,740 --> 00:20:46,180
And the guy was just plaster drunk.

357
00:20:46,500 --> 00:20:49,500
And he said, hey, look,
people are worried about you.

358
00:20:49,500 --> 00:20:51,620
Do you want to come with us? And
he said, sure, sure, I'll come.

359
00:20:51,680 --> 00:20:51,840
Speaker A: And.

360
00:20:51,910 --> 00:20:55,590
Speaker B: And as we stand him up, we realized the
reason he was sitting on paper newspapers

361
00:20:55,590 --> 00:21:00,950
was he'd shit himself in an epic way that
was just basically, he had paper mached

362
00:21:01,110 --> 00:21:04,870
the papers all around him and was
just plastered up and down his back.

363
00:21:05,590 --> 00:21:10,230
And normally the two trainees
would ride in the back with.

364
00:21:10,950 --> 00:21:13,230
With the preceptor and
work someone up together.

365
00:21:13,230 --> 00:21:15,750
And with one of them
leading, I opted not to.

366
00:21:15,910 --> 00:21:19,520
And I sat in the front seat with our
driver and basically made fun of them the

367
00:21:19,520 --> 00:21:21,040
entire time through the back window.

368
00:21:21,200 --> 00:21:24,440
Because the smell that he brought into the
ambulance was something epic and did not

369
00:21:24,440 --> 00:21:26,720
come out for the rest of the
shift, no matter how much we tried.

370
00:21:27,920 --> 00:21:31,680
Speaker A: Now, now, I imagine that's kind of
the intersection of, you know, this.

371
00:21:31,680 --> 00:21:35,960
This kind of stuff is going on. But once
someone makes a 911 call, like, there's

372
00:21:35,960 --> 00:21:39,080
like medical, ethical, like,
we can't just drive away now.

373
00:21:39,080 --> 00:21:41,200
Like, you can't just drive
away, right? I mean, you Gotta.

374
00:21:41,440 --> 00:21:43,360
Speaker B: The patient has assigned a medical refuse.

375
00:21:43,360 --> 00:21:44,080
If you drive away.

376
00:21:45,050 --> 00:21:52,050
Speaker C: Two part question. When you're an
emt, how often do you end up with

377
00:21:52,050 --> 00:21:53,450
someone on you?

378
00:21:55,050 --> 00:22:01,930
And two, do EMTs end up with the most
on them of any doctor, or would a GI

379
00:22:01,930 --> 00:22:03,290
doctor end up with more.

380
00:22:03,530 --> 00:22:05,850
Speaker B: Oh, that's a good one. GI doctors by far.

381
00:22:06,250 --> 00:22:08,930
Basically sticking your finger in
someone's ass is a GI doctor's.

382
00:22:08,930 --> 00:22:09,370
Speaker D: Hello.

383
00:22:09,610 --> 00:22:15,200
Speaker C: But I'm talking on a close on clothes because
I would burn them immediately if I got

384
00:22:15,200 --> 00:22:16,560
someone on my clothes.

385
00:22:16,560 --> 00:22:19,600
Speaker A: You're not. This is not wearing
your late a crew shirt, man.

386
00:22:19,600 --> 00:22:21,440
I think they're gonna have
let scrubs on and stuff.

387
00:22:21,440 --> 00:22:23,120
You know, we had uniforms.

388
00:22:23,440 --> 00:22:25,360
Speaker C: It's getting burned,
though. It's getting burned.

389
00:22:26,560 --> 00:22:29,920
Speaker B: Nurses get it the worst. Nurses have
to clean people up all the time.

390
00:22:30,480 --> 00:22:31,520
Nurses definitely have it.

391
00:22:31,520 --> 00:22:33,040
Speaker C: Everyone's just getting
all over their clothes

392
00:22:33,040 --> 00:22:35,160
Speaker B: all the time on their scrubs or

393
00:22:35,160 --> 00:22:36,720
Speaker C: their, or their ENT uniform.

394
00:22:37,610 --> 00:22:40,130
Speaker B: I'm not gonna say it doesn't happen.
I don't think it's as common as you're

395
00:22:40,130 --> 00:22:41,690
insinuating, but like, it is.

396
00:22:41,930 --> 00:22:42,450
Speaker A: Okay.

397
00:22:42,450 --> 00:22:43,370
Speaker B: Hazard to the job.

398
00:22:44,090 --> 00:22:46,450
Speaker C: I'm gonna tell you, that would be
the thing that got me out of it.

399
00:22:46,450 --> 00:22:51,090
That would, like if I was considering
being an emt and then if someone told me

400
00:22:51,090 --> 00:22:52,890
you're gonna get on you about once a week.

401
00:22:54,410 --> 00:22:55,850
It's someone else's job.

402
00:22:56,250 --> 00:22:58,490
Speaker B: Yeah, sure, sure, yeah.

403
00:22:59,450 --> 00:23:03,570
Speaker D: Because of this conversation, this podcast
now qualifies as pornography in both

404
00:23:03,570 --> 00:23:05,290
Japan and Germany, by the way.

405
00:23:07,060 --> 00:23:07,460
Speaker A: I don't know.

406
00:23:07,460 --> 00:23:09,220
Speaker B: Valuable markets, we've lost those.

407
00:23:11,060 --> 00:23:14,900
Speaker A: It's like, it's like pornography where you
have a vision about what, what high, like

408
00:23:14,900 --> 00:23:18,700
what kind of cool stuff is going to,
you know, EMT stuff is going to be.

409
00:23:18,700 --> 00:23:22,980
And the reality of it is like, no one, no
one would, no one would want to do this,

410
00:23:23,059 --> 00:23:26,100
you know, on a day on an
individual case basis.

411
00:23:26,100 --> 00:23:28,540
It's probably like, why
would anybody do this?

412
00:23:28,540 --> 00:23:30,980
Like, this is. This, this is not
going to be a commercial, right?

413
00:23:31,060 --> 00:23:34,920
It's the idea of it is why people want
to do it, but the actual practical

414
00:23:34,920 --> 00:23:37,760
application, like, you wouldn't,
you wouldn't sign up for that.

415
00:23:37,760 --> 00:23:39,400
If you let me. That's the question.

416
00:23:39,720 --> 00:23:44,720
If you knew, right? So you ultimately
wanted to be a doctor, but if you knew that

417
00:23:44,720 --> 00:23:50,160
you wanted to do the route and be an EMT
and then, you know, future, you could have

418
00:23:50,160 --> 00:23:54,480
told you, hey, this is, this is, you
know, where the rubber meets the road.

419
00:23:54,480 --> 00:23:56,280
Do the actual things
you're going to experience.

420
00:23:56,360 --> 00:23:57,560
Do you think you would have done it.

421
00:23:58,600 --> 00:24:02,760
Speaker B: That's a question I've asked myself a
lot, and particularly with writing these

422
00:24:02,760 --> 00:24:05,800
stories down and doing this podcast, I
feel like this is a good way for me to kind

423
00:24:05,800 --> 00:24:08,520
of reflect on that. And the
question is, I don't know.

424
00:24:08,520 --> 00:24:13,520
It's kind of a coin flip. There were so
many benefits that I did get from it that I

425
00:24:13,520 --> 00:24:17,200
think made me a better
doctor in particular.

426
00:24:18,080 --> 00:24:22,760
But there's also things that kind of
chipped away at my inside, and it's hard to

427
00:24:22,760 --> 00:24:28,640
say. I think some of the biggest things
that it taught me was how to triage patients

428
00:24:28,640 --> 00:24:33,080
effectively. And so when I was in medical
school, particularly in residency, many of

429
00:24:33,080 --> 00:24:37,080
the students had never even
laid hands on patients before.

430
00:24:37,080 --> 00:24:40,680
It was all academic for them, whereas
I had a tremendous amount of hands on

431
00:24:40,680 --> 00:24:43,960
experience. And I could look at someone
and assess them before I even touched them

432
00:24:43,960 --> 00:24:45,600
and be like, this guy's dying
or this guy's really sick.

433
00:24:45,600 --> 00:24:48,000
Like, we need to move
faster right here and now.

434
00:24:48,800 --> 00:24:52,400
So there was a skill set that I
had that many of my peers did not.

435
00:24:53,730 --> 00:24:58,090
Now that I am a outpatient pediatrician,
I'm not sure that those are particularly

436
00:24:58,090 --> 00:24:59,650
valuable skills to me anymore.

437
00:24:59,810 --> 00:25:03,090
But through my progression,
yes, they were helpful.

438
00:25:04,770 --> 00:25:09,290
And when I was going through this, I thought
many of the things that I was kind of

439
00:25:09,290 --> 00:25:14,810
toughening myself for and experiencing
were good for me, that this was part of the

440
00:25:14,810 --> 00:25:19,970
profession, part of what I signed up for,
and to discount that during the time I

441
00:25:19,970 --> 00:25:20,605
can't do that.

442
00:25:20,605 --> 00:25:20,760
Speaker A: So.

443
00:25:21,070 --> 00:25:22,950
Speaker B: So it's a hard question to answer. And I.

444
00:25:22,950 --> 00:25:25,310
Again, I'd say it's a 50,
50 split at this point.

445
00:25:25,630 --> 00:25:31,070
The next thing that I want to talk about
was the first time I went to a crack house.

446
00:25:31,470 --> 00:25:35,030
And I know that term gets kind of thrown
around loosely, but if you've ever.

447
00:25:35,030 --> 00:25:38,190
Speaker A: And that was my story the first
time I went to a crack house.

448
00:25:38,190 --> 00:25:39,230
You go first. Go ahead.

449
00:25:40,190 --> 00:25:44,350
Speaker B: It's soul crushing to see
it in real time and to not.

450
00:25:44,430 --> 00:25:47,710
Also to not be prepared for it, where no
one tells you, like, hey, we're going to a

451
00:25:47,710 --> 00:25:50,110
crack house to kind of
gird yourself for this.

452
00:25:50,640 --> 00:25:51,120
It was just.

453
00:25:51,120 --> 00:25:55,760
Speaker C: So we're talking about like a condemned
house where people are squatting and doing

454
00:25:55,760 --> 00:25:57,640
like. Like that kind of deal.

455
00:25:57,640 --> 00:25:58,000
Right?

456
00:25:58,080 --> 00:25:58,480
Speaker B: Yeah.

457
00:25:58,480 --> 00:25:59,640
Speaker C: So I'm picturing the right thing.

458
00:25:59,640 --> 00:25:59,960
Speaker A: Yeah.

459
00:25:59,960 --> 00:26:02,240
Speaker B: I mean, you can call it a
drug den if you want to.

460
00:26:02,640 --> 00:26:03,040
Speaker A: Yeah.

461
00:26:03,040 --> 00:26:03,320
Speaker B: Yeah.

462
00:26:03,320 --> 00:26:06,320
Speaker C: I just didn't know if it was like, oh,
people live here and they do a lot of crack

463
00:26:06,320 --> 00:26:11,120
here. If it's like the wire, you Know,
people ducked into this condemned building

464
00:26:11,120 --> 00:26:11,760
kind of thing.

465
00:26:11,920 --> 00:26:15,920
Speaker B: Very much so. And again, I didn't
know that this is what we were doing.

466
00:26:16,400 --> 00:26:20,000
We got called, I think, for an overdose or,
you know, you know, it may have actually

467
00:26:20,000 --> 00:26:24,200
been like a chest pain or panic attack,
because I think the girl was having some

468
00:26:24,200 --> 00:26:26,160
sort of reaction to the
drugs that she was taking.

469
00:26:26,560 --> 00:26:31,120
But when we walk in, what's weird is no
one seems to care that there's paramedics

470
00:26:31,120 --> 00:26:34,080
and police coming in. There's just
people passed out all over the place.

471
00:26:34,080 --> 00:26:39,000
When I say people, there's 20, 30 people
in this house, and no one cares that we're

472
00:26:39,000 --> 00:26:40,680
doing this. No one's reacting to us.

473
00:26:40,680 --> 00:26:45,290
No one's talking to us. And we finally get
up to the patient upstairs, and there's

474
00:26:45,290 --> 00:26:49,730
one or two people that are kind of
interacting with her and kind of talking us

475
00:26:49,730 --> 00:26:53,610
through, but they're all high, and
they're all not acting lucidly or normal.

476
00:26:53,770 --> 00:26:55,770
And to just kind of look
around and just see.

477
00:26:56,330 --> 00:26:58,170
I mean, just utter human despair.

478
00:26:58,490 --> 00:27:04,570
It was not what I had expected, and it
was just a very odd, odd experience.

479
00:27:05,530 --> 00:27:08,010
Speaker A: Where are. Does the prosecutor need.

480
00:27:08,010 --> 00:27:09,730
Where are the cops in all this?

481
00:27:09,730 --> 00:27:11,610
So you go. Do you go
in there without cops?

482
00:27:12,460 --> 00:27:15,820
Speaker B: I don't think there were police with
that one because it was a medical call.

483
00:27:16,540 --> 00:27:20,780
And so unless there's a crime being
committed, then the police don't usually show.

484
00:27:20,780 --> 00:27:23,180
We could have called the
police, but that's not our job.

485
00:27:23,500 --> 00:27:26,620
We're not going to say, hey,
you got to bust up this house.

486
00:27:26,860 --> 00:27:27,820
That's not our job.

487
00:27:28,540 --> 00:27:33,020
Speaker A: No, I get that part. I was just thinking,
for safety reasons, you would think some

488
00:27:33,020 --> 00:27:37,020
people have policies of you have to have
the police there before you do whatever.

489
00:27:37,820 --> 00:27:41,180
Speaker B: So to break things down a little bit with
that one, for any sort of violent call,

490
00:27:41,180 --> 00:27:46,780
shootings, fights, things like that, the
police would go first, and we would stage

491
00:27:46,780 --> 00:27:49,020
about a block or two away
and wait for clearance.

492
00:27:49,100 --> 00:27:55,500
And then we would come in for any larger
traumatic calls or for more significant

493
00:27:55,500 --> 00:27:59,180
stuff. So cardiac arrests or things like
that, the fire department would come with

494
00:27:59,180 --> 00:28:02,780
us, and we'd frequently have extra hands.
Otherwise, an EMT crew is just two people.

495
00:28:02,940 --> 00:28:06,600
It's just two partners. Usually
a EMT basic and a paramedic.

496
00:28:06,830 --> 00:28:10,110
Speaker A: Now the firefighter people,
when they show up, do you get.

497
00:28:10,110 --> 00:28:12,190
Do you're like, I'm a real
emt, get out of the way.

498
00:28:12,190 --> 00:28:13,870
Or is it like. They have a
lot of the same training?

499
00:28:13,870 --> 00:28:14,510
How's that work?

500
00:28:15,550 --> 00:28:18,390
Speaker B: They were all, I think,
EMT basics in Richmond.

501
00:28:18,390 --> 00:28:21,070
Richmond had A split system of.

502
00:28:21,070 --> 00:28:24,310
They had the contract with Richmond
Ambulance Authority, but then they had a

503
00:28:24,310 --> 00:28:26,590
professional firefight. Richmond
Firefighting Department.

504
00:28:27,790 --> 00:28:33,750
And we worked together, but we were two
separate systems, and we had a really good

505
00:28:33,750 --> 00:28:36,910
working relationship. I really liked most
of the firefighters that I worked with,

506
00:28:37,620 --> 00:28:41,420
and they were very helpful and very
respectful, and it was oftentimes kind of

507
00:28:41,420 --> 00:28:46,700
bizarre. Most of them were in their 30s
and 40s, and here I am, 21, and they're

508
00:28:46,700 --> 00:28:49,980
like, what do we do, sir?
And I'm like, fuck if I know.

509
00:28:49,980 --> 00:28:52,300
Like, you guys have more
experience than I do.

510
00:28:52,300 --> 00:28:55,140
And they're like, no, you're the
boss. And I'm like, okay, here we go.

511
00:28:55,940 --> 00:28:58,420
Speaker A: We. We went. We.

512
00:28:58,660 --> 00:29:02,340
We've known. Eric and I have known each
other since high school, and I knew you and

513
00:29:02,340 --> 00:29:04,660
hung out with you in
college when you were emt.

514
00:29:05,000 --> 00:29:09,440
It is terrifying to think people were
looking to you in an emergency situation of

515
00:29:09,440 --> 00:29:11,800
what to do. Yes, I remember back then.

516
00:29:11,880 --> 00:29:13,720
That's scary.

517
00:29:13,960 --> 00:29:17,600
Speaker B: I've got a story in a little bit that I'll
share that is they really kind of took

518
00:29:17,600 --> 00:29:18,600
that up to another level.

519
00:29:20,440 --> 00:29:21,080
The first.

520
00:29:22,200 --> 00:29:26,080
Speaker D: Before we move on, I just want to say one
thing, which is the thing, like, the thing

521
00:29:26,080 --> 00:29:31,480
that really grabbed me about the last
story is going is that is responding to

522
00:29:31,480 --> 00:29:34,880
potentially, like, a call
for somebody having a panic

523
00:29:34,880 --> 00:29:36,920
Speaker B: attack in a crack den.

524
00:29:36,920 --> 00:29:41,560
Speaker D: Which isn't to say that people in crack
houses or whatever else don't deserve

525
00:29:41,560 --> 00:29:45,400
medical treatment and services. I'm just
sort of like, when you get down to that

526
00:29:45,400 --> 00:29:48,480
level, what, you know, what
constitutes a panic attack?

527
00:29:48,480 --> 00:29:51,800
I'm in a house with 30 people. I don't
know, I'm probably going to have a panic

528
00:29:51,800 --> 00:29:57,240
attack. Then you add crack, and the building
is condemned, and they're, you know,

529
00:29:58,200 --> 00:30:00,200
infested with bugs and everything else.

530
00:30:01,800 --> 00:30:04,280
It just seems pretty
unthinkable, kind of crazy.

531
00:30:04,780 --> 00:30:09,020
Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. Everybody needs care,
and it's not always the same.

532
00:30:09,420 --> 00:30:14,300
So a couple months in, I graduated my
preception and I was cleared and put on the

533
00:30:14,300 --> 00:30:20,060
streets. And at that point, I did not
have any oversight from a more senior

534
00:30:20,060 --> 00:30:23,740
paramedic. It was me and an emt, basic
kind of cruising the streets and doing our

535
00:30:23,740 --> 00:30:26,700
thing. And I was a full professional
paramedic at that point.

536
00:30:27,500 --> 00:30:31,020
It didn't take more than a month before I
got called out to my first cardiac arrest.

537
00:30:31,420 --> 00:30:34,050
And like I said, the adrenaline
thing was kicking in.

538
00:30:34,290 --> 00:30:39,890
I was excited, and I know that sounds kind
of awful for someone is dying, and I was

539
00:30:39,890 --> 00:30:41,530
excited. I wanted to test my skills.

540
00:30:41,530 --> 00:30:43,970
I wanted to do what I was trained to do.

541
00:30:44,210 --> 00:30:47,650
And as odd as this sounds, it went
as perfect as it could have gone.

542
00:30:48,129 --> 00:30:49,810
I got the inhibition on the first try.

543
00:30:49,810 --> 00:30:52,690
On the first try, I got the IV in.

544
00:30:52,770 --> 00:30:53,890
We were

545
00:30:56,130 --> 00:30:58,810
doing the drugs. I don't believe
we had to defibrillate her.

546
00:30:58,810 --> 00:31:04,120
I think she was in pea but we worked her
on the scene for about 10, 15 minutes.

547
00:31:04,440 --> 00:31:06,840
We transported, transported
her to the hospital.

548
00:31:07,560 --> 00:31:12,960
She did not survive. But she was still
in PEA which means she still had some

549
00:31:12,960 --> 00:31:15,880
electrical activity in her heart when we
got her there and dropped her off, which

550
00:31:15,880 --> 00:31:17,960
for a paramedic, that's a big deal.

551
00:31:18,440 --> 00:31:22,200
It shows that you did everything that
you were supposed to do and that your

552
00:31:22,200 --> 00:31:24,600
protocols were correct and
your decisions were correct.

553
00:31:25,000 --> 00:31:28,720
And it was something where again, I
didn't sleep for like two days afterwards.

554
00:31:28,720 --> 00:31:30,640
I was like calling my preceptor.

555
00:31:30,640 --> 00:31:32,200
I was calling my friends.
I was like, I did this.

556
00:31:32,520 --> 00:31:35,080
I, I, I did it. And we, again, we
worked with the fire department.

557
00:31:35,480 --> 00:31:40,280
We had them. I was managing a crew of six
people at that point to get this done.

558
00:31:40,280 --> 00:31:41,960
And it went as flawlessly as possible.

559
00:31:42,120 --> 00:31:44,040
And I was very proud of myself for that.

560
00:31:44,680 --> 00:31:46,440
Speaker A: You're saying you didn't
sleep for two days?

561
00:31:46,440 --> 00:31:50,520
So that's two days of like, just pumped
about it like it might been, or like you,

562
00:31:50,520 --> 00:31:52,280
you didn't view it as
like a trauma or anything?

563
00:31:52,360 --> 00:31:54,360
Speaker B: No, it wasn't bad. It was good.

564
00:31:54,680 --> 00:31:58,360
It was, I was excited because
I had tested myself and,

565
00:31:59,700 --> 00:32:02,660
and everything. I proven
worthy, if you will.

566
00:32:02,660 --> 00:32:04,500
I, I did exactly what
I was supposed to do.

567
00:32:04,500 --> 00:32:04,900
And

568
00:32:06,340 --> 00:32:07,700
again, I was proud of myself.

569
00:32:08,420 --> 00:32:13,540
Speaker A: That makes me think of, like doctors that
like you had told me one time, you know,

570
00:32:13,620 --> 00:32:16,900
wait till you kill your first patient or
whatever is like something doctors have to

571
00:32:16,900 --> 00:32:23,020
experience or whatever. That when our
EMTs worried about, like getting sued and

572
00:32:23,020 --> 00:32:26,550
stuff, like what that that's
not the issue that it is

573
00:32:26,550 --> 00:32:27,350
Speaker B: for nds,

574
00:32:28,710 --> 00:32:33,590
we're all protocol driven. So unless you
do something completely aberrant and don't,

575
00:32:33,670 --> 00:32:36,790
you know, don't get off from
your protocols, you are covered.

576
00:32:38,150 --> 00:32:42,470
So it's again, the biggest things that
EMTs will run into is car accidents.

577
00:32:42,790 --> 00:32:48,150
So someone, the driver who's driving too
fast or not stopping like they're supposed

578
00:32:48,150 --> 00:32:50,630
to at lights and they hit somebody,
that's where paramax get into trouble.

579
00:32:51,250 --> 00:32:54,130
The next one is kind of a funny story,
particularly with talking about the Richmond

580
00:32:54,130 --> 00:33:00,330
Fire Department. So we had one summer day,
Philip Morris had barns there where they

581
00:33:00,330 --> 00:33:01,970
would fumigate their tobacco.

582
00:33:02,370 --> 00:33:05,730
And from what I understand, they would
basically seal them off and put these

583
00:33:06,530 --> 00:33:10,650
chemicals in that. Normally when they would
open up, the vents would all just kind

584
00:33:10,650 --> 00:33:12,610
of float away and not be a problem.

585
00:33:13,570 --> 00:33:18,850
Something went wrong that day where it was
either the barometric pressure was off or

586
00:33:18,850 --> 00:33:20,450
they put too much of
the chemical in there.

587
00:33:20,450 --> 00:33:25,690
But when they opened the doors, instead of
floating away, it floated out in a giant

588
00:33:25,690 --> 00:33:30,690
cloud of toxic gas across South Richmond
and was floating through some of the

589
00:33:30,690 --> 00:33:37,490
neighborhoods. And we got dispatched to
it, and being the smart and cautious person

590
00:33:37,490 --> 00:33:43,650
that I am, we staged a block away from it
and watched this cloud move through the

591
00:33:43,650 --> 00:33:47,450
neighborhood. And we were talking with our
dispatchers, and we were like, what are

592
00:33:47,450 --> 00:33:49,530
we supposed to do? Are
we supposed to help?

593
00:33:50,650 --> 00:33:54,610
Speaker A: What is it? What does a cloud of toxic
chemicals floating through Richmond look

594
00:33:54,610 --> 00:33:54,890
like?

595
00:33:55,130 --> 00:33:58,330
Speaker B: There's a big, white,
puffy cloud on the ground.

596
00:33:58,330 --> 00:34:00,650
Looked like fog. Looked
like a fog bank, but.

597
00:34:00,650 --> 00:34:05,210
Except that it was insecticide, and it
was just floating along the ground, and it

598
00:34:05,210 --> 00:34:06,170
was about 20ft high.

599
00:34:07,130 --> 00:34:07,970
Speaker A: Newsworthy.

600
00:34:07,970 --> 00:34:12,330
Speaker B: It should have been. I don't
believe it was, but it's crumsy.

601
00:34:12,709 --> 00:34:14,789
I'm sure Philip Morris
probably squashed that one.

602
00:34:16,469 --> 00:34:16,869
Speaker A: So.

603
00:34:17,669 --> 00:34:19,629
Speaker B: So we. We watched this,
and we're like, well, what.

604
00:34:19,629 --> 00:34:22,989
What is our job here? Are we supposed
to help people to get exposed, or are we

605
00:34:22,989 --> 00:34:24,949
supposed to, like. I don't know.

606
00:34:25,109 --> 00:34:30,629
And as we watch a Richmond fire department
truck goes plowing right into the cloud,

607
00:34:30,949 --> 00:34:33,269
and we're like, oh, that's.

608
00:34:33,269 --> 00:34:36,389
That's not good. I'm not sure what
we're supposed to do with that now.

609
00:34:36,789 --> 00:34:40,069
So they did not stage. They did not listen
to their radio dispatchers and drove

610
00:34:40,069 --> 00:34:41,829
right into the cloud of toxic chemicals.

611
00:34:42,370 --> 00:34:45,890
And so that they became our patients. They
drove out and they met us a couple blocks

612
00:34:45,890 --> 00:34:48,770
away, and we were like,
what were you thinking?

613
00:34:48,770 --> 00:34:51,530
And they're like, I don't know. We just
went. This is where we dispatched to.

614
00:34:51,530 --> 00:34:55,130
When we went. This is before
Google Maps or anything like that.

615
00:34:55,130 --> 00:34:59,250
We're using map books and atlases, and
there's no, you know, you see on the police

616
00:34:59,250 --> 00:35:01,050
cars and stuff now. They
have the whole big screen.

617
00:35:01,050 --> 00:35:04,370
We didn't have that. We
had a map book and a pager.

618
00:35:05,010 --> 00:35:09,240
And so these guys went right into
the cloud, and we took care of them.

619
00:35:09,240 --> 00:35:11,440
They weren't super sick. They
were coughing a little bit.

620
00:35:11,440 --> 00:35:16,160
And we drove them to the hospital. And as
we come back for another call later in the

621
00:35:16,160 --> 00:35:19,080
day, we see the firefighters
sitting there, and they're like,

622
00:35:19,080 --> 00:35:20,000
Speaker C: oh, there he is.

623
00:35:20,240 --> 00:35:23,160
Speaker B: You know, doc wants to see you. And I'm
like, why does the doc Want to see me?

624
00:35:23,160 --> 00:35:26,640
And they're like, well, we're all being
admitted to the hospital for observation.

625
00:35:26,640 --> 00:35:29,160
They want to see you too, and they think
you should come too because you were

626
00:35:29,160 --> 00:35:32,280
exposed to us. And I was
like, no, fuck yourself.

627
00:35:32,280 --> 00:35:34,880
Like, I'm not spending the night in the
hospital because you guys were idiots.

628
00:35:35,450 --> 00:35:38,530
And I gotta the hospital as quickly as I
could before the attendant could find me

629
00:35:38,530 --> 00:35:41,810
because I was not willing to spend
the night for a secondary exposure.

630
00:35:41,810 --> 00:35:42,730
Cuz they were stupid.

631
00:35:43,210 --> 00:35:45,650
Speaker A: Could anyone kept you
there? What's the lawn?

632
00:35:45,650 --> 00:35:48,210
I could like, will your
employer have made you sick?

633
00:35:48,210 --> 00:35:48,970
Or something like that?

634
00:35:49,130 --> 00:35:52,290
Speaker B: Potentially. But it didn't come to that.

635
00:35:52,290 --> 00:35:54,410
No one ever followed up and I was fine.

636
00:35:54,410 --> 00:35:54,730
Speaker A: So

637
00:35:56,810 --> 00:35:58,890
Speaker B: the next one hit kind of close to home.

638
00:35:59,930 --> 00:36:04,130
We were dispatched to what sounded like
either an unresponsive patient or an

639
00:36:04,130 --> 00:36:08,170
overdose. And it was in a small
apartment in the basement.

640
00:36:08,730 --> 00:36:13,890
And the girl was in the bathroom and kind
of unresponsive up against the bathroom

641
00:36:13,890 --> 00:36:15,530
doors. We had to basically break the door.

642
00:36:15,770 --> 00:36:16,730
Speaker C: Roughly how old?

643
00:36:17,130 --> 00:36:22,010
Speaker B: She was 19. And this is where, this is
where it kind of got a little tough.

644
00:36:23,050 --> 00:36:28,100
She had drank a bottle and
a half of antifreeze and

645
00:36:29,700 --> 00:36:32,980
we don't know how long she'd been down.
She was still breathing, but she was

646
00:36:33,060 --> 00:36:35,220
uptunded and not responsive.

647
00:36:35,700 --> 00:36:36,100
And

648
00:36:38,100 --> 00:36:41,740
so we couldn't work her. There was nothing
for us to really do other than to start

649
00:36:41,740 --> 00:36:44,900
an IV on her and just kind
of support her respirations.

650
00:36:44,900 --> 00:36:45,300
And

651
00:36:47,060 --> 00:36:51,060
as we got to the hospital, I talked
with the attending and he's like, she's.

652
00:36:51,380 --> 00:36:55,070
We don't know how long this has been. You
know, even if we take her to the ICU and

653
00:36:55,310 --> 00:36:58,630
try to start therapy, it's
unlikely that she'll survive.

654
00:36:58,630 --> 00:37:00,350
Basically her. She's
destroyed her kidneys.

655
00:37:00,670 --> 00:37:06,710
Everything else will follow. And to see
someone roughly my age kill themselves in

656
00:37:06,710 --> 00:37:11,470
such a manner and so alone in a
bathroom of a basement apartment was.

657
00:37:11,870 --> 00:37:13,870
That was rough. That
was a really tough one.

658
00:37:15,630 --> 00:37:20,350
Speaker C: It's. It's pretty quick that things
are getting to your kidneys, right?

659
00:37:20,350 --> 00:37:25,450
Like, like how small is the window where
you can try to get someone to puke some

660
00:37:25,450 --> 00:37:28,090
sort of toxic chemical like that?

661
00:37:28,250 --> 00:37:31,210
Speaker B: Not, not long, maybe an
hour or two at the most.

662
00:37:32,170 --> 00:37:34,650
And with, with antifreeze,
that's a particularly rough one.

663
00:37:34,650 --> 00:37:37,570
There's a couple things in medicine like
you just really don't want to mess with.

664
00:37:37,570 --> 00:37:39,850
So like a Tylenol overdose
is exceptionally bad.

665
00:37:40,570 --> 00:37:42,250
Antifreeze is exceptionally bad.

666
00:37:42,810 --> 00:37:44,570
Drano is exceptionally bad.

667
00:37:44,650 --> 00:37:46,890
There's just certain ones where
like you're not going to walk away.

668
00:37:46,890 --> 00:37:50,290
Okay. If you did that, is it thought

669
00:37:50,290 --> 00:37:55,010
Speaker C: that this person was trying to kill
herself or was she just like had a lot of

670
00:37:55,010 --> 00:37:57,600
addictions and was like,
well, this fucked me up.

671
00:37:58,240 --> 00:38:01,400
Speaker B: You know, with the EMS world, you never
know. Like you're, you're seeing these

672
00:38:01,400 --> 00:38:05,320
people in this like window of time, this
little snapshot in the worst moment of

673
00:38:05,320 --> 00:38:07,840
their life. And so you
don't, you don't know them.

674
00:38:08,640 --> 00:38:10,960
Speaker A: It's the bottle and a half aspect of it.

675
00:38:11,120 --> 00:38:16,520
Because then there's, you deal a bottle
and then you open up another bottle is like

676
00:38:16,520 --> 00:38:18,160
you, you don't want to.

677
00:38:18,320 --> 00:38:19,920
Speaker C: Don't mind the flavor too.

678
00:38:20,480 --> 00:38:22,000
Speaker A: Yeah, that's wild.

679
00:38:22,000 --> 00:38:22,800
Speaker B: I've never heard of that.

680
00:38:22,800 --> 00:38:23,920
Speaker A: That's a wild way to go.

681
00:38:23,920 --> 00:38:27,800
Speaker C: Yeah, you would think that it would touch
your tongue and you would go, okay, I'm

682
00:38:27,800 --> 00:38:28,760
using something else.

683
00:38:29,000 --> 00:38:31,000
Speaker B: No, she wanted to make that happen.

684
00:38:32,120 --> 00:38:33,720
Speaker C: Jeez, man. Oh.

685
00:38:34,760 --> 00:38:37,960
Speaker B: The next one was kind of funny and it
was just going back into like your police

686
00:38:37,960 --> 00:38:42,360
world and just the response time of like
the kind of over top responses that we can

687
00:38:42,360 --> 00:38:48,200
have. So we get dispatched to a shooting
and the call was, a teenager's been shot in

688
00:38:48,200 --> 00:38:51,240
the neck. And so we're expecting
like the worst of the worst.

689
00:38:51,900 --> 00:38:56,300
And we stage and police is kind of looking
around and all we see is a couple of

690
00:38:56,300 --> 00:38:57,980
families having a barbecue in a park.

691
00:38:57,980 --> 00:39:00,460
And no one seems alarmed,
no one seems upset.

692
00:39:01,100 --> 00:39:04,300
And the police finally figure out
what's going on and call us in.

693
00:39:04,940 --> 00:39:08,980
And basically it was like some other
teenagers had shot one of the kids in the back

694
00:39:08,980 --> 00:39:13,260
of the neck with a BB gun. And he had a
tiny little hole in the back of his neck.

695
00:39:13,260 --> 00:39:19,760
But There was like 10 cop cars, two fire
trucks, and us and this kid, he's like, hey

696
00:39:19,760 --> 00:39:21,360
man, they shot me in the back of the neck.

697
00:39:21,360 --> 00:39:23,360
Like, what are you gonna do
about it? I'm like, nothing.

698
00:39:23,600 --> 00:39:27,080
Jesus Christ. Like, how much
resources did like this?

699
00:39:27,080 --> 00:39:31,720
Cause because someone didn't understand,
you know, the phone call or didn't explain

700
00:39:31,720 --> 00:39:32,880
things on the phone call.

701
00:39:33,440 --> 00:39:34,640
Speaker A: How old were the kid was a

702
00:39:34,640 --> 00:39:36,160
Speaker B: kid, like 14, 15.

703
00:39:36,800 --> 00:39:40,520
Speaker C: I, I thought you were gonna say instead of
being a bb, I thought it was that he got

704
00:39:40,520 --> 00:39:43,040
shot in the neck, but it
was like the, the dick neck.

705
00:39:43,040 --> 00:39:46,330
Not the, which is like not the
head, but the neck of the dick neck.

706
00:39:51,680 --> 00:39:55,960
Speaker D: The thing it could have been in my mind
was like, it was just somebody that

707
00:39:55,960 --> 00:40:00,040
everybody really didn't like. And so people
had been upset that the person had been

708
00:40:00,040 --> 00:40:02,040
shot, but you show up and
everyone's just Barbecuing.

709
00:40:02,040 --> 00:40:04,160
And you're like, well, you know, it was.

710
00:40:04,320 --> 00:40:05,240
Speaker B: It was about time.

711
00:40:05,240 --> 00:40:07,080
Speaker D: He just kept running his mouth and,

712
00:40:07,080 --> 00:40:10,080
Speaker B: you know, we all knew it would
happen eventually, right?

713
00:40:10,080 --> 00:40:12,480
Speaker A: So, EMS on.

714
00:40:12,480 --> 00:40:14,290
On Davey. He had it coming.

715
00:40:14,370 --> 00:40:16,210
Yeah, right.

716
00:40:16,210 --> 00:40:19,090
Speaker D: We're like, no, we just wanted you
to know that this guy had been shot.

717
00:40:19,090 --> 00:40:21,290
We want everyone to know.
We called the press, too.

718
00:40:21,290 --> 00:40:22,370
It's a good thing.

719
00:40:23,570 --> 00:40:27,490
Speaker B: Along that vein, one of the interesting
things I found culturally that I didn't

720
00:40:27,490 --> 00:40:31,970
expect. I guess I'd heard this in passing,
but never realized how true it was with

721
00:40:31,970 --> 00:40:34,770
several of the shootings I had where
they were more minor, where they're just.

722
00:40:35,090 --> 00:40:36,290
They weren't dying,

723
00:40:37,730 --> 00:40:40,270
they wouldn't roll on people.
They knew who shot him.

724
00:40:40,350 --> 00:40:42,150
And I'd be like, who. Who shot you?

725
00:40:42,150 --> 00:40:46,990
Who did this? And they're like. And one of
the guys had been shot in the face with a

726
00:40:46,990 --> 00:40:48,710
small caliber bullet. It went.

727
00:40:48,710 --> 00:40:51,750
You could see the hole through his cheek,
and it knocked a couple of teeth out.

728
00:40:51,750 --> 00:40:54,190
But other than that, he was,
for the most part, okay.

729
00:40:54,590 --> 00:40:56,550
And we asked him. We're
like, dude, what happened?

730
00:40:56,550 --> 00:40:58,430
Because he was, like, in the middle
of this, like, industrial area.

731
00:40:58,990 --> 00:41:02,030
And we were like, what were you doing? He
was like, I was just on the corner minding

732
00:41:02,030 --> 00:41:04,630
my own business. And we're like,
man, that always became the joke.

733
00:41:04,630 --> 00:41:07,680
The most dangerous thing to do in Richmond
was just sit on the corner, mind your own

734
00:41:07,680 --> 00:41:09,400
business. That's how you get shot.

735
00:41:11,720 --> 00:41:14,120
The next one's pretty wild
because it was one of my first.

736
00:41:14,120 --> 00:41:17,240
That should be, like, a little sound

737
00:41:17,240 --> 00:41:19,000
Speaker C: sting that you can use in the future.

738
00:41:19,240 --> 00:41:22,120
Speaker A: That's how you get shot. And
just fucking drop that in.

739
00:41:24,600 --> 00:41:29,960
Speaker B: Next one was neat because it was one of my
first experiences with significant mental

740
00:41:29,960 --> 00:41:32,920
health as well as, like,
some police dysfunction.

741
00:41:33,860 --> 00:41:38,820
And I don't want to disparage any police
officers because they have a tough job,

742
00:41:38,820 --> 00:41:43,620
too, but there were times where, in the
medical side of it, things got a little

743
00:41:43,860 --> 00:41:47,460
wonky. So this gentleman was

744
00:41:49,220 --> 00:41:50,980
bipolar, and he was manic.

745
00:41:51,220 --> 00:41:52,260
And in that state,

746
00:41:53,540 --> 00:41:56,100
it's like what you see on tv. It's
like what the movies show you.

747
00:41:56,100 --> 00:41:58,820
And until you actually see
it, you don't believe it.

748
00:41:58,900 --> 00:41:59,780
You don't understand

749
00:42:01,240 --> 00:42:03,040
what kind of crazy can be.

750
00:42:03,040 --> 00:42:07,160
And so some of the terms that we use in
medicine are like flight of ideas and

751
00:42:07,160 --> 00:42:09,800
pressured speech. And these
people were just like.

752
00:42:09,960 --> 00:42:13,040
The thoughts are just shooting out of
their head, and they're talking a mile a

753
00:42:13,040 --> 00:42:18,240
minute, and what they're saying makes almost
no sense, but they, in their mind, are,

754
00:42:18,240 --> 00:42:20,920
like, completely lucid and they
think that everything is okay.

755
00:42:21,560 --> 00:42:25,000
And he was agitated and he was not happy.

756
00:42:25,000 --> 00:42:29,190
And the police, whenever the police
would get close to him, he would get more

757
00:42:29,190 --> 00:42:36,070
agitated. And we were in his house and
I don't exactly know what set it off or

758
00:42:36,070 --> 00:42:39,510
why we even got. I'm not sure who called,
if it was him that called or his roommate

759
00:42:39,510 --> 00:42:42,230
or something, but someone had
called that he was having trouble.

760
00:42:42,390 --> 00:42:46,870
And so I took him back to the kitchen and
him and I sat down and we talked for about

761
00:42:46,870 --> 00:42:50,390
10, 15 minutes. And I was like,
hey, look, I'm not here to hurt you.

762
00:42:50,630 --> 00:42:53,090
I want to get you some help.
Like, let's go to the hospital.

763
00:42:53,250 --> 00:42:55,730
We don't have to involve the
police. Like, it's just me and you.

764
00:42:56,130 --> 00:42:58,370
Let's do this. Let's. I'll
take you out to the bus.

765
00:42:58,530 --> 00:43:01,090
We'll have a nice ride.
No problems, right?

766
00:43:01,410 --> 00:43:07,490
And he's calming down. I see him, the tension
leaving and I'm like, okay, all right,

767
00:43:07,490 --> 00:43:11,690
we got this, let's go. And as we start
to walk out of the kitchen, there's four

768
00:43:11,690 --> 00:43:15,490
police officers kind of flanking
the hallway and by the front door.

769
00:43:16,130 --> 00:43:19,090
And as we get closer, they
start to kind of like lean in.

770
00:43:19,540 --> 00:43:24,620
And I see him and I just, I look at his
face, I'm like, he's going to run, he's

771
00:43:24,620 --> 00:43:28,500
going to bolt, and he's out the front door
and they're kicking the shit out of him.

772
00:43:28,900 --> 00:43:31,060
And they beat that man half to death.

773
00:43:31,940 --> 00:43:35,020
And I had to. I ultimately did not take him
to the hospital because they took him to

774
00:43:35,020 --> 00:43:39,500
jail after they, after four cops just beat
the ever loving shit out of this guy that

775
00:43:39,500 --> 00:43:42,580
I was going to take to the hospital.
And that was a little frustrating.

776
00:43:42,980 --> 00:43:44,740
I feel like I kind of got undercut there.

777
00:43:45,340 --> 00:43:48,300
Speaker A: How many calls as an ENT
were mental health related?

778
00:43:48,300 --> 00:43:50,380
Because now it seems
like it's. It's a lot.

779
00:43:50,780 --> 00:43:51,900
It is a huge.

780
00:43:52,620 --> 00:43:54,460
Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, we had a good amount.

781
00:43:54,460 --> 00:43:57,820
I mean, not. It was
always a big part of it.

782
00:43:57,900 --> 00:44:01,500
Um, it was usually people
that were in severe crisis.

783
00:44:02,540 --> 00:44:05,580
So it was people that were
manic or people that were like.

784
00:44:05,580 --> 00:44:07,100
We frequently would pick up

785
00:44:08,940 --> 00:44:10,820
some of the older Alzheimer's patients.

786
00:44:10,820 --> 00:44:14,460
Down on the south side, there was like a
group home slash nursing home, and once in

787
00:44:14,460 --> 00:44:18,660
a while one would get out and they would
just be kind of wandering around down by

788
00:44:18,660 --> 00:44:21,180
the Walmart down there. They would just
kind of find them and pick them up.

789
00:44:21,180 --> 00:44:23,140
And so there was quite a
bit of mental health stuff.

790
00:44:24,820 --> 00:44:25,620
Speaker D: You know, it's.

791
00:44:27,060 --> 00:44:30,580
It reminds me of, you Know what?

792
00:44:30,660 --> 00:44:34,380
To a certain extent, what I was doing
with the army infantry in Afghanistan, you

793
00:44:34,380 --> 00:44:39,860
know, we deployed over there twice, and
I think I had a fairly what we would call

794
00:44:39,860 --> 00:44:45,020
kinetic experience, which is to say, you
know, a lot of fighting, nothing to do with

795
00:44:45,020 --> 00:44:51,190
Connecticut, but a lot of shooting and
fighting, which felt relevant for what we

796
00:44:51,190 --> 00:44:54,550
were doing. But then there was also a
lot of presence patrols and what ended up

797
00:44:54,550 --> 00:45:00,190
being police work, or what I thought of as
police work, which is not what you do in

798
00:45:00,350 --> 00:45:02,390
the infantry. It's not
what you're supposed to do.

799
00:45:02,390 --> 00:45:05,230
You're supposed to be fighting
other infantry in the infantry.

800
00:45:05,470 --> 00:45:07,870
You're a military. That's
what militaries are for.

801
00:45:08,110 --> 00:45:14,620
And I see a lot of. A lot of that sort
of similar mission creep or kind of like

802
00:45:14,620 --> 00:45:19,500
people being misassigned or
misallocated with the police.

803
00:45:20,460 --> 00:45:24,500
Like, you call the cops over to somebody's
house, they're going to be looking for a

804
00:45:24,500 --> 00:45:29,620
crime in a sense. Like, even if they're
like, you know, not looking for a crime,

805
00:45:29,620 --> 00:45:31,100
that's really what they're there for.

806
00:45:32,380 --> 00:45:38,410
And, yeah, it does seem like we need to
do a better job as a society of, like, not

807
00:45:38,410 --> 00:45:42,850
so much like, I don't know, taking the
police out of positions where they probably

808
00:45:42,850 --> 00:45:49,250
don't need to be there. So we can, you
know, so we can offer healthcare for people

809
00:45:49,250 --> 00:45:50,690
who are in healthcare crises

810
00:45:52,050 --> 00:45:56,690
and law enforcement or backup for people,
you know, who are breaking the law, which

811
00:45:56,690 --> 00:46:00,050
it sounds like this wasn't
really a case of Lakers.

812
00:46:01,570 --> 00:46:05,240
Speaker B: So my next story is kind of gross,
but also funny at the same time.

813
00:46:06,120 --> 00:46:10,920
We got called for a foot injury, and we
go up to this gentleman's apartment, and

814
00:46:10,920 --> 00:46:13,880
he's got this big kind of cast on his leg.

815
00:46:13,960 --> 00:46:18,520
And as we're getting his history, it
turns out that he was a diabetic and

816
00:46:19,800 --> 00:46:25,200
he had had foot surgery several weeks ago
that he was supposed to follow up on and

817
00:46:25,200 --> 00:46:30,440
just didn't. And as we continue to get
this history, we also notice that there's a

818
00:46:31,230 --> 00:46:34,630
very strong and very odd
smell in the apartment.

819
00:46:34,630 --> 00:46:40,190
And it was something kind of like bread,
but kind of like meat at the same time.

820
00:46:41,070 --> 00:46:43,390
And as we.

821
00:46:43,550 --> 00:46:47,910
As I fully grasp the problem that I have
in front of me, and I realize that this

822
00:46:47,910 --> 00:46:50,830
gentleman's foot is rotting
underneath of this cast.

823
00:46:51,630 --> 00:46:56,290
I made the stupid decision to
take off the cast to see what.

824
00:46:56,440 --> 00:46:59,960
What we were dealing with, which I should
have left to the hospital staff, because

825
00:46:59,960 --> 00:47:02,360
that is, I was not going to
offer this gentleman anything.

826
00:47:03,320 --> 00:47:08,960
And as I opened up the cast, his Foot
basically fell apart and it was all melting

827
00:47:08,960 --> 00:47:14,280
underneath the cast. And that's what the
smell was, was a combination of molding

828
00:47:14,440 --> 00:47:16,600
tissue and basically yeast.

829
00:47:16,920 --> 00:47:20,800
And it was a unique scent that I have
only smelled a couple other times.

830
00:47:20,800 --> 00:47:25,290
But another one that was also
slightly humorous and gross.

831
00:47:25,690 --> 00:47:31,090
We went to a call for. Sometimes we would
go to a scene to confirm the death of

832
00:47:31,090 --> 00:47:34,730
somebody. Someone had been down for a while,
the police found him or somebody found

833
00:47:34,730 --> 00:47:37,970
them and we just had to basically come and
say, yep, yep, they're dead and we're not

834
00:47:37,970 --> 00:47:39,290
working them, we're not doing anything.

835
00:47:40,570 --> 00:47:45,330
This gentleman had the largest collection
of old school porn that I've ever seen in

836
00:47:45,330 --> 00:47:50,660
my life. He had floor to ceiling
bookshelves of porn videos.

837
00:47:51,380 --> 00:47:55,660
And we were all just amazed in,
in a, in a bizarre way, impressed.

838
00:47:55,660 --> 00:47:58,740
It's just the volume and time that it
probably took this gentleman to collect.

839
00:47:59,620 --> 00:48:03,300
Speaker C: That's someone who just says, I'll never
date a woman for the rest of my life,

840
00:48:03,300 --> 00:48:03,540
right?

841
00:48:03,540 --> 00:48:04,180
Speaker D: I think so.

842
00:48:04,580 --> 00:48:08,420
Speaker B: And this is, you know, this is pre Internet
being a real, a big thing where like,

843
00:48:08,420 --> 00:48:11,500
you know, you'd have someone that if you
die is going to delete your Internet.

844
00:48:11,500 --> 00:48:13,940
Your search history. This
guy didn't have that set up.

845
00:48:15,480 --> 00:48:18,680
Someone was supposed to come over and bag
all that up and throw it out before he

846
00:48:18,680 --> 00:48:22,160
died. And they did not.
It was thousands of it.

847
00:48:22,160 --> 00:48:25,400
Speaker A: Did his parents think of it
because they were living upstairs?

848
00:48:25,400 --> 00:48:26,200
What did they think?

849
00:48:29,720 --> 00:48:31,640
Speaker B: The next one is a similar story.

850
00:48:32,760 --> 00:48:37,960
Speaker D: We got called I, I, I mean, are we really
gonna hate on a collector here that's,

851
00:48:41,450 --> 00:48:43,850
I mean I'm collecting
baseball cards right now.

852
00:48:43,850 --> 00:48:50,290
I could still collect like, you know,
books, you know, I mean, sure, the subject

853
00:48:50,290 --> 00:48:55,770
matter was not great, but it's not like he
was that whatever that the Supreme Court,

854
00:48:56,090 --> 00:49:01,130
the guy who paid all that money to the
Supreme Court justice or sort of like who

855
00:49:01,130 --> 00:49:06,210
collects Nazi memorabilia and it's just
pornography, you know, I give this guy a

856
00:49:06,210 --> 00:49:06,730
pass on.

857
00:49:06,970 --> 00:49:08,330
Speaker B: He wasn't bothering anybody.

858
00:49:10,160 --> 00:49:14,720
Speaker A: We all laugh, joke, but legit, that's
probably worth some cash right now, depending

859
00:49:14,720 --> 00:49:20,080
on the condition. It's not too used,
so it's probably worth somebody.

860
00:49:20,160 --> 00:49:23,760
Speaker B: Ryan. I bet there was a Ryan
Connor video or two in there.

861
00:49:23,760 --> 00:49:26,080
What was the one it.

862
00:49:26,720 --> 00:49:33,320
Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, look, if this person had
more than 10 videos, there was at least one

863
00:49:33,320 --> 00:49:34,400
Ryan Connor in there.

864
00:49:35,320 --> 00:49:39,240
Speaker A: Now I love the fact that anybody
that listens to this podcast,

865
00:49:40,920 --> 00:49:46,760
they don't know who you are and don't
know your podcast or any of your

866
00:49:47,640 --> 00:49:50,280
material. Don't give them Context.

867
00:49:50,359 --> 00:49:54,440
Let's just leave it out there. As
if Eric just said, you do porn.

868
00:49:55,000 --> 00:49:55,440
Yes.

869
00:49:55,440 --> 00:49:56,280
Speaker B: Let's leave it

870
00:49:57,720 --> 00:49:59,240
anyway. Do a Google search.

871
00:49:59,240 --> 00:50:00,800
Speaker A: Not at work, Ryan.

872
00:50:00,800 --> 00:50:03,240
Connor. My ass is on fire, too.

873
00:50:04,200 --> 00:50:05,240
Well, it's probably all.

874
00:50:06,200 --> 00:50:08,120
Speaker C: I think. Yeah, I think
she's in all of them.

875
00:50:08,360 --> 00:50:13,320
Unless it's like American Ninja 3 where
someone else stepped in for Dudikoff.

876
00:50:13,560 --> 00:50:17,080
Speaker B: So the next story I have was a
similar one of, like, calling out to

877
00:50:18,600 --> 00:50:20,840
say somebody was dead.
And it was just the.

878
00:50:20,840 --> 00:50:24,760
This whole scenario was
so strange and so bizarre.

879
00:50:25,980 --> 00:50:29,060
We get called out and the
gentleman is clearly dead.

880
00:50:29,060 --> 00:50:31,020
And he's been dead for a long time.

881
00:50:31,100 --> 00:50:33,500
And this is July in Richmond.

882
00:50:34,300 --> 00:50:36,860
And he looked like a hot dog.

883
00:50:36,860 --> 00:50:39,900
He looked like at any moment
that he might split and pop.

884
00:50:40,380 --> 00:50:40,780
And

885
00:50:42,300 --> 00:50:47,780
then we had to wait for, I think, police
to show up to kind of clear us to leave the

886
00:50:47,780 --> 00:50:50,860
scene, because then becomes a
crime scene after we're gone.

887
00:50:51,260 --> 00:50:55,300
And so we're looking around, and
there was no trauma to the body.

888
00:50:55,300 --> 00:50:57,020
We weren't worried about anything. And

889
00:50:58,300 --> 00:51:01,980
as we walk around, we're like, man,
how long has this guy been here?

890
00:51:02,940 --> 00:51:04,460
I mean, there's flies and everything.

891
00:51:04,540 --> 00:51:07,020
And it just smelled. And
this has been a while.

892
00:51:07,340 --> 00:51:11,180
And we're looking around and we're looking
at mail, and ultimately my partner finds

893
00:51:11,180 --> 00:51:13,980
a calendar on the wall.
And this guy was a.

894
00:51:14,220 --> 00:51:18,140
A X marking day, and he'd been
there for almost two weeks.

895
00:51:18,300 --> 00:51:20,300
And you could see where
the X's had stopped.

896
00:51:20,540 --> 00:51:24,370
And it was just kind of surreal to be like,
yep, that was his last day right there.

897
00:51:24,850 --> 00:51:31,650
Speaker A: That is wild. They say, like, the
smell of human remains is unique.

898
00:51:31,650 --> 00:51:34,690
And I've never. Thankfully,
I've never experienced that.

899
00:51:35,810 --> 00:51:37,890
Is that something that
kind of stays with you?

900
00:51:39,090 --> 00:51:41,490
Speaker B: No, because I smelled much
worse things later on.

901
00:51:41,490 --> 00:51:43,090
That one was. It's gross.

902
00:51:43,410 --> 00:51:43,810
But

903
00:51:46,610 --> 00:51:49,400
Speaker C: you know the corpse
flower? You heard of this?

904
00:51:49,880 --> 00:51:50,320
Speaker A: Yeah.

905
00:51:50,320 --> 00:51:55,960
Speaker C: So I. I just smelled one, like, right
when it was blooming a couple weeks ago.

906
00:51:57,160 --> 00:52:00,440
To me, it was the most putrid odor I.

907
00:52:00,440 --> 00:52:02,360
I have ever smelled.

908
00:52:02,440 --> 00:52:05,880
And Rachel, my girlfriend,
was like, it's not that bad.

909
00:52:10,520 --> 00:52:14,600
You know, we do have a nurse
friend who told us a story.

910
00:52:15,770 --> 00:52:16,170
Speaker A: Er.

911
00:52:17,770 --> 00:52:23,730
Speaker C: Ryan, you might remember this. A patient
came in with this horrible smell that,

912
00:52:23,730 --> 00:52:26,170
like, cleared the room at first, and they.

913
00:52:26,570 --> 00:52:29,970
It's like everyone had to regroup and try
to figure out what is going with this lady

914
00:52:29,970 --> 00:52:36,850
because there was something going on, you
know, with the psychology, where she was

915
00:52:36,850 --> 00:52:39,530
not communicating what was going on.

916
00:52:40,570 --> 00:52:42,410
Initially, they discover, wait a minute.

917
00:52:42,410 --> 00:52:45,450
It is coming from the
bottom half of her body.

918
00:52:46,810 --> 00:52:53,370
And they do an examination, and she
had shoved a Cornish hen into her

919
00:52:53,370 --> 00:52:57,690
vagina. And it was, you know,
they're not supposed to do that.

920
00:52:59,050 --> 00:53:01,050
And it had fully rotted.

921
00:53:01,690 --> 00:53:03,850
So that's the disgusting stinky part.

922
00:53:03,850 --> 00:53:09,050
And then the doctor part is obviously, you
know, what did happen after that, which

923
00:53:09,050 --> 00:53:11,200
is remove everything.

924
00:53:11,760 --> 00:53:14,480
Speaker D: I was going to guess murder.
So remove everything is that

925
00:53:15,920 --> 00:53:17,600
she murdered everyone in town.

926
00:53:19,920 --> 00:53:21,600
Well, the doctor murdered her.

927
00:53:22,320 --> 00:53:22,800
Speaker A: Yeah.

928
00:53:22,960 --> 00:53:23,440
Speaker C: Yeah.

929
00:53:25,120 --> 00:53:31,280
Speaker B: I've got two more stories, and one, we
kind of alluded to this as far as, like,

930
00:53:32,000 --> 00:53:33,920
did I always feel like I
was doing the right thing?

931
00:53:34,320 --> 00:53:37,120
And is this, you know,
was this the right choice?

932
00:53:37,560 --> 00:53:42,040
I'd been now a professional paramedic for
probably about a year and a half, which at

933
00:53:42,040 --> 00:53:45,640
that point, you're kind of veteran, like,
you've got your shit together, you know

934
00:53:45,640 --> 00:53:47,240
what you're doing. You
got some street cred.

935
00:53:48,920 --> 00:53:54,320
The next one was a call to a pediatric
nursing center, and it was for a cardiac

936
00:53:54,320 --> 00:53:56,840
arrest. And I never had
worked a child before.

937
00:53:56,840 --> 00:54:00,120
This was before I decided that
I wanted to do pediatrics.

938
00:54:01,240 --> 00:54:04,360
And I never had done really
anything significant with.

939
00:54:04,360 --> 00:54:06,040
With children, much less a cardiac arrest.

940
00:54:06,920 --> 00:54:10,840
And so we get there, and now she
is arresting, she's not breathing.

941
00:54:12,360 --> 00:54:14,360
We. I believe we intubated her.

942
00:54:15,000 --> 00:54:16,960
I was not able to get a line on her.

943
00:54:16,960 --> 00:54:21,000
And we ended up doing an interosseous line,
which is where you put it into the bone.

944
00:54:21,400 --> 00:54:24,520
And we had a new device that would actually
put it into their sternum, which was

945
00:54:25,000 --> 00:54:27,000
kind of a grisly maneuver to do.

946
00:54:27,000 --> 00:54:31,560
But we got the line, we got the
medications in, and we brought it back.

947
00:54:32,140 --> 00:54:38,500
And what I found out as we did this and as
I got more information from the providers

948
00:54:38,500 --> 00:54:44,620
there was that she had a progressive
neurologic disorder, which was basically, her

949
00:54:44,620 --> 00:54:47,020
brain was destroying itself
over the course of time.

950
00:54:47,260 --> 00:54:52,940
And her family, they were immigrants
from China, I believe, and do not.

951
00:54:53,020 --> 00:54:55,740
What I was told was, do not
resuscitate does not translate well.

952
00:54:56,460 --> 00:54:59,020
And so they did not want
to withdraw care from her.

953
00:54:59,700 --> 00:55:06,060
And we. I brought her back from a situation
that she probably should not have come

954
00:55:06,060 --> 00:55:11,140
back from. And that really,
really bothered me and still does.

955
00:55:12,020 --> 00:55:17,660
And when we got to the hospital and the
ER attending kind of took over, things

956
00:55:17,660 --> 00:55:22,060
seemed to be going good. And as we were
finishing up, the neurologist who'd been

957
00:55:22,060 --> 00:55:27,590
caring for her overall came down and
completely lost his shit and was yelling at the

958
00:55:27,590 --> 00:55:30,470
staff. He did not know that I
was the one that had done that.

959
00:55:30,470 --> 00:55:32,510
So he was not yelling at me,
but he's like, who did this?

960
00:55:33,070 --> 00:55:35,950
Like, she, this, she should have
gone like, why are we doing this?

961
00:55:36,110 --> 00:55:42,029
And it, that really hit me hard where I
felt that I had not done the right thing.

962
00:55:42,029 --> 00:55:43,630
Speaker A: I don't know if I understand that. Why?

963
00:55:43,870 --> 00:55:48,270
Why? So there was an understanding that
if it's a certain kid, you shouldn't try

964
00:55:48,270 --> 00:55:50,750
certain things. Like, how
would you have known that?

965
00:55:50,750 --> 00:55:54,120
Speaker B: I wouldn't. But she was dying

966
00:55:55,400 --> 00:56:00,200
in more of the global sense of it, like
long term and then obviously acutely.

967
00:56:01,320 --> 00:56:05,640
And to do what we did just
prolonged her suffering.

968
00:56:05,800 --> 00:56:07,800
And that, I think, is
what bothers me the most.

969
00:56:09,640 --> 00:56:12,600
Speaker A: I apologize if you already said
to the age, how old was she?

970
00:56:13,560 --> 00:56:14,520
Speaker B: Nine, ten.

971
00:56:15,080 --> 00:56:17,400
Speaker A: Do you know what the
outcome was after that?

972
00:56:17,880 --> 00:56:19,880
Speaker B: No, I, I didn't want
to look into that one.

973
00:56:21,000 --> 00:56:27,200
And that. That's one again where like, she
had a fatal disease and it was only gonna

974
00:56:27,200 --> 00:56:27,960
end in one way.

975
00:56:28,680 --> 00:56:33,080
Speaker C: Question for you. This calls back to something
you said in the beginning about chest

976
00:56:33,080 --> 00:56:36,840
compressions and how they,
you know, it's devastating.

977
00:56:36,840 --> 00:56:41,000
I. I read something recently
about how a lot of people

978
00:56:42,360 --> 00:56:45,840
recommend not administering it
to people over a certain age.

979
00:56:45,840 --> 00:56:50,740
I can't remember if it's like 70 or something
like that because they say or 8, maybe

980
00:56:50,740 --> 00:56:54,100
it's 80, but with certain
complications because it's.

981
00:56:54,420 --> 00:56:58,700
Their quality of life is going to be so
low just because they aren't going to heal

982
00:56:58,700 --> 00:57:01,620
properly. Do you know anything about that?

983
00:57:01,620 --> 00:57:06,740
Is that. Or is that just something that
a small group of doctors are suggesting?

984
00:57:07,940 --> 00:57:13,700
Speaker B: You're probably correct. The American
Heart association or whoever does the CPR

985
00:57:13,700 --> 00:57:16,100
training actually changed
their recommendations.

986
00:57:16,180 --> 00:57:21,060
It used to be abc, so like airway
breathing, cardiac or compressions.

987
00:57:21,490 --> 00:57:25,450
Now it's cab. They actually want you doing
compressions earlier and they don't want

988
00:57:25,450 --> 00:57:29,010
people actually doing airway stuff because
most people don't know what they're doing

989
00:57:29,490 --> 00:57:34,770
or you're just not. You're delivering half
oxygenated air and then not delivering it

990
00:57:34,770 --> 00:57:36,730
appropriately. So they actually.

991
00:57:36,730 --> 00:57:40,050
The new guidelines are to like, basically
jump on the chest and start doing that.

992
00:57:40,770 --> 00:57:44,290
You're probably right. There is an age
where, like, you're just not going to

993
00:57:44,290 --> 00:57:46,450
recover. But I mean, an important
thing to think about too,

994
00:57:47,880 --> 00:57:52,760
if you go into cardiac arrest outside the
hospital, your odds of survival, about 1%.

995
00:57:53,560 --> 00:57:58,920
It's bad. I mean, unless you're Darryl
Hamlin and you have somebody with an AED

996
00:57:58,920 --> 00:58:01,640
right next to you, you're
probably going to die.

997
00:58:01,640 --> 00:58:04,800
It's electricity or medications that
are going to kind of turn things around

998
00:58:04,800 --> 00:58:10,240
depending on what happened. Doing compressions,
like, it's not like the movies, like

999
00:58:10,240 --> 00:58:12,040
Someone is not going to pronounce back.

1000
00:58:13,250 --> 00:58:15,570
And if you're older, it's just bad news.

1001
00:58:15,570 --> 00:58:18,050
Now, in the hospital setting,
your odds are much higher.

1002
00:58:18,130 --> 00:58:20,850
You're usually on. Usually
you have an IV set up.

1003
00:58:20,850 --> 00:58:24,690
You're usually in the ICU when these things
happen, and your odds are much higher.

1004
00:58:24,690 --> 00:58:29,490
But as far as, like, the compressions
themselves now, if anything with it, the

1005
00:58:29,730 --> 00:58:33,650
overarching powers that be have
recommended actually more compressions.

1006
00:58:34,850 --> 00:58:39,290
Speaker C: Interesting. Yeah. I was going to say
I'm a big soccer fan, and there have been

1007
00:58:39,290 --> 00:58:43,130
twice in the past two years where a
player has gone into cardiac arrest on the

1008
00:58:43,130 --> 00:58:49,790
field, on live tv, and immediate
chest compressions are performed

1009
00:58:49,870 --> 00:58:54,110
while they're getting the different
relator unit out to the field.

1010
00:58:54,190 --> 00:58:56,030
So, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah.

1011
00:58:56,030 --> 00:58:58,630
Speaker B: No, that's exactly why you're
waiting for, oh, a hundred percent.

1012
00:58:58,630 --> 00:58:59,870
A hundred percent. You
don't. You don't stop.

1013
00:58:59,870 --> 00:59:02,030
Speaker C: It is terrifying to see.

1014
00:59:02,910 --> 00:59:06,950
Speaker B: So you're giving this person just a few
more minutes of oxygen to their brain, and

1015
00:59:06,950 --> 00:59:08,670
that's what you're ultimately
trying to do with that.

1016
00:59:09,150 --> 00:59:09,510
So.

1017
00:59:09,510 --> 00:59:14,710
Speaker D: So if you're home alone and you find
yourself in a cardiac arrest, not a panic

1018
00:59:14,710 --> 00:59:16,730
attack, but the heart is starting to go.

1019
00:59:17,050 --> 00:59:19,050
Does it give you any. Is like.

1020
00:59:19,050 --> 00:59:22,650
Is the. The Hail Mary version of that,
taking a fork and just sticking it into a

1021
00:59:22,650 --> 00:59:23,690
wall socket? Like.

1022
00:59:24,810 --> 00:59:26,410
Speaker B: No, no, definitely no.

1023
00:59:26,410 --> 00:59:28,170
Speaker D: That's not that there. That is never.

1024
00:59:28,490 --> 00:59:31,410
Speaker B: That is not. You're gonna die. You're
gonna die in pain is what you're gonna do

1025
00:59:31,410 --> 00:59:31,690
there.

1026
00:59:35,290 --> 00:59:40,730
This is my last story from my EMS days, and
this was kind of a big one and also kind

1027
00:59:40,730 --> 00:59:43,690
of a turning point where I knew that my

1028
00:59:45,290 --> 00:59:50,010
kind of coping skills and that my
way of viewing the world had changed

1029
00:59:50,010 --> 00:59:52,290
substantially. And it happened over time.

1030
00:59:52,290 --> 00:59:54,250
I don't think I saw this one coming.

1031
00:59:56,650 --> 01:00:00,890
My parents both worked in healthcare, and
I'd had conversations with them kind of

1032
01:00:00,890 --> 01:00:07,690
about this beforehand, but never to this
level of where I was forming what I can

1033
01:00:07,690 --> 01:00:13,040
only call, like, a callus on my soul, a
way of kind of coping with things where the

1034
01:00:13,040 --> 01:00:15,280
trauma and stuff just didn't
bother me quite as much.

1035
01:00:15,280 --> 01:00:16,880
But this one really hit home.

1036
01:00:17,840 --> 01:00:24,400
So we got called out to a mass shooting,
and what had happened was a rival gang had

1037
01:00:24,400 --> 01:00:28,360
came to this gentleman's house, and they'd
come with assault rifles, and they lit up

1038
01:00:28,360 --> 01:00:33,200
the front of his house. There was, I mean,
hundreds of shell casings in the street.

1039
01:00:33,760 --> 01:00:37,960
He made it out the back and did not get
shot, but multiple people in his family got

1040
01:00:37,960 --> 01:00:40,410
shot. And I Had.

1041
01:00:42,090 --> 01:00:43,850
I initially had his. His grandmother.

1042
01:00:43,850 --> 01:00:46,170
But this was one where, you
know, Ryan, you talk about.

1043
01:00:46,170 --> 01:00:48,530
You can't imagine me
taking charge of something.

1044
01:00:48,530 --> 01:00:50,090
I was 22 years old.

1045
01:00:50,170 --> 01:00:51,770
I was the first medic on scene.

1046
01:00:51,770 --> 01:00:56,490
The police had made it safe, but
at this point, until an office, a.

1047
01:00:56,490 --> 01:01:02,330
Until a EMS officer showed up, I
was in charge of the entire scene.

1048
01:01:02,570 --> 01:01:09,010
And so I had a dozen police officers, I
had 20 firefighters, all looking to me as

1049
01:01:09,010 --> 01:01:12,290
what to do. And it was overwhelming.

1050
01:01:13,010 --> 01:01:18,330
And we did in, like, a mass casualty
incident, we started triaging, and I'd never

1051
01:01:18,330 --> 01:01:22,530
done that before, just being like,
okay, critical, you're not so bad.

1052
01:01:22,690 --> 01:01:25,450
We gotta go with this. And,
like, we kind of triaged it out.

1053
01:01:25,450 --> 01:01:25,970
And I

1054
01:01:27,250 --> 01:01:30,890
dispatched the other two med crews that
came, and we kind of took patience and we

1055
01:01:30,890 --> 01:01:33,410
did our thing. I had the grandmother.

1056
01:01:33,410 --> 01:01:38,520
She'd been shot through the top of her
buttocks, and it had gone through her abdomen

1057
01:01:38,600 --> 01:01:40,160
and hit the other side of her pelvis.

1058
01:01:40,160 --> 01:01:44,200
So her femur was dislocated at that point,
and she was basically bleeding out of

1059
01:01:44,360 --> 01:01:46,040
every opening from her bottom.

1060
01:01:46,280 --> 01:01:52,120
And as we were trying to assess this, you
have to cut people's clothes off, and the

1061
01:01:52,120 --> 01:01:54,520
family is yelling at us. They're like,
you shouldn't be doing this here.

1062
01:01:55,560 --> 01:01:57,840
And this is also a thing.

1063
01:01:57,840 --> 01:02:02,800
Whereas all white firefighters, all white
medics, all white police, an entirely

1064
01:02:02,800 --> 01:02:07,090
black community. And it was something
that just struck as odd of, like, I didn't

1065
01:02:07,090 --> 01:02:10,330
want to humiliate this person, but at
the same time, I was trying to do my job.

1066
01:02:10,330 --> 01:02:13,850
And her family was becoming
increasingly upset as we did this.

1067
01:02:15,690 --> 01:02:19,250
We got her on the backboard, we stabilized
her as best we could with, like, the

1068
01:02:19,250 --> 01:02:23,610
degree of injury she had, and we
got her to the hospital and we.

1069
01:02:23,610 --> 01:02:27,770
We passed her off. And
she actually did okay.

1070
01:02:27,770 --> 01:02:28,850
I did follow up on that one.

1071
01:02:28,850 --> 01:02:29,090
Speaker C: She.

1072
01:02:29,090 --> 01:02:32,470
Speaker B: She survived. Um, she was injured
very, very badly, but she.

1073
01:02:33,030 --> 01:02:39,910
She did survive. Um, where this hit
home was the whole thing was just over

1074
01:02:39,910 --> 01:02:43,590
the top again. Like, to be on a mass
shooting at all, much less to be the person

1075
01:02:43,590 --> 01:02:45,910
that everybody's looking
to for orders and to.

1076
01:02:46,310 --> 01:02:52,510
To execute it. What I thought was, well,
and stabilize and save somebody was a big

1077
01:02:52,510 --> 01:02:57,820
thing. On top of just the trauma of seeing
that multiple people shot at once is a

1078
01:02:57,820 --> 01:03:04,580
lot. And I called my mom and I called
her, and I said, I'm upset that.

1079
01:03:04,580 --> 01:03:07,340
I'm not upset that I just did all that.

1080
01:03:07,340 --> 01:03:11,420
And I just saw all of that. And I'm going
to go eat lunch now, and then I'm going to

1081
01:03:11,420 --> 01:03:13,660
go meet up with my friends tonight and
we're going to go out to the bar and we're

1082
01:03:13,660 --> 01:03:17,140
going to have some beers. I'm going to
laugh and I should be like bawling my eyes

1083
01:03:17,140 --> 01:03:19,860
out or doing something
more, something different.

1084
01:03:19,860 --> 01:03:22,920
Like whatever I'm feeling
right now is just not correct.

1085
01:03:23,320 --> 01:03:24,200
And it was this

1086
01:03:26,040 --> 01:03:32,520
blunting of my emotions that
really struck me as being

1087
01:03:32,840 --> 01:03:33,240
off.

1088
01:03:35,400 --> 01:03:39,160
And oddly enough, afterwards when
I called my mom, she's like, good,

1089
01:03:40,520 --> 01:03:42,680
you're becoming a healthcare professional.

1090
01:03:42,680 --> 01:03:48,440
This is what we do. You just kind of stuff
it down and you don't feel that's the way

1091
01:03:48,440 --> 01:03:50,520
you can be objective, that's the
way you can move on with life.

1092
01:03:51,320 --> 01:03:53,320
And so I, I walked away
from that conversation.

1093
01:03:53,320 --> 01:03:55,160
I was just like, I didn't
know where, where to be.

1094
01:03:55,480 --> 01:03:59,840
And that was kind of the first step towards,
you know, I think some of the things

1095
01:03:59,840 --> 01:04:04,280
that became an issue later. But at that
time I, I was almost like, kind of proud of

1096
01:04:04,280 --> 01:04:07,400
myself. Like, okay, I've kind of crossed
this first hurdle, like, I can do this.

1097
01:04:07,400 --> 01:04:09,960
I am tough enough that I can do this.

1098
01:04:10,920 --> 01:04:15,560
Speaker A: And. But you were, you were self aware
enough that you thought of it as between 19

1099
01:04:15,800 --> 01:04:21,790
first start starting to see some of the,
you know, violent trauma that people can

1100
01:04:21,790 --> 01:04:23,590
sustain through 22.

1101
01:04:23,750 --> 01:04:26,150
You progress to it not affecting you.

1102
01:04:26,150 --> 01:04:27,670
That's how you, that's how you saw it.

1103
01:04:27,670 --> 01:04:31,510
Like, like if that had happened on your
first day, you would have been destroyed.

1104
01:04:31,590 --> 01:04:31,990
Right?

1105
01:04:32,230 --> 01:04:34,950
Speaker B: Well, basically, it basically
did happen on my first day.

1106
01:04:35,830 --> 01:04:40,270
Speaker A: Right. But what I'm saying, like you could,
you can actually delineate, you know,

1107
01:04:40,270 --> 01:04:44,660
the progression of this really affected
me early and things Perfect, you know,

1108
01:04:44,660 --> 01:04:45,580
affected me less.

1109
01:04:45,820 --> 01:04:46,380
Speaker B: Yeah.

1110
01:04:46,380 --> 01:04:50,700
Speaker A: As opposed to you just have that mentality
of like, this doesn't, you know, doesn't

1111
01:04:50,700 --> 01:04:52,500
seem to bother me ever. Like.

1112
01:04:52,500 --> 01:04:54,060
No, it did early on.

1113
01:04:54,220 --> 01:04:54,900
Right? Yeah.

1114
01:04:54,900 --> 01:04:56,660
Speaker B: Is that, yeah, I'm not a sociopath.

1115
01:04:56,660 --> 01:05:00,460
Speaker A: Like, was there ever a part of you at
19 that were like, I can deal with this

1116
01:05:00,460 --> 01:05:01,900
better, I think, than other people?

1117
01:05:03,980 --> 01:05:06,620
Speaker B: No, because you don't know until
you're, you're challenged with it

1118
01:05:08,460 --> 01:05:11,780
either. I mean, Adrian, maybe you can kind
of attest to this of like the first time

1119
01:05:11,780 --> 01:05:16,440
you're in battle, like, you don't know until
you know, like how, how you're going to

1120
01:05:16,440 --> 01:05:19,480
respond to it. And so
this was the same thing.

1121
01:05:19,480 --> 01:05:22,480
Like, you know, some people just walk away
from it and be like, I can't do this job.

1122
01:05:22,480 --> 01:05:25,080
And other people are like, yeah, I got
this. I mean there's, there's lifelong

1123
01:05:25,080 --> 01:05:28,800
professional EMTs that just
they deal with it just fine.

1124
01:05:29,680 --> 01:05:32,880
Speaker C: Sounds just like
performing for a bad crowd.

1125
01:05:36,400 --> 01:05:39,440
Speaker D: The craziest thing to me about like

1126
01:05:40,880 --> 01:05:42,720
how one responds to

1127
01:05:44,560 --> 01:05:50,120
some kind of extreme event is I grew up
thinking it's like a fight or flight thing

1128
01:05:50,120 --> 01:05:51,800
and either you got it or you don't.

1129
01:05:51,800 --> 01:05:54,160
And some guys got it and other guys don't.

1130
01:05:55,120 --> 01:05:59,840
My experience is that sometimes
you got it and sometimes you don't.

1131
01:06:00,000 --> 01:06:05,600
Like, I've done things that were heroic
in combat and I was recognized for them.

1132
01:06:06,610 --> 01:06:08,450
Stupid things, sort of reckless.

1133
01:06:09,570 --> 01:06:13,330
The word that we have for this
type of recklessness is bravery.

1134
01:06:13,970 --> 01:06:19,850
And I've also done things, I've made choices
or my body has made choices for me that

1135
01:06:19,850 --> 01:06:24,050
were cowardly. I've been heroic in combat
and I've been like cowardly in combat.

1136
01:06:24,290 --> 01:06:31,010
Very fortunately. My personal cowardice,
even when I was a commander was not

1137
01:06:31,010 --> 01:06:35,250
something that affected any of my
soldiers, thank God, or I never would have

1138
01:06:35,250 --> 01:06:40,650
forgiven myself. But I do think it's like,
I don't know and I'd love to hear more

1139
01:06:40,650 --> 01:06:44,930
about this because I think, you know,
some days you're, you're, you know, you do

1140
01:06:44,930 --> 01:06:50,050
everything you want to do and you, you
strive for that, even keeled professionalism.

1141
01:06:51,090 --> 01:06:52,930
But then other days you don't.

1142
01:06:52,930 --> 01:06:56,730
I just don't. In my experience
personally, I don't know.

1143
01:06:56,730 --> 01:06:59,250
I've talked with some people about
this. Some people agree with me.

1144
01:06:59,250 --> 01:07:03,210
Other people, most people haven't been in
this type of situation that we're talking

1145
01:07:03,210 --> 01:07:05,970
about either in the
military or in healthc.

1146
01:07:06,990 --> 01:07:11,830
But yeah, you want it to be binary because
if you've got it, then that means you do

1147
01:07:11,830 --> 01:07:14,510
it. And if you don't have
it, then you shouldn't do it.

1148
01:07:14,990 --> 01:07:15,390
Speaker A: Right?

1149
01:07:15,390 --> 01:07:19,750
Speaker D: Like if you go into combat and the guns
start shooting and now you're crying and

1150
01:07:19,750 --> 01:07:22,630
you're a wreck, you're like, okay, we're
going to put you on the radio, you know,

1151
01:07:22,630 --> 01:07:24,910
stay away from the guns. We
don't want you on the guns.

1152
01:07:25,550 --> 01:07:29,750
I just don't think it's, it's like that
in my experience, it's like sometimes you

1153
01:07:29,750 --> 01:07:32,750
got it and sometimes you don't, which I've
never been able to wrap my head around.

1154
01:07:32,830 --> 01:07:37,010
And it's one of the reasons I, you know, I
left when I did after seven years because

1155
01:07:37,010 --> 01:07:41,930
I was like, well, I can't guarantee that
I'm going to have it every time in every

1156
01:07:41,930 --> 01:07:44,610
engagement. Then I shouldn't
have command of soldiers.

1157
01:07:44,610 --> 01:07:48,090
Like, I know that nobody told me to
leave, but personally I knew that

1158
01:07:48,970 --> 01:07:54,690
Speaker B: I, I was at this Point towards the end
of my paramedic career because I'd been

1159
01:07:54,690 --> 01:07:59,050
accepted to medical school and as
I progressed through this I always

1160
01:08:00,260 --> 01:08:02,020
tried to look at myself as a professional.

1161
01:08:02,020 --> 01:08:03,620
In particular with being a.

1162
01:08:03,620 --> 01:08:07,140
Wanting to go into med or being a doctor,
like that I am a professional, that I am

1163
01:08:08,420 --> 01:08:12,940
not above or that I am above kind of
making little mistakes and stuff like that.

1164
01:08:12,940 --> 01:08:18,580
And I've heard medics talk about the muscle
memory aspect of things of like you just

1165
01:08:18,580 --> 01:08:21,620
do things, you just act, you're
not even thinking about it.

1166
01:08:22,500 --> 01:08:27,789
And so much of the emotional stuff was put
aside, you just thought about it later.

1167
01:08:27,789 --> 01:08:31,629
Or the big thing, like you go out with
a bunch of other medics and you drink.

1168
01:08:32,109 --> 01:08:36,109
There was the other big thing like that
was totally normal er, you know, ER docs.

1169
01:08:37,149 --> 01:08:38,949
Speaker A: Like how like the self medication.

1170
01:08:38,949 --> 01:08:40,829
How much did your work affect that?

1171
01:08:42,989 --> 01:08:47,749
Speaker B: It's hard to say. Before I got into medical
school I was overwhelmed with stress,

1172
01:08:47,749 --> 01:08:51,389
like between trying to get a master's
and trying to get into medical school.

1173
01:08:51,389 --> 01:08:55,270
And before you get into medical
school nothing is guaranteed.

1174
01:08:55,510 --> 01:08:58,590
You don't know that you're going to get
in and you could keep trying and you keep

1175
01:08:58,590 --> 01:09:02,310
investing money and time and effort. And
so like I was a emotional train wreck at

1176
01:09:02,310 --> 01:09:03,110
this point in my life.

1177
01:09:04,630 --> 01:09:08,590
And so as far as like self medicating, that
was actually just par for the course and

1178
01:09:08,590 --> 01:09:10,310
that was just everything.
Everybody did this.

1179
01:09:10,470 --> 01:09:14,510
And so like everyone, all the paramedics
I knew, all the people in my graduate

1180
01:09:14,510 --> 01:09:17,750
school, it was like going out
every weekend whenever you could.

1181
01:09:19,190 --> 01:09:23,740
The medic that I worked with early on, Eric,
he and I particularly in training would

1182
01:09:23,740 --> 01:09:29,100
go out until the bars closed and then come
into work at six in the morning and still

1183
01:09:29,100 --> 01:09:32,700
be, I mean, I mean drunk or not
even hungover, like still drunk.

1184
01:09:32,940 --> 01:09:35,180
And our preceptor is like,
what's wrong with you two?

1185
01:09:35,180 --> 01:09:36,780
Like smells like a bar back here.

1186
01:09:38,140 --> 01:09:40,460
And that was just kind
of like. It wasn't even.

1187
01:09:40,460 --> 01:09:43,500
We were so young and so stupid.
It wasn't even a coping mechanism.

1188
01:09:43,900 --> 01:09:45,820
That's just what you did, right?

1189
01:09:45,820 --> 01:09:47,580
Speaker A: Give it. Given your age
at the time, did you.

1190
01:09:47,580 --> 01:09:49,100
Would you even have viewed it like that?

1191
01:09:49,100 --> 01:09:51,620
You know. No. Would have been
something going on anyway.

1192
01:09:52,260 --> 01:09:54,500
Speaker B: No, it was just par for the
course. It was just what.

1193
01:09:54,740 --> 01:09:57,780
And even now, like when I look back and
I, and I talk with my friends in the, you

1194
01:09:57,780 --> 01:10:01,660
know, in the ER community and stuff
like that, these guys partied hard.

1195
01:10:01,660 --> 01:10:04,980
Like this is just how they kind
of, you know, adjust to life.

1196
01:10:05,460 --> 01:10:11,300
So I was two, two years as a volunteer
emt and then two years professionally as a

1197
01:10:11,300 --> 01:10:17,790
medic. It has an outsized effect based
off the time that I put into that.

1198
01:10:18,750 --> 01:10:22,270
Speaker A: Right. It's kind of like the military. You
know, I was, I was, I was only, you know,

1199
01:10:22,270 --> 01:10:25,870
from when I started my contract
and my contract eight years.

1200
01:10:26,270 --> 01:10:31,670
But, you know, I definitely talk about
that and think about that and that formed

1201
01:10:31,670 --> 01:10:33,270
like who I am, you know.

1202
01:10:33,270 --> 01:10:36,510
So you can, you have chunks of time.
I imagine those four years were pretty

1203
01:10:36,910 --> 01:10:40,590
impactful for you on how you view yourself
and the rest of your life, you know.

1204
01:10:41,070 --> 01:10:42,270
Speaker B: Yeah, very much so.

1205
01:10:43,190 --> 01:10:46,910
Speaker A: Well, I've known you for far
longer than I didn't know you.

1206
01:10:46,910 --> 01:10:50,670
I've known you since we were teenagers
and I did not know a lot of those stories.

1207
01:10:50,670 --> 01:10:53,350
So thank you very much
for sharing it with us.

1208
01:10:53,350 --> 01:10:59,310
And you know, obviously I think you have
a support structure has helped you kind of

1209
01:10:59,310 --> 01:11:02,790
deal with a lot of that.
But just thanks, man.

1210
01:11:02,790 --> 01:11:03,830
Thanks for sharing all that.

1211
01:11:04,470 --> 01:11:05,990
Speaker B: Thank you guys for listening, being there.

1212
01:11:13,600 --> 01:11:15,760
Speaker A: Music for Baggage provided
by Quincy Ledbetter.

1213
01:11:15,840 --> 01:11:20,000
You can find his stuff@qledbetter.com
Graphics provided by Megan Weaver.

1214
01:11:20,000 --> 01:11:24,159
You can find her at meganweaverart.com
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1215
01:11:24,159 --> 01:11:28,040
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1216
01:11:28,040 --> 01:11:34,050
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1217
01:11:34,050 --> 01:11:37,170
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1218
01:11:37,170 --> 01:11:40,490
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1219
01:11:40,490 --> 01:11:43,130
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