So, TINS ©, while I was FDASL© as a medic for Da City, this one crew had gotten a run on a jackwagon who had engaged in a shoot out with the DCPD, and had lost. The story ran that he had shot at officers, secured cover behind a utility pole, and then had exited cover to fire, again, at the officers. It seemed one of the officers had, indeed, paid attention at firearms qualification, because Mr. Gonnashootacop received a bullet in his face, that exited the back of his head and took a substantial portion of his brain along with it. Not an outcome likely to promote his long term high level wellness, in my opinion.
It seemed to appear so as well, to the EMS crew that caught the run, as they determined that he was DRD (“Daid Raht Dere!”, as we say it in Da City), and they went in service and left the cadaver to the care of the investigating officers.
Unfortunately for that crew, Mr. Gonnashootacop had not attended to that memo, for it was told that after EMS had departed, he took another (final) (agonal) breath. The officers, unsurprisingly, freaked the phenomenon out, called for another ambulance, which crew read the writing on the wall (which explained, “This Way To Department Charges And Unemployment!”) and transported Mr. Gonnashootacop to the friendly local ED, where he was pronounced (again), this time by a physician. Finally.
The story continued relating that the first crew was granted 6 weeks of unpaid time off, in order to allow them to fully deliberate upon, and repent from, the error of their ways. The rest of us recalled the aphorism that “there is no teacher like experience, and a fool will learn no other way”, and figured that OTHER PEOPLES’ EXPERIENCE would work just fine for our own educations, thankyouverymuch!
That touching little parable, leads into a tale of (nearly) my own. I was, at the time of this tale, working a three medic house, with Marielle, and Tim. Tim was a new hire, and had come to the department as a transfer from being a bus driver for Da City. It came to pass that I had/took a day off, for one reason or another, and, when I returned, I entered the firehouse to find an very, very agitated Tim.
“You sunovabitch! Where the hell were you yesterday?”
“Uh, I had the day off?”
“Yeah! And you left me with Marielle! Did you know that she is crazy?”
“Uh, she hasn’t struck me as significantly more crazy than any of the rest of us.”
“Well, let me tell you what happened, yesterday! We caught a shooting, and once we were on the scene, found that this dude had been shot in the head. Pretty bad, most of his cranium had been emptied. It was my day to drive, and so she was on the bag (doing the patient care). So, she sauntered up to this dude, looked him over, and turned to go. I was a bit behind her, and so didn’t really contact the guy, myself, at all. I heard her say that he was dead, and so we wouldn’t be transporting him. While she was standing up to go, he took an agonal breath. Well, the cops freaked out, and started yelling, ‘He’s alive! He’s alive!'”
“She turned back to him, shined her light into the gaping hole in his noggin, showing that there was not hardly any brain left, and said, ‘Oh, just wait a while. He’ll stop that!'”
“Dude! I cannot afford to be suspended for a month and a half! You gotta talk some sense into her!”
Nice. Don’t give me a Herculean task, or something!
Musings of A Stretcher Ape 
I remember my first one that was carping something fierce. She died from hyperthermia. As her temp came down….naturally through atmospheric radiating….her breathing response kicked in to gear in a major way.
I asked the doc if there was anything hat we could do about it.
He said, “Yeah. Dont let the family see her until that shit stops.”
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Of course the medic was correct….the potential patient was dead…. it’s just that young bodies don’t always get the message right away. She was of course correct in stating that fact and leaving the evidence for the cops to deal with. The problem being that on the totem pole of power medics rank WAY below badgemonkey. She was yet another victim of “You will respect mah authoritay”. And also par for the course the brass in charge decided it was easier to give the factually correct but politically offensive medics a good pranging rather than stand up for them against the knuckledraggers at the local gray bar hotel. The typical response of management in many settings.
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