(This is a personal account by a student training to be an emergency medical technician.)
While children were nestled all snug in their beds, and life on Rugby Road was winding down Friday, heat was just beginning to rise for the D-crew at the Seminole Trail Fire Department.
From 6 p.m. Friday to 11 a.m. Saturday, I was a member of the 12-person D-crew of Seminole Trail, also known as Station Eight, one of Charlottesville's local fire departments. The voluneer crew let me tag along to follow the life of an emergency medical technician (EMT) based within the fire department. The ride was more than I had bargained for, and the five EMTs on the crew taught me there's a lot more to emergency medicine in a fire department than smoke and flames.
6:29 p.m. - Our radio beeps twice, and then: "Fire alarm activation, Station Eight respond."
Just minutes after I walk into the station, two loud tones over the intercom radio - signifying a trauma or fire - startle me. The Emergency Communications Center downstairs in the University Police Department, which takes phone calls from people reporting emergencies and dispatches them, paged us to respond.
Within seconds, I hustle down two flights of stairs and am directed toward Engine 82, one of the station's fire engines.
I grab a familiar set of bunker gear - the thick, protective gear firefighters wear - that I had worn on previous ride-alongs and stumble toward the engine, my bunker pants around my ankles and suspenders tangled around my legs. With the first few shrieks of the engine's siren, I struggle into my seat with the 30-pound soot-covered gear either dangling from or draped over some part of my body.
Amid the bright lights and wails of the engine, we race off against a purple sunset into rolling hills, challenging the sharp curves of the road until we arrive at a house at 6:36 p.m.
We stop only to hear the engine's intercom report that the call had been canceled. There's no emergency. Relieved because I was a human spider web of firefighter pants, jackets and gloves, and not ready to jump off the engine into a blazing house, I see two of the other four firefighters in the engine roll their eyes and curse the wasted adrenaline.
6:46 p.m. - Back at the station.
Readying my gear for the next call, Tiffany Gibson, 20, a firefighter and EMT for the station, tells me she decided to get her EMT-Basic certification because the station needed EMTs and started putting pressure on firefighters to get certified. To get the EMT-B certification, a person must take a four-month training course, twice a week, for 120 hours.
"About half of all our calls are medical," Gibson says. "People don't really know we go on medical calls. People get confused and expect to see the rescue squad - but we typically get there quicker."
According to the Station Reporting System, a computer program that tracks statistics for Station Eight, 40.16 percent of the station's calls this year have been medically related.
As Gibson says more about the procedures of the station, four other members of Engine 85 (the medical engine we were assigned to for the night) yell for us to grab our gear. We head to my old high school's football game - something the crew occasionally does on slow nights.
7:29 p.m. - We arrive at Albemarle High School's football game, partly to provide support in case of an emergency, but mainly for bit of entertainment.
Over the noise of the marching band's rendition of "Can't Keep My Eyes Off Of You" and the distraction of hormonal freshmen and sophomores, the youngest member of the crew, Greg Collier, 16, says he intends to get his EMT certification "so I don't have to stand around and watch."
"Most firefighters don't get their EMTs because they don't want the responsibility of being a 'Band-aid'," Gibson says. "That's what we call EMTs," confirming the serious need for EMTs in fire departments. Many firefighters don't want to become EMTs because of the huge medical responsibility that comes with certification.
8:36 p.m. - Growing bored and hungry, we pile back into the engine. After picking up one more firefighter/EMT who met us at the game, we head to Burger King and the gas station. On the way, we sing along to a Madonna medley over the headphones, plus a little of Juvenile's "Back that Azz Up" to pass time.
9:23 p.m. - Back at Station Eight.
9:41 p.m. - Gibson and I retreat to the office to look over general statistics on the station's computer system. In a quiet moment, she recounts her most frightening experience as an EMT, when a man was hit by a car on Route 29-North. "At the scene, I got off the truck and was ready - I had all the gear," Gibson says. "The cop there held up four fingers, which means 'Priority Four, meaning, 'dead.' I went to look at him [the victim]. That's how you learn things, I guess. It was really tough to see that."
Gibson recalls finding a body twisted and malformed, knocked nearly 20 feet from the place of initial impact. "You can't learn to cope with seeing things like that as an EMT," she says.
10:23 p.m. - I'm hassled into the parking lot and asked to be a "victim" for new firefighter training. Today's mission: to safely remove an auto accident victim from her car.
They run through the entire procedure, which includes strapping and immobilizing the victim to a backboard. But at the end, instead of carrying me to safety, they place me sideways against a fire hydrant and the crew taunts me. They come back when I remind them I could print the incident in the paper.
Once I am free, I walk inside the station again, discussing with the EMT crew members some of their experiences at the station.
Fourth-year Nursing student Reannan Nefos, a Seminole Trail Firefighter/EMT for five months, says as a nursing student, the hardest thing to learn during her EMT training course was how "to disassociate emergency care from hospital care, since hospital care is much more thorough."
12:15 a.m. - One beep over the radio - "Nineteen-year-old female, unconscious, Old McCormick/Alderman Road location. Station 10 respond."
The single beep signified a medical emergency, and Station 10, another city fire department, was dispatched for the call. I shake my head at the scenario. It seems too early for someone to be that drunk.
12:36 a.m. - Several of us make our way into the Bingo room to set up and make our cots for the evening.
12:42 a.m. - I flip through the pages of a heavy EMT training textbook. Through the pages, Gibson shows me what EMTs see on a regular basis. The book's explicit pictures consist of multi-inch stab wounds, third-degree burns, full finger amputations, facial lacerations and broken bones. Most of the photographs were taken on autopsy tables. I close the book.
1:07 a.m. - Debate over which movie to watch.
1:09 a.m. - Broken VCR ends the debate.
1:29 a.m. - Determined firefighters find and hook up a DVD player, and start watching "Braveheart."
1:48 a.m. - I fall asleep to Scottish accents and clanging swords.
4:40 a.m. - Two beeps. "Woman in 50s reported in cardiac arrest, unconscious. Station Eight respond."
With the words "cardiac arrest," I jump out of bed and run with several firefighters downstairs to Engine 85. A tumult of curse words and adrenaline abound, and we throw on our bunker pants once again. Within two minutes we are on our way to the neighborhood.
As I put on latex gloves and help get gear ready, I watch Gibson and fourth-year Engineering student Luan Vuong nervously dig out suction gear and medical tools. My heart is racing.
Gibson - arriving on the scene carrying a jump bag with first aid equipment, airway devices and other tools - and I, with the suction kit used to clear the lungs, are the first ones off the engine. Running at full speed to the house, a frenzied, shirtless man directs us to a small bedroom, where a heavyset woman lies unconscious on her bed.
Vuong follows, carrying an automatic external defibrillator, which sends shocks through the body to jumpstart the heart, along with Crew Captain Dwight Peck.
Yelling the woman's name, Gibson checks for a pulse and finds nothing except a faint movement from a pacemaker.
Gibson and I each reach for a leg while another firefighter grabs the woman's shoulders. On the count of three, we struggle to lay her on the ground.
Gibson and Vuong hurriedly cut the woman's shirt free from her body.
One of the EMTs places a BMV, or bag value mask (a mask which forces ventilation by providing oxygen through an oxygen tank) against the woman's mouth. Gibson curses when she and Vuong - the only EMTs on the engine - realize that liquid in the woman's lungs is preventing substantial ventilation. A foam of vomit collects at her mouth and Vuong and Gibson decide to induce Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation.
Performing two-person CPR, Vuong provides one full ventilation from the still-attached bag value mask for every five chest compressions Gibson performs. We hear the hollow pop of a breaking rib on the second compression, as if there were no other noise in the room.
After eight minutes or so, the Charlottesville/Albemarle Rescue Squad arrives and William Spencer, the First Lieutenant/EMT-C (Cardiac Technician), enters the room to get the status of the situation and victim.
Spencer instructed Gibson, Vuong and Peck to roll the victim over on her side, where it is easy to see a large red area on her back confirming that the blood in her body had collected there. Her face, legs and body are mostly a pale white.
Spencer then tells Vuong and Gibson to continue CPR while he makes a phone call. As CPR goes on, jumbled prayers run through my head.
While Gibson counts her compressions out loud, I look around the room and find pictures drawn by what must have been grandchildren, proudly hung along the walls. The room is full of white wicker tables that house castles of pills and medications. My eyes keep finding their way to the woman's face and body, and then back up to the walls of Crayola-colored paintings.
Spencer comes in minutes later after confirming the patient's condition with a doctor.
Time of death - 4:58 a.m.
Gibson and Vuong are asked to discontinue CPR, and two policemen make their way into the room to fill out their report.
We pack up our bags and tools and make a somber walk back to the engine. Back in the engine, Gibson uses antiseptic to remove a hint of the victim's vomit on her arm. The ride home is mostly quiet.
5:20 a.m. - Back at the station.
"She was dead before we got there - the CPR was more for her son's benefit than for hers," Gibson says once we are back at the station.
A little shaken up, Vuong says, "It always takes me a while before I feel something."
5:41 a.m. - I am in my cot again, after what seems like days of separation.
5:43 a.m. - The intercom beeps once. "Elderly woman unresponsive with shallow breathing ..." Gibson looks at me and explains with her eyes that the call is for a different station. I quietly whisper, "Thank God."
6:59 a.m. - Two beeps on the intercom. "Fire alarm activation for BFI [a local trash removal company]. Station Eight respond with Tower." Tower 18 is the station's largest truck, equipped with a 100-foot ladder. I roll over as crewmembers appointed to the tower hurry downstairs. Their call is canceled some 10 minutes later.
9:27 a.m. - Two beeps. "Animal locked in vehicle; owner waiting at car. Station Eight respond."
Moaning, I push myself out of bed and move downstairs to the engine as briskly as my body allows. We put on our bunker pants, climb into the engine, and head off. It seems absurd to me that trivial calls like these require a fire station's response.
At the scene, we find a small black dog, seemingly asleep and content, locked inside a white Grand Marquis. Peck attempted to pick the lock on the driver's side door with a "Slim Jim," a tool that slides inside the door between the window and insulating rubber.
Minutes later, a frantic neighbor comes speeding down the street, parking her car directly behind the engine. Gibson and Vuong roll their eyes.
Running up to the car, she yells to her neighbor, trying to figure out what is going on. She sees there is no emergency, and tries to open each door herself by squeezing her fingers as far into the cracks of the window as possible. I hold back a smile.
After valiant attempts by the frantic neighbor and thorough attempts by Peck, the owner of the dog is instructed to call a locksmith.
10:04 a.m. - Back at the station.
I fold the blankets on my cot and ball up the sheets. Neither Gibson, Vuong nor myself have slept for more than 10 minutes since the 4:40 a.m. call. It's time to go home to my own bed.
Wanting to complete my EMT-B training in the near future and perhaps even join the crew at the Seminole Trail Fire Department, I recall something Gibson said after we watched a life slip past our fingers:
"Somebody's life is in our hands for a little bit of time. God ... it's scary"
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