Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

First Person

2019; Lippincott Williams & Wilkins; Volume: 41; Issue: 2C Linguagem: Inglês

10.1097/01.eem.0000553592.26409.4c

1552-3624

Brad Cotton,

FigureFigureEverything at 55th and Woodland was broken. Broken chunks of cement sidewalk crunched under the EMS truck's tires. Sam's Bar was halfway burned down. Charred bricks crumbled onto the broken sidewalk and tripped broken people pushing broken shopping carts. Broken girls sold themselves. Young men, broken because they knew their future only promised more brokenness, sold drugs to the more or less unbroken suburban boys who drove by on East 55th. The unbroken suburban boys then sold the crack to their Lakewood prep school buddies for real money. 55th and Woodland was a study in economics. Three of these suburban entrepreneur-boys were shot and killed at 55th and Outhwaite, just north of Woodland. They came to buy crack in weight at 3 a.m. The broken crack dealers shot them and took the cash instead. Nick and Tommy took one of the would-be businessmen-boys to Charity. Medic 9 took one to Sinai. Medic 10 took the other to St. Luke's. Seemed all the local faiths cared about 55th and Woodland, at least after you'd been shot. The local economy became even more broken. Suburban boys no longer drove by on 55th for the quick-and-easy-through-the-car-window deal. Economic laws can't be broken. The market self-corrects. A month later, the three crack dealers who shot the three prep school boys were shot and killed. The word was out that 55th and Woodland was open for business again. Only the kids up to about age 10 were unbroken. They didn't know they were growing up in a place unfit for humans. They would soon figure it out and become broken. Nick liked to give the kids a high five and talk about cartoon and TV wrestling heroes. The moms always liked that. The moms never expected anyone to treat them or their kids like anything except broken trash. Their baby daddies were broken; they could only feel worthwhile by being street-dangerous. Nick learned never to dis any young men at 55th and Woodland. It was surprising how thin this veneer of street attitude was. A little talk with the child about Speed Racer, a surgical glove blown up like a balloon, a chance to flip the siren switch for a second, and mom or baby daddy would talk and look you in the eye. Nick remembered the teenager who helped him control the crowd as he put a needle in his friend's gunshot chest to reopen the bullet-collapsed lung: “Man, I got to get outta here, join the Army or something. You just die here.” The Baptist Church just east of 55th promised the broken could be made whole. Nick and Leigh were working together on Medic 10 one Sunday. Nick liked working with Leigh. Leigh never got excited or shot his mouth off on scene as some did. Nick had worked with less experienced partners with more testosterone than sense, who dissed people and made scenes dangerous. Leigh could also drive lights and sirens and not spill a drop of hot coffee. Nick and Leigh responded to the church one Sunday morning. Tony was on the floor holding his chest. He was sweating through his choir robes. The rest of the choir and congregation barely left room for Nick and Leigh to bring in the oxygen, medic box, and AED. The monitor looked like heart attack. They kept putting their hands on Tony. “Jesus, heal Brother Tony. In your name Jesus! Heal Brother Tony!” Leigh, always his cool self, was probably thinking about his coffee in the truck, but asked the laying-on-of-handers to back off a little. “Could we get in here? Gotta start this IV.” Leigh got one of the layers-on to hold up the IV bag so it would flow. The crowd always loved to help. Nick was at Tony's head. Tony was as loud as the layers-on-of-handers. “Take me, Jesus, I'm ready! You know I'm ready, Jesus!” Nick thought to himself, better to die here, surrounded by laying-on-of handers in this church than all the hundreds of others he had treated killed by the needle, the gun, or the bottle. “Tony! Tony!” Nick tapped his head to get his attention. “Tony, Jesus is going to get you someday but not today. Today we're taking you to Charity! Breathe this oxygen!” The ribs that the church ladies served on Sunday afternoons were so good you had to wrap a towel around your neck to keep the sauce from running down your neck and ruining your uniform. We went back a lot. Brother Tony lived. Maybe the laying-on-of-handers saved him. Maybe Tony liked the ribs too much to die. Jim didn't live. Nick and Tommy rolled to 55th and Woodland on a man-down call. You never knew what “man down” meant. Could be drunk, could be dead, could be nothing, could be a drunk who wandered off. Jim was dead or working on it. He was lying on the busted sidewalk. His friends kept on passing the fifth of Thunderbird—no need for the discreet paper bag here. Jim wasn't breathing. Tommy put in the endotracheal tube. Nick shocked him. 200, 300, 360 watt-seconds. Jim's body spasmed like he was in the electric chair with each shock. Thunderbird and stomach-whatever flowed out of Jim's mouth onto the sidewalk. Jim's buddies didn't react much. Medic 7 arrived as backup. Nick and Tommy loaded Jim into 10. Medic 7 took over CPR. Nick pushed the drugs. Tommy was shutting the loading rear doors of 10. Jim's friends were yelling, “See ya when you get out. Here's ya stuff.” Nick reached out to accept Jim's personal effects with one hand, pushing epi with the other. “He's not gonna be back, guys. He's gone.” “Naw, you can't kill this man. His old lady stabbed him, couldn't kill him. Vietnam didn't neither.” Thunderbird, Kools, his heart, his old lady, Vietnam, or 55th and Woodland did kill him. 40 years old. He had laying-on-of-hands of a sort. Petey died also. He was 7. Died from a .25 caliber automatic round fired into his heart by his cousin Quinn. They were playing cops and robbers. Petey found the cheap automatic, good for nothing except shooting friends and family, in the burned-over rubble of Sam's Bar. Probably fell out of a patron's waistband during the drunken rush out of the Seagrams-fueled fire. Nick was out of the truck first, his boots grinding into the cinders and broken bottles. He and Leigh had had multiple calls from dispatch while responding 65 blocks. Multiple calls always meant bad. “Child GSW to chest, not breathing” meant bad. Anything at 55th and Woodland meant bad. Petey was on his back in the weeds, burnt bricks and trash strewn around. No movement. Blood, so out of place, oozed out of his mouth. He had on a Speed Racer shirt. There was a small bullet hole with powder burns around it in the middle of the left chest. Quinn had been close when he shot his cousin. A small hole not even bleeding just to the left of Petey's breastbone. Nick thought he recognized some of the Baptist church ladies. They held their hands over their mouths and searched Nick's eyes for clues. The firemen arrived to help. CPR, breathing tube down into that little trachea. Epi down the tube, then epi in the IV. Woman screaming, grabbing for Petey. Mom? “Oh, God! No! OH, GOD! NO!” Crowd pulling her back. “Let them work! Let them work! Lordy Jesus, have mercy, save this child!” Nick's thoughts also. But you don't think, you just do. In training, before the street, they'd have crowds yelling at you, a dog pulling on your sleeve. Training worked. You just do. A lighter lift into the truck than usual. Seven-year-olds don't weigh much. Cot locked. Firemen doing CPR. Leigh, looking at the monitor, noted the flatline. Nick was driving. Where is Charity? How do I get there? I had driven there a thousand times. I was lost! Where! Down Woodland, right on 22nd. The cars still never get out of your way. Yell out the left and right turns so Leigh and the firemen in the back could brace themselves. At Charity, they opened Petey's chest. They wouldn't bother to try this on an adult. The rib spreader like a Hurst tool used to open wrecked cars stretched Petey's ribs. He didn't flinch. The .25 caliber round fragmented and put several holes in Petey's right and left ventricles. The .25 caliber often doesn't kill, not enough muzzle velocity or whatever. Enough for a 7-year-old though. 10:55 a.m. Everything stopped. The nurses, techs, and surgeons looked at each other, at Petey, at the floor. The Speed Racer shirt was cut up and blood-soaked. Petey's eyes were open. Nick put his hand on Petey's forehead. Now Petey was broken even worse. Quinn, the cousin who shot him, would be forever broken. His mother also. Further broken would be everyone at 55th and Woodland. Nick helped Leigh restock the truck. Nick lit a Carlton. Damn Carltons, so little nicotine all they did was keep the heebie-jeebies at bay. “Leigh, wanna wheel?” “Naw, it's your turn.” Leigh and Nick drove back past the scene on the way to base. Police cars and detectives were there now. The fire truck was gone. The crowd had thinned. Nick liked working with Leigh. Leigh had 10 years on the job. “Sucks when it's a kid.” “Yeah.”