The Boy Who Went Swimming

The boy was six or seven years old. His eyes were open. He was staring at me. His arms were outstretched and bent at the elbows. It was as if he was going to shout boo to try and scare me, the way you did to your little brother or sister. But he did not say boo. He did not say anything thing. He was underwater.

The call came in as drowning in Station 7’s territory out on the west side of town. Rescue 1 was the only unit with dive gear, divers and the rescue boat. I was the only diver on the truck that day I would have to go into the water.

I jumped into the back of the to dress out as we pulled out of the station. I was tossed from side to side as I tried to get out of my uniform and into swim trunks and the dive gear. It was summer and with no air conditioning in the back of the truck, I was soon dripping sweat in the oppressive Florida summer heat. I struggled into the air tanks shoulder straps, pulled on the weight belt and grabbed my fins and mask. I was ready, but we were still minutes away from the scene. I sat down on the bench seat in the back of the rescue. All I could do now was to wait until we reached the scene.

Engine 7 was already on the scene when we arrived. The lake more correctly an overgrown pond was back in the woods behind some houses. The kind of pond that kids in poor neighborhoods find to cool off on a sweltering Florida summer day.

When I opened the back door to finally get a look at what we had, all I saw were small single story concrete block homes that make up so much of Florida’s poorer neighborhoods. Someone yelled “this way” so I followed them between the homes. I trotted past lawn chairs and chain link fences to reach a well-worn path that lead into the woods behind the houses. The weight of the tank and weight belt began to take its toll as I struggled to keep up the firefighter leading the way.

When we reached the pond we found the guys off Engine 7 were already in the water free diving. I yelled where should I start as I pulled on my fins and mask. They told me somewhere near the middle of the pond. I pulled on my mask and began to swim toward the center of the lake. The water was bathtub warm and the green of most the small lakes in Florida. The visibility was not bad; I could see ten to fifteen feet, for a body of water fed by rainwater runoff that was good. I had been in the water no more than thirty seconds when out of the greenish water those eyes appeared.

I had heard from other guy’s stories of bumping into drowning victims underwater. The face emerging from the gloom and taking them by surprise even though they were looking for them. Those open eyes were so startling. While he did not say boo, he certainly scared me. I grabbed his arm and started swimming toward the shore.

I pulled my mouthpiece out long enough to yell.

“I got him.”

They guys off the engine began to swim to shore with me.

As I swam through the water pulling him behind me I kept thinking of those open eyes. I kept thinking that he looked surprised that I had found him.

I got him to the shore of the shore of the little pond. The guys from Station 7’s rescue were waiting for me. The pulled him out and began to work on him. I pulled off my mask and flippers and stood up. He looked like any other kid in the summer in Florida. All he had on were some shorts. He was in the skinny little boy phase when they are all energy and no muscles yet.

Then I saw his leg. Before I realized what it was. I thought an alligator must have gotten him. One leg was comprised of only his skin over his femur (thigh bone), no muscles, just skin over bone. There was nothing below where his knee should have been. His other legs and arms were normal. Then I realized the skin was intact over the bone, but there were no muscles.

How had a one legged boy gotten to this tiny pond to drown? What string of actions and circumstances had occurred that led someone so obviously incapable of swimming to go swimming? There were no other boys on the scene. In fact we were the only people around. Why did this death have to happen? Did other boys goad him into swimming? Was he trying to prove something to himself or others? I watched as the Engine and Rescue crews worked feverishly over the boy with little success. I walked back to the truck through the peaceful little piece of pinewoods into someone’s back yard. I was tired. I wondered why he had to die. Like so many of the people I worked on, the why was never part of my experience. He was pronounced at the hospital. I never heard the story of why he was in the pond.

She Done Fell Out

The call came in as a woman down. There was no more information. We arrived on the scene to find a small house set well back from the street. The only light came from the open door framing a man standing in the doorway.

            “Hurry, hurry.” He shouted. “She done fell out.”

            We had an extra guy riding with us on the rescue that night. So I was able to head to the house as the other two got the equipment. I felt nervous walking into the darkness alone, but it had come in as a woman down and not as a scene of violence. When I walked in the front door and past the frantic man, I found a woman in her twenties sprawled across a couch. Frank blood was pouring from her nose and mouth. She was not breathing and she had not pulse.

            “I don’t know what happened to her. She just done fell out.” The man said. He kept repeating the phrase as if he were practicing it, as he moved around the room very agitated.

            The other two guys off the rescue arrived as I pulled the woman onto the floor so we could work on her. I could not figure out what was causing this kind of bleeding. But she was coded and we knew what we had to do. I got on the radio and requested an Engine to assist with manpower. My partner started to tube her as the third guy off the truck started compressions.

            Her face was covered with blood, but I thought I saw something on her cheek. I stopped looking for an IV site long enough to wipe her cheek off with a 4x4. There was a bullet hole that had been covered with coagulated blood.

            The guy was walking a couple of feet behind us muttering. “I don’t know what happened she just fell out.”

            That is when I got real nervous. I made the wild guess that this was probably the guy who had given her this bullet hole that made her “fall out”.

            I got on the radio and said.

            “Rescue 1 to dispatch we need code 8 (police) on the scene.”

            “Check can you advise the nature of the request?”

            Now here was this guy who was more than likely shot this woman, pacing the floor three feet in back of us, and the dispatchers wants to know why we need the police. I try and whisper so he won’t hear me.

            “Possible homicide.”

            “Check.” Her replay blares over all our radios. “Possible homicide.”

            I wanted to crawl under the coach. I waited for this guy to go nuts. But he just keeps pacing and muttering. The Engine company arrives, followed closely by the cops. I am feeling safer now with all the company. Soon the ambulance arrives and still more cops. The small house is filled with first responders. The guy keeps muttering.

            “I don’t know what happened she just feel out.”

            The guys off the engine knew the neighborhood and took one look at the patient and began to look for a weapon without saying a word. The guys off Engine 2 were experienced hands who went to scenes of violence with us regularly. They no more wanted to get caught in the middle of a gunfight between the suspect and the cops than we did.

            Finally one of the cops asked the Engine guys.

            “You find a weapon?”

            “We looked for a weapon but could not find one.”

            Our guy suddenly stopped pacing and looks up and says.

            “Gun what gun.”

            Well since no one had even so much as mentioned a shooting or a gun or even what we suspected had happened to the victim, this statement came as something of a revelation to say the least. The room got kind of quite for minute as everyone looked at the guy. The firefighters got busy again working on the patient, while the cops suddenly showed a lot of interest in our little guy.

We loaded our patient and transported her to the hospital. It turned out that the bullet had splintered as soon as it had entered her cheek and severed both her carotid arteries and jugular veins. She was dead the minute he shot her.

            I read about his trial months later in the paper. He was convicted of her murder and sentenced to life in prison. It turned out that he had shot her once before, and spent time in prison for the crime. When he was released and she had let him back into her life.

Crack Baby

When we turned onto Barlow, it was as if we had made right turn to the mean side of things. The side where baby’s are born in the dark, with little joy or hope. Where the father lies passed out on the couch. And the mother cries through her agony alone. It can take much of the joy of a birth away, but never completely. It is too much of a new life beginning with all that can mean. The date of birth was 4/28/88 at 2311. It was a small concrete block dark house with no rugs on the concrete floors, and no air conditioning on a short sandy dirt road. There had been a murder on this same street just recently. The front door was wide open. There was no one there to greet us and there were no lights on in the house. Jeff and I approached the door cautiously.

“Fire department!” I said.

“In here.” A female voice yelled.

We found a woman laying on a dirty double bed with the phone lying beside her. There was no other furniture in the room. Only a black light like those used in the sixties light the room.

“He came. He already came. Is he all right?” she said.

She still had her shorts and panties on, but there was a large bulge visible. As Jeff and I cut her shorts and panties off we questioned her.

“How many babies that lived have you had?”

“Six. The doctor said this one was late. May or June. I thought it was late April or May. Is he all right?”

When we had cut off her shorts and panties we could see the baby. He was so small. Almost too small to be believe he was a real baby. He looked like a crack baby. A full term baby that weighed less that three pounds. The umbilical cord still ran back into the mother.

The baby was not breathing. Jeff started to clean the baby off hoping to stimulate his breathing. Nothing. He began thumbing his finger on the soles of his tiny feet to get him breathing.

I dove into the emergency childbirth kit. Actually a very fancy word for a cardboard box with a bag for sterile gloves, paper sheets, bulb syringe, umbilical clamps, scalpel and paper blankets. I tore open the bag and handed him the bulb syringe so he could suction out the baby’s mouth.

Next I dug for the two clamps for the umbilical cord. You place two clamps on the cord and cut in the middle. Six inches from the vagina you place the first clamp, then two inches and you place the second. The clamps keep the mother and baby from bleeding out after the cord is cut. They both have large blood vessels within the cord. It is how the baby is supplied with blood, oxygen and nourishment during gestation. If you just cut it without a clamping it with two clamps you would lose both the baby and the mother. But I could only find one clamp. One clamp. How is world do I end up with the only kit in the world with only one clamp?

Jeff was working frantically to stimulate the little boy to breath, but was till having no luck.

The only light in the bedroom was a black light, a black light why were these births always in the dark. The black light made my hunt for the second clamp in the kit even more difficult. Jeff and I are holding our mini-mag flashlights in our mouths to keep our hands free. So was we talked our words a jumbled around the flashlights. If it was such a serious situation it would have been very funny.

“He is not trying to breath we need to get that cord cut.” Jeff says.

A baby will not try and breath on their on, as long as they remain attached by the umbilical cord. We needed to cut the cord to stimulate the baby’s breathing.

“I can’t find the other clamp.”

“Great!”

The engine company who had been dispatched with us has just arrived.

“We need another child birth kit.”

One of the firefighters turns and runs out to the engine to get the other kit. Jeff continues stimulating the baby thumping his finger repeatedly on the soles of the baby’s feet. He is starting to respond to Jeff’s stimulation. He has a good heartbeat but he is still not breathing well. The firefighter runs back into the room and hands me another kit. I tear it open and find a second clamp.

“Six inches from the baby.” I recite to myself.

I place the clamp.

“Two more inches.”

I place the second clamp.

I tear open the package containing the sterile scalpel and cut the cord between the two clamps. Blood flies everywhere. Suddenly I am very aware of the blood. The mother is obviously someone with the types of behaviors that could lead to AIDS. Now I am going to have to worry about an AIDS exposure if I am not careful, even with our gloves and goggles on. But there is no excessive bleeding. Good then the clamps worked.

Once the cord was cut the baby begins to try to breath, but he not moving much air.

“We are going to have to try and tube him.” Jeff says.

He grabs the lyrnascope, and a pediatric blade. I pull out a pediatric tube and compare its size against the baby’s little finger. That is the rule of thumb for the size he will need. It takes the smallest tube we have. Jeff tries to insert the blade into the baby’s mouth.

“He trying to bite the blade.”

Jeff reapplies the oxygen and again stimulates the baby by thumping the soles of his feet with his finger, the baby’s breathing gets much better. He pinks up nicely, showing he is oxygenating well. His color finally begins to look normal.

It is time to run for the hospital before any more problems crop up. But the ambulance still has not arrived.

“Rescue 7 to Dispatch can you give me an ETA for the ambulance.”

“Rescue 7 check standby.”

We begin to package up the mother and baby to get them ready for transportation when the ambulance gets there.

“Dispatch to Rescue 7 they are advising a six minute ETA.”

Jeff and I look at each other. Without a word passing between us we know that could mean a lot more time than six minutes. We do not want to wait that long.

“We going to have to transport.” I said.

“Yeah.”

Jeff is busy with the baby. So I grab a guy off the engine and we go out to the rescue. While we can transport a patient, but the rig is not ready. We have our fire gear on the floor in addition to other gear on the stretcher. I pulled the Thumper, an automatic CPR device and throw it on the bench seat. I pulled the backboard off the stretcher and cram it on the floor. I jam our firefighters bunker coats, pants and boots into the corner. I can finally pull the stretcher out of the back of the rig.

The firefighter and I are able to get the stretcher into the tiny apartment, but we could not make the turn into the bedroom. The father is finally starting to wake up with all of the commotion around him. He sits up groggily on the couch. We run over his bare feet with the stretcher, but he says nothing as he sits rubbing his eyes.

Jeff has wrapped the baby in everything the kit carries to keep him warm. The bundle seems too tiny to even be a doll much less a real baby. We load the mother onto the stretcher and struggle past the still groggy father. He says nothing as we leave with the mother and the baby.

I jump in the front of the rescue and Jeff jumps in the back with the baby and the mother. One of the firefighters off the engine jumps in the back to assist Jeff on the ride to the hospital.

I the radioed the hospital that we were en-route and what we had what appeared to be a crack baby. It was silent ride to the hospital and the mother rested and Jeff monitored the baby. When we pulled into the portico and unloaded the stretcher a physician and nurses from the pediatric intensive care waiting for us. We handed the mother and the tiny baby over to the waiting team. They rushed them into the emergency department.

We followed the team into the hospital. Walking into the emergency department was a startling contrast to the dark black light lit dirty apartment. It was a bright modern hospital with all of the best equipment and trained personnel waiting for the baby. We had jerked him from the poverty and hopelessness and thrown him into a high tech world waiting to try and save him so he could go back to the dirty black light lit apartment.

Jeff and I stood there watching as they work on this tiny human baby whose life was just begining. He turned out to be a crack baby, full term yet weighing only two and half pounds. Mom was a crack addict. Despite the circumstances I still felt a sense of joy at a new life starting, but it was colored by the realization of just what kind of life he was going to face.

Jeff and I watch them work on him for a while, then did our paper work. We re-stocked our supplies and went out to the rescue to put it back together for the next run. We had several more before we got off duty the next morning. I never check on him or how he did. I had learned the hard way over the years that did not always lead to any good answers. I still think about him and it has been almost exactly twenty years as I write this. I wonder how his life turned out.

Mostly at Night

You finally get back to the station sweaty and exhausted. You just came back from a shooting, stabbing, accident with injuries, take you pick. All you can think of laying down before you get another run. You fall on you bunk not even bothering to take off you clothes. You just luxuriate in the in the wonderful feeling of being in bed.

As soon as you close your eyes your right back in it, a series of black and white close ups of the scene fill your head. Always closes ups. Other times it is a slow motion reply, again and again rolling through your head. A running commentary goes as the scene gets played back in your head. “What did I miss?”. Could I have started the IV faster? Put the tube down faster? Should I have scooped and run instead of getting the IV first? Should I have checked the breath sounds sooner? But it is always the pictures. Blood matted eyelashes. The man with no face after he put a shotgun under his chin. Two bunker coated arms thrusting out of a smoke filled window a still smoking baby cradled in the hands. The house blowing fire out of all the windows. The half open eyes of someone you know is dead but who you still have to work. The images never go away. Sometimes they won’t let you sleep. You get up and wander into the ready room and stare at the TV but not really watching, people are laughing at some joke on the Tonight show. You stare the TV not really watching it until 3am when no matter what you finally might be able to go to sleep. So you stumble over to your bunk and fall into a semi sleep. Hopefully those images don’t follow you home but some do. Some stay fresh for years. And now for decades. They crawl out from behind the wall you construct. It is mostly at night.