Several years ago, before the arthritis kicked in, I was a paramedic. It had been a life long dream of mine and I loved the job. The day I had to leave was one of the saddest ever. Many people have told me I need to write a book about my various adventures. I’ve thought about it, but I’m just not the memoir type of gal. I will blog about it though. Over the next few weeks I’m going to share with you some of my more memorable experiences. Some of them are funny, some heart touching and some will make you angry. Each and every one of them are important to me because they helped me grow into the person I am today.

A Tale of Two Brothers

It was your typical Saturday night. There were drunks, stupid accidents and your basic medical emergencies. So I shouldn’t have been shocked when I got the call for a domestic assault.

We pulled up to an apartment building in the city of Flint. It wasn’t in the roughest part of the city, but it wasn’t in the nicest either. As soon as we parked, the firefighters there were already throwing pained looks in my direction. Not a good sign. Then my patient walked up, with a police escort to my rig. An even worse sign. Steeling my nerves I hopped out to confront the situation.

“Hey Steph!” The trooper called out way too enthusiastically. All dimples, muscles and white teeth, he was a known charmer. Unfortunately, his cocky grin was doing nothing to charm me. I was in for a shit call and he knew it.

“Hey, Dan,” I replied with heavy sarcasm. “What do you have for me today?”

My patient was an emaciated young adult male. Sickly pale with sores all over his face, he smiled widely at me showing he had more gaps than teeth. A steady stream of blood ran from his brown hair down his cheeks. The pupils of his watery blue eyes were so tiny they were almost invisible, showing there was most likely chemical enhancements involved. Before I could say anything more the male jumped into my rig and settled into the cot. I followed and started my initial patient assessment.

“What’s your name?” My partner joined me in the back and started taking the patient’s blood pressure. A seasoned old-timer, nothing shocked him anymore.

“Peter.”

“What happened tonight?” I used a gauze pad to wipe away some of the blood.

“Me and my brother got into a fight and he hit me over the head with a beer bottle.”

“So he did.” I peered closer at the patient’s head. His hair was so dirty it was matted in places, but I could see several shards of broken glass. “Ouch! That must of hurt. Did you lose consciousness?”
“No.” He gave me a proud grin. “I’m tough.”

“Why were you fighting with your brother? Didn’t anyone tell you family supposed to stick together?”

“Peter and his brother fight all the time,” Trooper Dan chimed in. He was leaning in the door of the ambulance. “We’re usually here at least once a week. Why don’t you tell the lady what started it tonight?”

“I wanted to play with the Ouija board and my brother wanted to go to bed.”

I waited for the and but it never came. “So you guys came to blows over that?”

“I really wanted to play.” Peter pouted. “And I guess he really, really wanted to go to bed ‘cause he got pissed and attacked me.”

“Are you going to press charges against him?” Dan asked.

“Oh no! Oh no! Oh no!” Peter shook his head vehemently. “I love my brother and I would never do that to him.”

“Yeah, I can tell you love him,” Dan drawled as he looked over his shoulder. The brother was being loaded into another rig. Strapped down to a cot, he wasn’t moving much. I winced when I saw his eye. Even from across the yard, I could see it was the size of a softball and full of blood.

“We ready to roll?” my partner asked me in a flat voice. The whole situation was obviously boring him.

I nodded and we started the ten-minute drive to the hospital. I started to wipe away more of the blood and winced when I saw one particularly deep laceration. Peter may have started off the night wanting to play with Ouija board but he was going to end it getting stitches.

“If you and your brother fight so much then why do you live together?”

“Because he’s my brother,” Peter answered like I had asked a stupid question.

“But you guys fight all the time.”

“That may be true, but I’m all he got and he’s all I got. If I leave him then whose going to take care of him?”

We finished the rest of the ride in relative silence. I couldn’t help but wonder how it would be to be in a relationship where it was common to express one’s love with fists. Yet I didn’t doubt Peter’s love for his brother. The tone of his voice when he talked about him showed how much he cared.

We pulled into the ambulance bay at the hospital and the side door of the rig opened. It was Trooper Dan and there was a grim, almost apologetic look in his eyes.

“I got bad news, Peter. You’re brother doesn’t love you as much as you love him. He’s pressing charges.”

“Oh.” Peter opened and closed his mouth a coupled of times. “So I guess I’m going to jail then.” He screwed up his face like he’d tasted something sour. “Man, I hate it when that happens.”

I couldn’t help but feel the whole situation was a bit unfair. Yes, Peter had nearly blinded his sibling, but he had been abused too. When he’d been hit with that bottle it could have killed him. However, the first thing I had learned as a paramedic was life was never fair. So I kept my yap shut and led my patient into triage.

I often think of Peter and his brother and wonder what ever happened to the pair. Do they still live together? Did they ever learn how to communicate better? Did his brother regret pressing charges that night? Did poor Peter ever get to play with his Ouija board? Most of all I wonder if they were ever able to get the help they needed and if they turned their lives around.

-Stephani