Murder On Mellon Street

Sunday, December 06, 2009
Season Thirteen: Episode Two “Murder on Mellon Street”

Those early beginning days as a new Paramedic have faded away. That exciting “fresh” feeling of beginning every shift, of treating each patient like your family and believing everything the patient said are no longer the same. The realization that your place in the system is low and typically your opinion isn’t heard or important begins to take over and even when you try and stand for what you think is right will likely get you in trouble in the end. I went head to head with a nurse one night at a hospital over the fact that unless we literally bring in a cardiac arrest anyone else will be placed in triage. I may have been right, but she filed a complaint and I lost. That complaint and a couple spars with patients, families, or bystanders has forced me to realize another aspect of the partner dynamic. My actions reflect on her, just like the classic “you’re only as good as your last call.” I may be satisfied going down in a flames of glory but I’d rather be engulfed in flames then do anything that would harm my partner. So recently I’ve tried to take a step back. I can still control the scene, treat critical patients, or treat non-critical patients with some degree of respect but will try and do it differently then how I have been in the last few months.
 
Introduction Song: “Needle and Haystack Life” -Switchfoot
 
Halloween one year ago and days earlier the Philadelphia Phillies won the World Series. That afternoon all normal city functions are suspended and a celebration parade takes place that many will remember for years to come. What I remember of that Parade is the aftermath. The subways filled with drug twenty something’s trying to get home. Piles of trash and overturned newspaper bins line the area. The sun would set that evening and the masses of people dressed in red changed into costume and after fourteen hours we set a record of nearly thirty calls in that shift. So needless to say come this Halloween we were ready for the same thing to happen. This year there would be no Phillies Parade as the Series wasn’t over yet, but later they would lose to the Yankee’s. But this year with daylight savings taking place at 0200 hours our typical twelve hour night would in reality be thirteen hours. Most nights begin busy, taper off to a small break around midnight then resurge at the drunk hour at 0200. This night there was no break at midnight, and around two that morning, the clocks changed and the rush continued. Our dispatchers struggled to keep pace as the computers no longer could indicate the actual time as calls overlapped the time change. Engine and Ladder’s waited for an available squad, and each tried to make there run sound more serious so they would get the next squad. Eventually the night ended and when all was said we tied the twelve hour shift record of twenty calls. The holiday season was soon to begin but in retrospect I had no idea how busy the November ahead.
 
Several years ago as I attended Drexel’s Paramedic program I routinely took the train from home to class nearly every day a week. During that time SEPTA went on strike and for five days the city was gridlocked and regional rail was a hot mess at the same time. During the last month a similar event occurred. The SEPTA union threatened to walk during the Phillies home stand of the World Series, but under political pressure they waited until hours after the game ended. Early the next morning the city again folded to the will of public transportation and for the next five days people learned to deal without the buses and trolley system. Eventually like years past the Union and SETPA reached settled on a new contract and the returned to the status quo.
 
Segue Song: “D.O.A (Death of Auto-Tune” –Jay-Z
 
Another night and another I find myself elbow deep in an airway and later covered knee to elbows in blood. A thirty-something female is lying near the entry way of her apartment in a pool of blood, stabbed through the chest multiple times she is in cardiac arrest. The police arrived first and after opening the door to let me upstairs to the apartment locked my partner and the Engine crew behind me out. I followed the officer upstairs and leaves me for what was only seconds but seemed like a lot longer when there was little one person could do but start CPR. Once everyone was in place our plan was to secure the airway, give the first round of drugs and transport but the best laid plans fall apart. As I struggled with the airway my partner struggled with an IV. The patient is in PEA, and finally on my third attempt I secure the tube. We carry the patient down to the truck, switching to the EZ-IO we have access and drugs on board. En route to the hospital it’s clear that this was a fatal wound and from the police perspective they have there suspect. There was another female on scene that said “She said she was going to kill me so I killed her first.” We arrive at the hospital with a crowd waiting; the trauma team performs a thoracotomy, transfuses blood but soon surrenders to the reality of the situation.
 
A few nights before the Murder on Mellon Street my partner and I responded to a call for a child stabbing around four in the morning. The Engine from that local responds, police from all over that district, and when we arrive there is a crowd of people outside screaming. I swear I hear from one of them “you killed my daughter” the crowd outside is equal to the crowd inside the house and inside the mother is screaming while holding her daughter in her lap. The firefighter pulls up the shirt and uncovers a basically superficial wound on her sternum. I try to calm the mother as we place the bandage but no sooner do we pick up the four year old, then the police have the mother in cuffs. Everyone on scene is blaming different people, but neither of us has yet to figure out why anyone awake let alone stabbing each other at this point of the night. On the way to the struck I ask the patient what happened and without a second thought she says who stabbed her. We bring a police officer over and have the patient tell him what she just said to us. This neighborhood nicknamed “da bottom” sits just a few blocks away from some of the most brilliant research and education areas of University City or the high rises and rich living of Center City. It’s never been a good area like the City of Chester was and it’s only the influx of college students that has changed some of the blocks from blight to something close to livable. So much violence on just one street I have no idea if the circle will ever be broken. The first snow of the season fell yesterday and with the holiday season in full swing the white flakes of innocence covered the city for the night before it turned to ice and melted into the next day.
 
Episode Song: “Red Eyes” -Switchfoot
Today’s Five Points
5-peak hour hoes
4-“she looks fantastic” –says the drunk patient
3-reaping away
2-22 ETI in 2009, one month to go
1-first snow of the season 12/5