How this mid-Spring story begins is the same way the story often goes. Repetition is the norm as call after call require little thought and each call is forgotten five minuets into the next. How repetition goes out the window happens in a way it only could in Center City. Early one rainy afternoon we are dispatched to a pedestrian struck four blocks ahead from we were sitting, and en route the dispatcher advises that “the mayor is on location” I jokily ask if he is the one involved and as we arrive on scene the mayors security staff are running around the street looking very secret service like with radios in hand. Our patient is a female lying on her side in the middle of the roadway, and appears to actually be injured unlike every other “pedestrian struck” call you get downtown. As we are packaging the patient I see the mayor walking down the street toward our direction, and as we try and cover the blanket with a sheet before leaving he reaches in to try and assist. My partner and I don’t make eye contact or say anything, because in retrospect what could you say? It is a random and yet totally unforgettable moment that is just another reason this job is better then any around.
Introduction Song: “Natural Reaction” -Gomez
One of the most frustrating things about an urban Fire Department that also runs EMS, is the fact that the fire department also runs EMS. That may sound simple or a bit repetitious but it is the root of nearly every problem. Most career fire departments in the major cities have been around for over a hundred years and Emergency Medical Services has only been present for about thirty years. As fire departments grew through time it became necessary for them to learn “first aid”, then “scoop and run” basic services then later train and hire Paramedics. Fire Prevention, sprinklers, and many other reasons caused fires to drop at the same time EMS demand skyrocketed. Now these fire departments that fought fires night after night in the “war years” are forced to realize that EMS is the major operation of the department. The reality of this imbalance comes to the street medic when you encounter accidents and other EMS based incidents where the street medic or Paramedic officer should be in charge but that doesn’t happen. With the impending schedule change for EMS, and continued struggle to meet the rising demand of emergency medical calls the war years of EMS will continue to reshape this department.
Segue Song: “Bixby Canyon Bridge” -Death Cab for Cutie
You were one of the first to ever give me a chance, regardless of what the rest had done or said.You were the medic the day the soon to be chief caught the truck on down wires and we laughed at the flashing light bar sprawled across the shattered windshield after the fact. You were the one who’s car I backed into one afternoon while trying to pick up something for lunch. I waked inside the station my face red with embracement and fear only to watch you handle it with total composure and control. You years later held me to a higher standard when I thought I was ready to break free and do this alone. Now that your gone I have no idea how the our little world of EMS will ever be the same. Now that your gone I have no idea how I was ever lucky enough to learn from someone as wise as you. Now I hope that when I do this job I can do it in a way that you would approve of. A giant in our world of EMS has fallen this week in a long battle with cancer. I found out Saturday afternoon while driving down Woodhaven Road that Chris Haber had died. I tried to hang up the phone and continue on to work without it effecting me but that would be like asking the sun not to set. After some time on the job you get so use to suppressing your emotions in the face of total sorrow that when something so personal happens you grieve in different ways. I remember not long ago while precepting with you how I believed I had finally demonstrated everything from a solid run code to basic ALS call and you caught me on my attention to detail. Now in the face of a warm Saturday night where the cities EMS system will explode over capacity I think of a giant that we have all lost and the legacy that will remain.
I’ve been to my share of funerals, and each is a different shade of sadness and depression. Those for the elderly in our lives all who we expected to pass before us are often more celebrations then suffering. Funerals for those who died in the line of duty are a bitter heroism laced in sorrow. You knew that it could happen and now hate that it did. Then there are funerals fro the ones that were to young to die. Maybe by there own hand, mistake, or illness. Regardless it is as if there story was cut to short and we hate to continue ours without them. The funeral for Chris Haber was something like the latter. He had cancer for two or three years and for a time seemed to have won. Now that he has died all that is left are pictures and memories. For an evening these pictures and flowers cover the inside of a funeral home, and in the days ahead it will be up to us to carry his legacy from this day to the next. The scene of this funeral reminds me of a similar one when Frank White died. Squad members in there dress blue uniforms tried to stand as soldiers but looked so broken instead. That funeral was held on a cold winter night but this one was a beautiful warm spring evening. The sun had yet to set and those who came stood in small groups for hours outside the funeral home. Some came from hundreds of miles around because the man now lost had touched so many lives. His story is over but this story will forever be influenced by the life of a great man.
Episode Song: “Hero” -Jars of Clay
Today’s Five Points
5-”hit a patch”, of what stupidity?
4-”D.P.S”
3-”attention to detail”
2-If I get swine flu I’m going to punch a pig
1-some nicknames never go away
In Memory of Christopher Haber, 4/18/2009
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