The Highlands

Sometimes, on some calls, things don’t go quite the way you expect them to, and sometimes even the most capable of paramedics needs a little help. Sometimes when you think things are headed to hell in a hand basket someone unlikely steps forward and changes things. This is the story of a call gone to hell saved by an unlikely hero.

On the night in question my trusty partner Dack and I were blissfully cruising from one post to another when a call came it. The call was for a burn, possibly a serious one. I answered the call and in my haste to find the call on the map I failed to properly hang the microphone on its hook. On the previous thousand or so occurrences of this minor error the microphone fell harmlessly into the little cubbyhole just below the radio. On this occasion, sadly, the microphone did not fall harmlessly into the cubbyhole. It fell not so harmlessly into a bug gulp full to the rim with tasty Coca-Cola. This did not, as you can imagine, have a positive effect on our ability to communicate with the dispatcher. After finding the address on the map I returned my attention to the radio only to find the aforementioned microphone submerged in my tasty, ice cold, and now ruined Coca-Cola. This filled me with a great sense of loss and regret as I really needed to talk to the dispatcher just then, and I’d just bought the Coke.

Life goes on, I thought, as I picked up our trusty portable radio, confident that I could reestablish communications without anyone discovering that I’d drowned our main radio. The main radio broadcasts at about 200 watts, which from our, at that moment, very remote location was quite adequate. Our portable radio, on the other hand, puts out a completely inadequate 5 or so watts. This left the cell phone, and we all know about using cell phones in remote locations. I managed to get through to dispatch on the cell phone and after sheepishly explaining why I was calling on the phone, rather than by radio I was given the particulars. There is a neighborhood called "The Highlands" which is basically a sand pit with mobile homes strewn about its surface. It is the bane of every ambulance driver in the county because every other time an ambulance goes in there it ends up buried to its axles in soft, white Florida sand. "Great", I thought. The gleeful dispatcher (they’re always in a good mood when they know they can get you in trouble) further reported that while one sheriff’s deputy had managed to make it to the call, two others were hopelessly bogged down. The deputy on scene reported that the person in question was burned quite badly and they’d dispatched a helicopter to the nearest safe landing spot a few miles away. Our mission was; first, to actually make it to the scene, and second; to get our patient to the helicopter.

Dack and I both grew up in rural Florida and had long experience avoiding its legendary sand traps. We had the greatest confidence that we could survive the gauntlet, make our way to the scene, and save the day. We made it a grand total of a hundred yards before our ambulance’s wheels discontinued all meaningful contact with the ground. This call, I thought, was not going fabulously well.

Not to be undone by a little sand, we came up with a new plan. First, we’d grab the hundred or so pounds of supplies we’d need and second, we’d run the remaining mile to the call. What, exactly, we were going to do once we got there, we did not know. We unpacked our oxygen bottle, jump bag, burn packs and portable stretcher and off we went. As we sprinted off I thought to myself that perhaps it was time I had a detailed psychological exam. I quickly dismissed the idea and began running through the soft sand. On the way to the call we passed the fire-rescue crew, frantically trying to dislodge their truck from the sand and not two, but three sheriff’s cars, all hopelessly buried.

We arrived at the scene fifteen or so minutes later to find the sole deputy who had made it on scene trying desperately to contain a large group of people who were running in circles behind our patient. She was leading a frantic march around the yard, screaming at the top of her lungs every step of the way. She’d been pushed into a very large camp in an argument and was burned badly on her hands and chest. In the driveway stood a 1972 Dodge Ram truck. What was left of the paint was faded dark green and emblazoned on the back was a chrome placard with those magic words I so longed to see…Four Wheel Drive.

"Whose truck is this?" I asked. A puzzled bystander stopped and looked at me. "We need whoever owns this truck to go get their keys and drive us out of here." I said. The bedraggled bystander staggered off. Dack managed to catch our patient on her next pass, and guide her to the Dodge. I removed the sterile sheets from the burn pack and lined the decidedly non-sterile back seat with them. Thus readied, we managed to insert our still screaming patient into the cramped back seat along with me and a hundred pound pile of medical gear. Dack and our as yet unseen driver got in and closed the doors and off we went.

I busied myself setting up an IV, and trying to find out from our patient what here name was. Our patient screamed that her name was Debbie, and that she wanted something for pain, and now was as good a time as any, as far as she was concerned. In order to give young Debbie pain medication two things had to happen. First, I needed to have an IV in place, and second, I had to contact our physician for orders.

Starting an IV is a lot like threading a needle, except that it hurts the needle to be threaded, so it doesn’t sit very still sometimes. Basically, what I needed to do was thread a needle in the back of a four wheel drive truck as it bounced through a sand pit…in the dark. I politely asked the driver to turn on the dome light. A tiny voice came back…"It doesn’t work". I looked for the first time to see our driver. She was about 16, and white as a sheet, knuckles white on the wheel. I smiled and said "You’re doing great", I said, "nice and easy" and thought "We’re all going to die." "I’m not really sure where we’re going?" she replied. Dack added at that point that he couldn’t get out on the radio to tell dispatch where we were, never mind getting the doc for orders. Okay, I thought, the to-do list is beginning to get a bit longer than my tiny little brain can handle. I fished my trusty cell phone out of my pocket and handed it to Dack, and he began trying to get his bearings so he could tell our young friend how to get us out of our sand filled hell. This could all go very wrong, I thought. Debbie screamed her request for analgesics yet again, and I tried not to think about how much trouble we’d all be in if we became lost or stuck in our current situation. I assembled the appropriate stuff for the IV and grabbed my overpriced but allegedly utterly reliable lithium powered flashlight so I could start the IV. Lithium batteries offer twice the power of regular batteries for about half the weight and only thrice the price. Lithium batteries, however, have a fault that I had not yet discovered. When they die, they do it very quickly and without any warning. Thus when I confidently switched on my little light it burned very brightly for about 10 seconds, and then died a horrible and sudden death, plunging me and my ready needle into utter darkness. I said a lot of dirty words then. After my brief but helpful vituperative I asked Dack, who was simultaneously trying to give the teenybopper driving directions and get the doctor on the line, if I could interrupt him so that I might borrow his penlight. He handed it to me over his shoulder. After a brief period of elation my hopes were sorely dashed again. It was completely dead. "I probably should have called in sick today", I thought.

About that time Dack got the doctor on the phone and it was my turn to talk. Debbie was, mind you, still screaming at the top of her lungs. I asked Dack if he could find some way to get some light and then shouted my request for morphine over the static filled cell phone connection. The doctor basically agreed that I could do what ever the hell I wanted as long as I quit yelling into the phone at him and I hung up. Dack had, in the mean time discovered that one of the Dodge’s map lights still worked. This was no immediate help, as the light was pointed forward and shed no light on Debbie. We briefly considered trying to move Debbie’s arm forward into the light, but her extreme discomfort made this an unlikely option. Just then Dack had an epiphany. He cupped his hands in front of the map light and the light reflected back just enough so I could make an attempt. By some miracle I managed to hit a vein. Whether it was the one I thought I saw in the dim light or another one close by, I have no idea. Not one to look a gift IV stick in the mouth, I quickly attached the IV line and taped it down. I then asked Dack, who was back on the phone with dispatch, one hand still cupped over the map light and still giving our teenaged driver directions, if he’d mind holding the IV bag while I dug out the morphine. He gave me an annoyed glance over his shoulder and I hooked the IV over his pinky finger so I could rummage. Somehow I managed to lay my hands on the morphine in the jumble of medical equipment and old tools in the floorboard, and give Debbie some long awaited relief.

Just when I thought we’d spend the rest of our natural lives bounding through the dunes in this god forsaken jalopy while I tried to perform delicate medical procedures, we popped out onto a paved road and made a sharp turn, barely avoiding the ditch on the other side. Ahead was a beautiful sight, our waiting helicopter. I nearly wept with relief. We arrived a minute later, I screamed my report to a flight medic over the roar of the helicopter, and Debbie was off for the burn center. Dack and I went back to the Dodge, where our young rescuer awaited and thanked her profusely. She accepted our thanks graciously and then went on her way. After we collected our belongings we made our way back to our truck so we could arrange to have it towed out, and perhaps have our microphone de-caffinated. Debbie survived and did well. To this day I hold in my heart eternal gratitude for an unidentified 16-year-old girl who took a step forward when the world really needed her.