Rescue 471 by Peter Canning

Author:Peter Canning [Canning, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-78821-4
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2011-03-23T04:00:00+00:00

Gory Stories

One of the most common questions any EMT gets from a layperson is “What is the goriest thing you’ve ever seen on the job?” Very few of our calls are what you’d call gory, but that’s what everybody seems to think about what we do—gore, beheadings, guts hanging out.

A mechanic at the garage where I’m getting my car inspected sees my uniform jacket in the backseat and says, “I bet you must see some pretty gross stuff, huh?”

“Yeah, I guess, a little bit,” I say.

“Like what, tell me. What’s the most gruesome thing you’ve ever seen?”

I think for a moment, uncertain whether I want to get sucked in or not, but he looks so expecting, I tell him, “I guess it’d have to be this body I saw spread-eagled on the road at an MVA scene. Completely ripped open. I could see the intestines, the heart. It stunk something fierce.”

“Yeah, aw, gross,” he says.

I don’t tell him the body was that of a skunk, run over by a station wagon that swerved to avoid the animal and ended up crashed into a telephone pole, leaving the driver with a facial laceration and some back pain.

“What else?” he says.

I think for a moment, then come up with a real call. I tell him about the guy shotgunned to the groin. “He was lying there holding the bloody mess, and there was nothing there but a bloody crater.”

“Did they fix it?” he asked.

“That’s what he was asking, all the way to the hospital, ‘Is it going to work? Is it going to work?’ I gave him an IV and told him it was going to hurt a little, and he said, ‘Anything so long as it’ll work.’ ”

“Well, did they fix it?”

“Yes, they did. He can even pee through it, though it’s a couple inches shorter than it was before.”

I can see the pain on his face. He squeezes his legs together. “What else, tell me one more. You get any other good dead bodies?”

I tell him about the guy in Bellevue Square where we’re called for a possible 78—a dead body. We arrive outside the complex, and I have to say the air smells a little odd. The cops have been waiting for us to arrive. They say no one has seen the gentleman who lives in the first-floor apartment for two weeks, and there is a funky smell coming from his apartment. The apartment is dirty. I can hear a TV coming from the kitchen. I walk in slowly. Roaches run before my feet. I pass the kitchen. The small black-and-white TV is playing, the local weatherman is giving the forecast—hot. I pass the bathroom. Empty. The back bedroom lies ahead, the door is open. I hum to keep from inhaling the odor that is wafting out to meet me, hovering at my nostrils, begging me to breathe in. I walk slowly, like a soldier through a mine field, ready at any moment to take cover or run. I

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