Power Lifter

He was 9.

Or maybe 12.

I've likely forgotten on purpose.

The dispatch was for a child hanging.  My first such dispatch and there was only one thought in my head: "This is why I'm here."

In the 3-4 minutes I had to prepare myself for this situation I also had to drive a vehicle with lights and sirens, something anyone in the know can tell you is hard enough without being distracted by a hanging child.

The first engine in has only reported "CPR in progress."

Am I going the wrong direction?  Was that last turn supposed to be a left?

The ambulance has arrived and is pulling the yellow bag from their rig.  I can see it from afar as I make the final turn up the block.  Our adult bags are red, the pediatric bags are yellow.

I pull up around the corner near the three police cars.  So many blue, red and white LED lights were flashing that the entire corner was lit bright.

As I mounted the stairs, taking one last breath before what I assumed would be my worst day I heard a voice inside the apartment that sounded like the voice coming from the radio mic on my lapel, "Control this is 99, we have an adult in full arrest."

I have never been more relieved to hear that an adult was dead.  That sounds weird, I know.

Stepping into the room my Paramedic Captain eyes see the following, in this order:

1. Perfect CPR by an ALS Engine crew.

2. Perfect BVM by the same.

3. Ambulance Medic opening an IV kit and an EMT beginning to determine status of O2, CPR fatigue and the Medic's accessibility to meds.

The ballet we rehearse for has already started and my goals shift to support and oversight.  The crews are working like they always do, like a single machine with one purpose.  Ignore the fact that these 6 people don't even know the names of their coworkers.  From where I'm standing they have been trained together since childhood to perform this one task.

And that's when I suddenly realize he is watching.

The son.

I've seen the faces of brave men following harrowing tasks and can tell you that this young man aged decades that night.

Through an interpreter, the 911 operator was told that a child was found hanging.  Turns out that a child FOUND someone hanging.  His father.

When the first engine arrived the patient was on the floor with the boy trying to do mouth to mouth.  No chest compressions, just a son trying to breathe life back into his father.

He was unsuccessful, but my 6 well trained firefighters and Paramedics had better luck.

While the patient was loaded onto a board for extrication, cold saline running to aid in maintaining the pulse now pumping blood through his once dead body, I turned my attentions back to the family.

Long after bed time there was a loud "THUD" that awoke him.  In his pajamas he investigated and found his father's feet dangling above the chair now sideways on the floor.  Somehow this boy thought enough to begin screaming and grabbed his father's legs.  And lifted.

It was this single action that likely led to his father's positive reaction to the paramedic's interventions.

He weighed, maybe, 70 pounds and was able to lift almost 200 pounds until mom was able to cut the twine.

His power lifting that day is nothing compared to the emotions he'll have to carry the rest of his life.

I have purposefully avoided the outcome of this case because both outcomes frighten me.  Either the son must come to terms with his father's suicide or the father must come to terms with explaining to his son why suicide was more important than raising him.

I find neither outcome acceptable.

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