We get called to back up paramedics on an “unconscious” in an apartment building in Sheepshead Bay.

“How much you wanna bet they never show up?” my partner, Bronson, asks. Medics are notoriously slow in arriving. They want to be sure it’s a real job, not a false alarm, so they wait until we EMTs get there and radio dispatch for their ETA. Then, like magic, they appear out of nowhere.

“Is that a rhetorical question?” I say. “I’ll bet you it’s not.”

“You like to bet a lot,” I say. He’s always betting me lunch, ski trips, property in the Hamptons. “It’s an addiction with you. Maybe you should seek counseling.”

He floors the pedal. “They let us do all the dirty work. I’m sick of it.”

He’s right again. I hate entering an apartment to find someone not breathing and pulseless, and having to start CPR with just Bronson until the medics show up with their drugs and intubation kit, the only things that will really save the life of someone in cardiac arrest.

So I’m annoyed when we get to the address and, sure enough, there’s no ambulance parked outside.

“Damn,” I say, walking into the unknown. Maybe the patient isn’t unconscious. Maybe whoever called 911 only claimed that in order to get us here faster. Whatever the case may be, I hate stepping into a situation completely cold.

We go upstairs and knock on the door. A middle-aged Russian woman lets us in.

“I am Medicare home attendant,” she announces. “I come nine o’clock and find Mr. Pachenko like that.”

“Like what?” I ask, as she leads us to the back bedroom.

“Like that” she says, ushering us in. Mr. Pachenko, an elderly man in pajamas, is on his knees in front of the TV set, which is on a TV stand in a corner of the room. It’s an old set, the kind with knobs and antennae.

We rush over and check for vital signs. He’s not breathing. I poke around in his corded neck, bristly with white razor stubble, but there’s no carotid pulse. And he’s ice-cold.

“Ma’am,” I say, “he’s not unconscious. He’s dead.”

She stands there, nonplussed.

I look around the room. It’s relatively clean. A couple of pill bottles sit on his nightstand beside a schedule written out in Russian in ballpoint pen on a white paper plate. A half-full glass of water sits next to the bedside lamp, which is still on despite the light flooding through the yellowing plastic roll-down shades, the kind with gaudy polyester pull tassels.

“Does he live alone?” I ask.

She nods. “Da.” That’s why I come.”

“How often?”

“Three times a week.”

I look at Mr. Pachenko again. His bare feet show signs of dependent lividity, the blood pooling in a circulatory system no longer circulating, which constitutes obvious death and is legal reason enough not to start CPR, or any other resuscitative measures.

I sit at the kitchen table to do my paperwork. The Formica is clean. So is the countertop, with a single plastic Bugs Bunny plate and a matching Bugs Bunny cup placed neatly in the dish rack. The faucet has a slight drip, and each drop makes a tinny sound when it hits the empty stainless-steel sink. At least the place is clean, I think. At least that.

Mr. Pachenko, though thin, appears decently well cared for. His sheets are clean, and his pajamas are fresh. It’s his positioning that bothers me: One blue-veined hand is clutching the TV knob; the other is curved around the TV itself, as if he’s holding on for dear life. The TV is broadcasting the Channel 7 morning news, something about a sex scandal in a public high school. Mr. Pachenko’s nose is lifted up against the top edge of the TV set, and his lips are mashed against the screen, as if while attempting to change channels, he was struck with a heart attack, and then crumpled to his knees and died in that position. By some trick of perfect balance or gravitational miracle, he remained suspended there for the first few hours. Now, he’s stiffened into place.

Bronson shuts off the TV set.

He checks his watch and calls it. “Time of death 9:20 a.m.” I mark it on my chart. Then he radios dispatch to call off the medics. “Eighty-seven the medics. It’s a confirmed DOA.” He clips the radio back onto his belt. “Let them go back to napping,” he says to me.

I get Mr. Pachenko’s full name and age from the home attendant.

“Ninety-one,” she says, but she doesn’t know his birth date. She doesn’t know his Social Security number either, and fetches the card from the wallet on his bedside table. I ask her if she knows if he has any children, any next of kin. She goes to the refrigerator, removes a magnet, and takes down a piece of paper with the name and phone number of a daughter. The name is written in Russian, but the home attendant flaps it in my face and says, “Natalia. I call.”

She picks up the phone, dials, and begins speaking in Russian. I can’t judge how Natalia is reacting, but I hope she’s appropriately distressed. Not only did her father pass away alone in the middle of the night, but I wonder what could be sadder than an old man who died trying to change the channels on his TV.

Ms. Klopsis is an emergency medical technician for the FDNY. This column details her observations and experiences on the job. Some names and identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of patients.