Dressed In Sunday Best

It’s a dry, sunny day, perfect weather. “And I’m stuck with you,” I tell Bronson. “I must be stupid,” I sigh, leafing through the Sunday newspaper to see if there’s anything even remotely interesting. That’s when the dispatcher redeploys us to Downtown Brooklyn; apparently there’s a shortage of units in that area.“Great,” Bronson grumbles. He didn’t get much sleep last night after an argument with his wife. She doesn’t like him working weekends any more than I like agreeing to work with him on a weekend. “Next time, find a different partner,” I say, leafing through the paper, settling finally on the real estate section. I’m checking out a glass penthouse in TriBeCa for $6 million when we get a call to back up medics on an unconscious on the street. “Probably a drunk,” Bronson says. “Sunday morning is still Saturday night for them.”“I live in a penthouse,” I say. “I don’t do drunks.”We respond to the location, a storefront church, and see a police scooter outside. There are also three young women waving frantically and pointing us inside. We grab the medical bags and go in. The church is small, fluorescent-lit, and there are about 75 people dressed in their Sunday best, looking shocked, whispering, sitting in their folding chairs. At the altar, a police officer is doing CPR on a man who appears to be in his 50s. The man is in a somewhat reclined position, but not totally flat, the minister is holding his head up. The CPR can’t be accomplishing much in that position.“Lie him flat!” I shout, and check his neck for a carotid pulse. There’s none. Bronson and I immediately resume CPR, giving ventilations and doing chest compressions.I ask everyone what happened. The police officer says the man apparently collapsed only five minutes earlier, staggering to the altar and dropping to his knees. The officer was sitting on the corner having lunch in his scooter. Someone ran outside and got him. The officer immediately started CPR and gave the man several mouth-to-mouth ventilations. I get on the radio and advise the dispatcher to tell the medics that we have a confirmed cardiac arrest. “Let go of his head!” I shout to the minister. He won’t let go, he seems to want to comfort the man. But the man needs to be flat right now. “Let go of him!”Bronson takes over both compressions and ventilations while I hook up the defibrillator. The machine detects a shockable rhythm, so I prepare to shock. But the minister still won’t let him go.“Let go!” I shout. The minister’s hands seem glued to the man. “Get off him!” I yell, pulling, but it takes about half a minute for the minister to finally let go. “Clear!” I shout, pushing the minister and the officer away from the man.Before I can shock, the medics arrive and hook up their cardiac monitor. They shock him, and the church workers start ushering everyone out. One of the medics intubates, then reaches for his shears on the back of his duty belt to cut the man’s Sunday suit away from his arm to start an IV, but comes up empty handed. “Damn. My shears,” he says.Bronson whips out his own pair and cuts the man’s sleeve off. But the fabric is thick polyester and, sawing through the material, he accidentally puts two small cuts in the man’s arm. The man does not properly bleed. Bronson tosses the sleeve on the ground. The medic starts the IV. Bronson gets a scoop stretcher and disassembles it into two halves. Together, we slide them under the man and snap them back together.One of the medics says he wants to get a round of drugs into him and then immediately transport him since the man went into cardiac arrest a few minutes ago, he had some amount of immediate CPR, and we’re only five blocks from Brooklyn Hospital.As we leave the church, I see a woman pick up the man’s cut away sleeve and hold it, confused.At the ER, the doctors and nurses work hard, then call the code. As the nurses are unhooking all the lines, one of the doctors notices the cuts on the man’s arm and asks the medics if they know what happened. “I’ll have to notify the medical examiner on this,” he says.It does look rather suspicious, strange marks on a dead man’s arm. The medics look at Bronson. He finally admits he cut the man while trying to saw off his suit.The cuts have a waxy quality to them, since they were made after his heart already stopped.I wonder how long the woman in the church held the empty sleeve limp in her hand, and if she finally took it home.Ms. Klopsis is an emergency medical technician on an ambulance in Brooklyn. This column details her observations and experiences. Some names and identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of patients.

Dressed In Sunday Best

Dressed In Sunday Best

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