Holiday Cheer?

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

Bronson and I are sitting in the ambulance, watching men hang Christmas decorations between the traffic lights along Fifth Avenue in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.


“Hear those sleigh bells ring,” I say, listless. It’s been slow, and we’ve been parked most of the morning, watching people hustling about with big, colorful shopping bags and rolls of gift wrap. Bronson tunes in to Christmas music on the radio and for the fifth time I snap it off. “I have Frank Sinatra coming out of my ears.”


“You don’t like Ol’ Blue Eyes?” he asks, as if I just burned the American flag.


I try to explain. “I know it’s un-American, but I am just not crazy about the guy.” I unroll the window and feel the cold air on my cheeks. “I honestly don’t know what Mia Farrow saw in him.”


Bronson’s cell phone tinkles. He takes it out of his pocket to find a text message signal from Rachel, the triage nurse at Maimonides he’s in love with, that she’s on a break. He dials her and steps out of the ambulance for privacy. But I spend eight hours a day with him in the compressed space of an ambulance, and so I probably know more about him than Rachel does. “Privacy?” I shout. “I know you better than you think!” He ignores me, and I stare at the sad-looking Christmas decorations, thinking there’s nothing worse than decorations by daylight.


I’m contemplating this when the call comes over for an “unconscious” on 60th Street, in nearby Chinatown. I radio that we’re responding, then stick my head out the window. “Get off the phone,” I shout. “We got a job.”


He holds up a finger as if to say “Wait,” then talks a little more, kicking the base of a tree with his boot. He smiles. I think he says “I love you.” Then he clicks off the phone, flips it shut, and stares at it, a happy man. He heads toward the ambulance smiling, with a jaunty step, dashing and debonair, like Sinatra in an itchy blue polyester FDNY uniform. “Anytime you’re ready, Frankie,” I say.


We’re arrive on-scene to back up medics, one of whom Bronson knows. They chat while I get the bags. “Anytime you’d like to help me,” I say, lugging the equipment.


A fireman at the end of the long driveway, near the backyard, greets us.


“Alive or dead?” I ask.


“Woman hung herself,” he says. “I don’t know if she’s alive or not.”


It’s a small apartment, decorated with cheap plastic Christmas wreaths and lucky money in red envelopes with gold Chinese characters on them.I hear voices at the end of the hallway. Firemen come out of the bedroom. I go in.


She’s about 45, lying on the floor, unmoving, with her tongue hanging out of her mouth. I check for breathing. Can’t hear anything, and I don’t see any chest rise. Her neck is pale, with a large rope burn around it. I feel for a carotid pulse. Nothing. “The family cut her down,” the fire lieutenant says. I listen with my scope. No lung sounds. I try to move her hand, but she’s got rigor. She must have been hanging for a while – her eyes are cloudy. I check her legs: Blood has pooled in the lower extremities. I call the code at 10:37 a.m.


Why did she kill herself? Depression? Money troubles? I go into the bathroom to look for medications. The counters are spotless, and the colorful plastic toothbrushes glisten in the bathroom light like hard candies. I open the medicine cabinet. Nothing except Chinese face creams. No pills of any kind, not even aspirin. I shut off the light and go back to the bedroom. Kneel beside the woman.


The medics come in. “Whaddaya got?” they say. I’m blocking their view.


The woman’s husband and daughter are in the living room, speaking in slow tonal rises and falls. Doesn’t matter that I can’t understand Chinese. Suicides always get the same reaction: confusion, disbelief. For them, everything is now in suspended animation.


I step aside so the medics can see, and check my watch again – two minutes have gone by. “I called it at 10:37. I’ll go tell the family.”


Tell them what? That we’re not taking her to the hospital? That there’s no use starting CPR? That this call is over? I go into the next room to find a thin, tired-looking man and a confused, wide-eyed teenage girl. “Is my mom going to be all right?” she asks. Loved ones will cling to any hope.


I shake my head. “She’s gone.” And then, remembering there might be a language barrier, speak more concretely. “She’s dead.” I look at the husband. “Does your father understand? Can you translate?” She cannot. She can’t tell her father that her mother is dead. She can’t pass on this kind of information. “Dead,” I say again, looking at the man.


And though he doesn’t understand English, he immediately breaks down.



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


The New York Sun

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