Ambulance Girl by Jane Stern Read Free Book Online Page A

weighed a lot less and a male friend and I were doing a jitterbug. He tried to lift me and swing me over his knee and after getting me six inches off the ground, he gave out with a huge grunt and collapsed on the floor.
    Now for some unknown reason I have offered up my bulk to this young blond god, and Frank-who-I-think-hates-me. What is worse is that there are almost forty people as an audience to watch them try and hoist me in the air. I say the name of my shrink over and over under my breath like a Hail Mary.
    It is easy for them to get me upright in a sitting position. I feel Frank’s short muscle-bound arms wrap themselves under my bosom. He locks himself in, Chad grabs my legs. I am self-conscious about my legs, they are thick and heavy. All of me feels ungainly. I feel them give me a little tug to assess how hard they will have to lift. I feel my body’s resistance as they pull me against gravity. I keep my eyes closed. I pretend I am dead or unconscious. The class thinks this is method acting but I am simply trying to disappear. Trying to will myself to be as light as helium. To my amazement I am suddenly airborne. It is a revelation. I honestly thought I was un-liftable. I can feel them strain, but I am four feet in the air and then gently plopped into the stair chair. I peek out of one half-opened eye. No one is laughing.
    I don’t think I will become an EMT legend in the annals of the unbelievably fat. Already I have heard the stories about the 600-pound people who needed twelve firemen to lift them off the bed. I am ecstatic. I am again a seven-pound baby in her mother’s arms. I am in love with Frank and Chad. I dream of them carrying me everywhere.

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    It seems that much of what we are lectured about in class is what not to do. “EMTs do not diagnose,” we are told repeatedly. “Do not tell the patients they are okay, they may not be. . . . If a patient tells you he is about to die, do not argue with him; he probably will die.”
    I am already arguing this point in my head. When I feel sick, I get scared and I often think I am going to die. I was sure I was going to die on the stalled plane. If somebody told me I was probably right, I would likely now be dead from fright. How can I not diagnose, at least to myself? Someone has crushing chest pains radiating up their jaw and down their arm, they are sweaty, have a sense of impending doom, are nauseous, and have a pocketful of nitroglycerin pills. Is it a dislocated kneecap? Doubtful. If someone is telling me the Martians are talking to him through his tooth fillings, do I think he has appendicitis? Nope.
    Chad the physical therapist comes back for the next class. This time he is not lifting any of us but helping Frank lecture us about splinting broken bones. We are told that our firehouse will supply us with scissors for cutting people’s pants off to see their injuries. Chad shows us a slide of a broken femur, the big leg bone in the thigh. In the picture it has not only broken but has pushed through the person’s skin. It resembles the main mast of a sailing ship, stark and white, standing upright. The patient’s pants flutter around it like a deflated sail.
    Again I find myself noticing the ephemera of the scene. The man is wearing attractive gray flannel pants. I can’t see his face or even upper body but imagine that he is a wealthy stockbroker who got in a car wreck driving his Lexus to the train station to commute into the city. Chad tells us that a broken femur can cause serious blood loss, enough to send the person into deathly shock. What we have to learn to do is to put the bone back in place.
    The way we do this is with an apparatus called a Hare Traction Splint. The top end of it is wrapped with black Velcro bands around the top of the thigh, the foot is secured at the other end, and then with a crank like that of a medieval torture rack we pull the victim’s leg apart until the broken leg bone is realigned. “You can expect the patient