Free Ambulance Girl by Jane Stern Page A

“I’ll drive you.”
    He rejects the idea.
    “I’m going riding,” he says. “I have to see my horse.”
    He clumsily places a Band-Aid around the cut and heads out the door. I follow him. He gets in the car and I get in with him. We drive to the barn where we stable our horses, about forty minutes away from the house.
    When we park at the barn I see the veterinarian’s truck is there; he is inside giving shots and worm medicine to some of the horses. Michael brings his horse in from the paddock and starts to saddle him. His finger starts to weep red again. If I tell him three times to go to the hospital, it is officially nagging, so I say nothing. I am relieved to see Michael walk over to Ned, the vet, and remove the Band-Aid to show his finger.
    “That’s nasty-looking,” Ned says. “Looks to me like you need stitches.”
    “Can you do it?” Michael asks. He trusts vets over most all doctors.
    Ned shakes his head no and recommends Michael seek out a doctor soon.
    Michael’s horse, KT, is put in his stall and I drive Michael to a local storefront walk-in clinic. He will have no part of a hospital. From the waiting room I can hear him yelling in pain as the doctor puts in the stitches. I start to feel woozy again.
    It dawns on me daily that very soon I am actually going to work with living people instead of mannequins like Rescue Randy. Before Frank’s final exams, each of us in the class will spend a day at the emergency room of the local hospital. There we will assist nurses and doctors with anything they ask of us.
    By the time my rotation comes up there have been ten or so people from the class who have been on hospital duty. The word back at the classroom is that life in the ER is dullsville. Hard to believe, but apparently nothing happens. One of the women from the class reported she filed her nails for hours during her shift, another read a book, another slept on an empty hospital cot.
    I pick Monday as my shift day. I figure the weekend is when most activity happens and Monday will be quiet. I think it will be nice to have eight hours of downtime. I could use a manicure and some sleep myself. I bring my textbook with me to read and study for the final exam.
    I am wearing a clean white shirt and pressed slacks. “No jeans,” Frank has read us from the rules for the ER. When I get there the charge nurse is supposed to take care of us and tell us what we need to know. I present myself at 10 A.M. I can’t find the charge nurse. The doctors will not make eye contact with me. I wander around peeking into the cubicles at the patients. Finally I locate someone in charge and announce my presence. They write a makeshift press-on label that reads JANE STERN, EMT STUDENT, and stick it on my shirt. It does not inspire confidence. I try to look pert and helpful. I fall in step behind nurses. “Can I help?” I ask. They ignore me.
    I am not helpful because I don’t know how to do anything. They do not have the time or inclination to teach me. I feel like an interloper, and I am.
    I try to look busy, I walk briskly from room to room. I greet the patients who lie in bed looking miserable. No one comes to a hospital ER on a Monday morning unless they are really sick. “Hello,” I say brightly.
    “I have to take a shit,” someone moans at me. Another person is drunk and belches loudly when I come near him.
    Another man, in the late stages of cancer, does not respond to my salutations. “I’ll get your nurse” I tell them all, and walk away. The last thing I will do is tell the nurses what to do or where they need to go.
    Monday is the busiest day in the ER. It is the time when everyone who has been sick all weekend finally gets in touch with their doctor, who tells them to go straight to the hospital, or when they finally stop biting the bullet and go because they are about to die.
    My perky chatting with patients comes to an end soon. I am still in the way but the nurses are finding jobs for me. They do not