Free Population 485 by Michael Perry Page B

line, but I also remember being thrilled that I wasn’t panicked, that I could remember the cardiac-arrest protocol, that I had no qualms about bringing my face near to that of a dead man. And so I gave him that big first breath—the trouble was, I forgot to attach the one-way valve to the mask, and on the exhale, the man blew a geyser of creamed corn in my face.
    I didn’t puke.
    I called for suction, jammed the one-way valve on the mask, and gave him another breath.
    Fifteen years and hundreds of patients later, I have never forgotten the one-way valve.
    We worked the man all the way back to the hospital. The sweat from my brow splashed on his bare chest every time I did compressions. Once when we careened around a corner I smacked my head on the overhead cupboard. We hit the ambulance bay going full steam, and they shocked and poked a while longer in the emergency room, but the man died.
    I wondered how I’d feel, but it all seemed okay. I felt we could look at the family and know we’d done what we could. What we were trained to do. I felt respectful of their grief, but I wasn’t distraught myself. We shut ourselves in a little room at the back of the emergency department to review the audiocassette playback from the defib machine. As the tape rolled, I heard myself breathing and grunting, and Fred talking through the protocol, and I could hear the plasticky tunk of jostled equipment, and the rattle and snap of the cot straps, and through the whole thing, that dog—circling us again and again, barking and whining as we shocked, pummeled, and abducted his master. The creamed corn, the dead man, those didn’t bother me. That dog set me back some.

    I was introduced to the techniques and terminology of emergency medical service—EMS—through a series of night classes held in a high school library under the aegis of the Wisconsin Indianhead Technical College. After 115 hours of training, I received sanction from the National Registry of Emergency Medical Technicians by passing their written and practical examinations. The state of Wisconsin then issued me a license to practice at the EMT-Basic level. Officially prepared, I set out to learn the trade of rescue. The guts, and the art.
    I entered into an apprenticeship with a passel of renegades.

    The headquarters of the Silver Star Ambulance Service consisted of a ratty apartment attached to a funeral home. If this strikes you as a creepy conflict of interest, right on. Regulations now prohibit such arrangements, which were an outgrowth of the days when the local hearse did double duty as the ambulance. Existing services were grandfathered in, however, and Silver Star was one of the originals.
    The proximity of the funeral home had its pros and cons. We were always being recruited to shuttle caskets and move bodies. When we washed and polished the ambulances, we were expected to do the same for the hearse. When it snowed, the funeral-home owner would summon us to his house on the hill and make us shovel the drive. I always figured that looked pretty good—an ambulance pulls up, and two uniformed medics jump out with snow shovels.
    On the other hand, the presence of caskets and dead bodies kept us well stocked for pranks. Whenever new medics hired on, we took them on a tour of the funeral home and made sure to point out that the bunk room and the embalming room shared a wall. That night, we’d assign them the bunk against that wall. After lights out, the dispatcher would sneak into the embalming room and scratch on the tiles. Sometimes you’d cook up an errand that would send a rookie through the casket room. We’d plant a veteran in one of the caskets, and when the rookie got close, the veteran would moan and pound on the lid.
    I used to say I would trust the Silver Star crew with my life, but not my sister. The city fire department, with its union wages and tough admission standards, tended to attract experienced career-minded individuals. Silver Star, with its