As soon as the two c-130 transport planes appeared on the horizon, the crowd erupted. Families, friends, politicians, the patriot Guard; everybody cheered. Flags waved as the planes roared overhead. They banked sharply left and rolled out of sight. A minute later one, then the other taxied past us on the runway. In perfect precession they turned, faced us and stopped. It was truly beautiful. The soldiers disembarked, stood in formation for a minute then joined their families. It was a perfect moment. I took this picture and left, I’ll catch up tomorrow.

The people fighting this war are an incredible group of people. I’m proud to know them.

My friend and fellow blogger Chrysalis plugged my book on her site. Take a look see if you have a minute, I think you will like it there.

Twenty runs in twenty-four hours, fourteen to go. We had a rash of wife beaters last night, three in a row between ten and midnight. An eighteen year old girl was hit in the head with a baseball bat, she was dazed but conscious. When we arrived on scene she was holding a ten month old infant, swaying from side to side, barely able to stay seated. She handed the baby off to her brother and came with us to the hospital. Twenty minutes later, a few blocks away another girl ran from her home, broken cell phone in her hand, new wounds included pain in her chest from being kicked, a lacerated nostril from where her nose ring used to be before her “boyfriend” ripped it out and abdominal pain from more kicks. Bruises covered her arms legs and torso, evidence of months of abuse. Another girl was found standing on Broad Street with no shoes bleeding from her mouth. Her boyfriend punched her in the face and threw her out.

They went to war. Every one of them left somebody behind, someone who cared for them, loved them and would never recover if they were lost. They had no idea what to expect when they boarded that bus last September, only that some, or all of them might not come back. Well, they are coming back. Finally, they’re on their way home.

Behind the hugs and handshakes, pats on the back and all that lies something deeper. “Welcome Home” is what I’ll say when they get off the bus. What I feel I know I’ll never say out loud, it’s just not something that comes easy to me.

“You stood tall, conquered your fears, did your job and did it well. You endured months of loneliness in a hostile desert, saw things that will haunt your dreams forever. You did what was right, not because somebody told you to, but because you said you would do what it takes when you joined The Guard. You were good to your word.

Nobody can take that away from you. For the rest of your lives you will carry with you the memories. Some people may forget what you did, but those are the ones who never cared to begin with. They wouldn’t stand up for themselves in times of trouble. You stood up for them and the rest of us, and for that, those of us who do care are forever grateful.

Things haven’t changed much since you were gone. We’ve aged a year, and so have you. Something grew during that time. Something that can’t be seen unless you look closely. People will never look at you the same way again. You may not feel differently, but we will see you in a different light. We’ll see what you are; valiant soldiers who have earned our respect.

Enjoy it; few deserve it, most will never experience it, you will wear it for as long as you live.”

Thank you, Brother, and all the members of the 1207th Transportation Company of the Rhode Island National Guard.

Welcome Home

The next time I complain about my back I’ll remember Serena. Fifty-seven years old, pretty face, nice family, room full of good books and movies and a few other things. Congestive heart failure, COPD, renal failure, diabetes, left leg amputated, cancer, gangrene, chronic nausea and vomiting to name a few. She smiled between gasps for air on the way to the hospital. The strength of the human spirit endures, and makes my minor pains just an annoyance.

I rode past my brother’s house today, forgot the kids are all in school. Beautiful day for a ride anyway. A couple of waterfalls, windy country roads, little or no traffic and the smell of late summer woods to keep me company. I had to stop and take a picture here, a panoramic view of the Scituate Resevior from the middle of the bridge is better than a shot from my phone, but it’s bettter than nothing. Bob will be home in a week and a couple of days. Can’t wait.

Sorry Bro, but you can’t have your bike back. You survived Iraq, I’d hate to see you get hurt on your motorcycle so for your own good, I’m keeping it!

I was a little disappointed to find my patient alert, conscious and ambulatory. There was some blood spattered on a kitchen chair. A lady with a bucket and mop smiled at me and finished washing the floor. Not quite the scene I had envisioned during the five minute response time. We were dispatched for a severe upper leg laceration from a power saw. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to see anybody lose a limb or bleed to death, but it is a letdown once you have yourself prepared for the worst.

My patient was an affable nineteen year old who was helping his uncle renovate their hundred year old home. Places like this are sprouting up everywhere I look, little gems in the desert. A freshly painted fence adorned with colorful mums led us into the place. Emelio, the wounded worker was putting on a robe in another room while we waited. The uncle took off his tool belt and waited with us.

"Did you do these floors?" I asked.

"Southern Yellow Fir," he said, proudly. "You can't buy this now, all gone."

I had the same flooring in my last house, beautiful stuff, once refinished.

"Your place is looking good," I complimented him. They had done a lot of work. When they finished it would add value to the entire street. Soon, I hope, the run down places will be out of place here. Pride of ownership does a lot for a neighborhood.

Emelio limped out of a bedroom and walked to the truck, his uncle coming along.

"What happened?" I asked.

"I sat on a nail. It bled for a while but it's stopped."

"Where is the puncture?"

He looked miserable, trying to explain. It must have been embarrassing to a nineteen year old kid.

"It's kind of at the top of my leg, uh…kind of near my…umm testicles but a little behind…umm…"

"Did you puncture your anus?"

"No, a little behind." The poor kid was miserable, didn't know what to say.

"Oh, your taint," I said and started the report. He looked confused, but relieved.

His uncle asked, "what's a taint?"

"It ain't your balls and it ain't you ass. Taint." I shrugged my shoulders like this happened every day and kept on writing.

They almost fell out of the truck laughing. Nothing like a little male bonding to set things strait.

We’ve got a problem. Mentally ill patients have nowhere to go. It’s a catch-22 situation; those with the most severe problems cannot keep jobs and have no insurance. Cuts in state spending have reduced the number of “uninsured” beds in the area hospitals. These folks have nowhere to go when they have a breakdown.

A fifty year old guy who looked forty called for help this morning. They said he had a knife and intended to kill himself. The police arrived first and found no weapon, we were called in. The man was obviously depressed. He sat on the curb in front of a dilapidated house in South Providence. The house needed to be razed and rebuilt but there were signs of life there. I asked him if he lived there.

“I wish.”

He’s been staying in homeless shelters for years, can’t keep a job, can’t afford the psych meds that could help him and can’t find a reason to go on living. He’s been incontinent for two days now, the evidence clinging to the bottom and sides of his sneakers.

“Get in the truck,” I said, Al layed some extra sheets on the stretcher and we got moving.

“I just can’t hold it anymore,” he told me when I asked about the mess.

He stared blankly at the ceiling as we rode toward Rhode Island Hospital. There he will be given a psych evaluation. If he is lucky he will be given a bed and proper treatment in a psych ward somewhere, Kent County Hospital, Butler or the Jane Brown Building at Rhode Island Hospital. More likely he will be put into the Clinical Decision Unit at the emergency room until he is cleared. That could take days. The lights never go out, the space is shared with the dozens of intoxicated persons we take in from the streets. He’ll be forced to lay in bed and listen to the maddness that surrounds him. If he breaks and gets overactive or vocal he will be restrained.

I wanted to help this man get back on his feet. Instead, I delivered him to the door of more madness.

Al knew what I was feeling after we brought him in.

“What are you going to do?” he asked, shaking his head, knowing there was no answer.

“Rescue 1 in service,” I said into the mike and we rolled back into the city.

This guy’s coffe had a little extra “kick” this morning. He had stopped to get a cup of Joe and say hello to some friends, when he got back into his car with his coffee another car clobbered him. A few months ago a nineteen year old kid was hit in this exact spot so hard he was thrown from the rear window and killed. My patient was lucky, minor injuries. We secured him on a spine board, applied a cervical collar and transported him the Rhode Island Hospital Emergency Room.

The neighbors formed a posse and found the alleged driver about a mile away, inside a coffee shop, having a coffee. The cops told me later the man was heavily intoxicated.

Don’t people go to church on Sunday’s anymore?

From the Providence Journal, Sunday, September 16th 2007

Bob Kerr: The story of the city with feeling

01:00 AM EDT on Sunday, September 16, 2007

I don’t like lying to people who I know will be dead in minutes because it doesn’t seem fair. It’s hypnotic in the back of a rescue when the fight for life is lost and resignation appears in the victims’ faces. I tell them to hang on, to keep fighting, but they know the truth. I can see it in their eyes. I am the last thing they see before leaving this earth forever.

— Lt. Michael Morse in Rescuing Providence

Many of us try to peel back the cover on the city now and then — look into those seldom-seen places where people do crazy, mean, loving, funny, desperate things. But Michael Morse does it again and again and again. There are times when he might want a break from it, maybe a whole hour to put his head back and not deal with all that injury and pain and assorted madness.

But then comes the call:

“Rescue 3 and Engine 12, respond to Hawkins and Admiral for a reported shooting.”

And he is off again, into the rescue wagon and off to another human pileup in Providence — and another chance to see the city with a writer’s eyes.

Morse has been an emergency medical technician (EMT) and firefighter in Providence for 16 years. He is one of those people, like most who work at firehouses, who are hooked on the job. Despite the falling-down fatigue that comes with call after call, he would have it no other way.

He has been a writer for a lot of years too. It is tough to say just when that part of him kicked in. He remembers his days at Bishop Hendricken High School, where he did not light up the honor roll. But he got that B in English once. There were some early indications that he could do things with the language.

And he has. He’s written a book, and it’s so damn good that I can’t stand this guy. I mean, just where does he get off climbing out of a rescue wagon and writing with this kind of feeling and pace and vivid recollection?

It’s called Rescuing Providence, and it covers one 34-hour shift around Easter weekend of 2004.

“I was driving to work one day and just decided to write a book about this,” he told me.

He started taking notes. He would finish a call and write down the most memorable details. When he got home, he typed up the notes.

“I would live it, then relive it.”

Sometimes, he says, he would remember something a couple of days later and think, “that was interesting.” And he would write it down.

He has been published before, in Rhode Island Monthly and on the editorial pages of The Providence Journal. He wrote a wonderful piece about the challenges EMTs face when removing drunks from city streets.

When he finished his book, he says, he sat back and waited for the publishers to knock down his door. Instead, they sent rejection slips. Morse’s wife, Cheryl, says there really were enough rejection slips to paper a good part of a room in their house in Warwick.

Then came the day when Morse was mowing the lawn and Cheryl came out to tell him that the call had come from his agent: A publisher had picked up Rescuing Providence.

It will be officially released in a few weeks by Paladin Press. Morse isn’t sure how much promotion he’ll do. This is all very new to him.

But buy this book, and not just because it is drawn from the streets of Providence. Buy it because it gives us all the chance to go to the places and meet the people that we too quickly pass by. Buy it for the opportunity to know the incredible things that happen when a stranger from the Fire Department shows up to sew people up and calm people down and sometimes deal with the mean and dangerous side of the city.

There was the time Morse was called to the scene of a stabbing after a street brawl. As he approached the injured man, he was told by another man, “If he dies, you die.”

“You stupid bastard,” I told him, focused on the patient and annoyed at the interruption. “Your friend is bleeding to death and you have to bust my balls. Get out of the way, or your friend will die on those steps.”

What makes Morse’s book such a pleasure to read is not just the accounts of the rescue calls but the way he blends in the memories of the way the city used to be and his life with Cheryl and their two daughters and the special connection that develops with the people who work alongside him. He tells of going food shopping with his grandmother on Federal Hill. And he tells of dealing with the changes that had to be made when Cheryl discovered she had multiple sclerosis.

Then, late in the book, is the reminder that on any call, an EMT can face the worst kind of human tragedy. Morse was working out of the Branch Avenue station when a fire call came in. A mother had left two babies with a babysitter and gone out for a drink. The babysitter left the babies because she wanted to have some fun and assumed the babies were asleep. Both babies were burned to death.

Morse recalls he was in the station the next day, blaming himself for the disaster and saying, “I’ll never wish for another fire.” Chief Ronny Moura, whom he describes as a “grizzled veteran firefighter and all-around tough guy,” overheard him.

“Kid,” says Moura, “any firefighter worth half a sh— wants fires. Quit crying and get off the cross. We need the wood.”

And so it goes for those who do the work that EMTs and firefighters do. No one on the outside can possibly understand.

But we can read Rescuing Providence and get a rich and varied taste of it.

“I hope people feel what I feel,” says Morse. “I hope they come away with a better understanding of our profession.”

A reader of this truly fine book will surely do that.

bkerr@projo.com
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Bob Kerr: The story of the city with feeling

Bob Kerr: The story of the city with feeling

He lay crumbled at the bottom of a cement stairway, his head at an odd angle, snoring. There are drunk snores, fake snores, sound asleep snores and snores like this one; a get him on oxygen, immobilized, extricated, IV’d, monitored, medicated and to the trauma room snores.

We’ve done this thousands of times. The patient was in the trauma room ten minutes later, the operating room half an hour after that. The people I work with are truly the best around. Engine 3 assisted on scene, the Rhode island hospital trauma team took over, then the operating room crew from there. He’ll probably end up in the intensive care unit, then a “regular room” and hopefully some therapy, home care and with a little luck full recovery.

Or, he could never regain consciousness and all of our work will be for nothing.

Erin Blackman, an avid supporter of firefighters everywhere did a ride-along today to get some footage of Rescue 1 for a documentary she is working on. Her thoughts on the day’s events are here: http://provfiredocumentary.blogspot.com/ (thanks, Erin)

Body language, facial expressions, a few common words spoken are usually enough. So young, I thought, holding my index finger and thumb as if holding a card. She reached into her purse and produced an ID. It was a Guatemalan Embassy card. The language barrier was easily overcome, the worlds that separated us impossible to breach. Even if I knew how to say it I wouldn’t give her the same speech saved for my own child. She smiled radiantly and looked at me as I filled out the report. Any wisdom I had to share with her I kept to myself. What to one child is a bad decision is a lifesaver to another. If this were my daughter I would tell her she had the rest of her life ahead of her, friends, dates, proms, graduation, college, career and a world to conquer. I smiled back at the fifteen year old girl sitting across from me. Her future grew inside of her, thirty-seven weeks along; anchor babies some people call them.

Eyewitness News WPRI / FOX Providence – Providence, Rhode Island News, Weather, Traffic and Sports | Across RI, Remembrances on Sixth Anniversary of 9/11

My friend, Pat from FDNY EMS contacted me yesterday after sending the above link and reminded me that two Paramedics, Carlos Lollo and Ricardo Quinn were counted as firefighters when that terrible days’ casulties were through. Though the two agencies are considered FDNY, Carlos and Ricardo were Paramedics, they made their living as Paramedics and they died as Paramedics. God rest their souls, and the three-hundred and forty-one firefighters who died with them.

The link above leads you to coverage of yesterday’s wreath laying ceremony where I delivered my first and hopefully my last, though I doubt that, speech. Thank you for allowing me the indulgence of self-promotion. But what the heck, it is my blog!

The president of Local 799, Paul Doughty asked me to be the keynote speaker at this years 9-11 memorial service at Police and Fire headquarters. It was short notice but I put the following words together just in time. I thought I would share them with you.

It’s vitally important that we come together on this date to honor those who lost their lives on September 11th, 2001. It’s hard to believe, but six years have passed. The memorials have grown smaller, the painful memories easier to bear. Some people prefer to block it from their minds, act as if it never happened. That’s their choice, not ours. Time marches on; new experiences take place of memories we once thought would be with us forever. From the depths of sorrow, we find hope. It’s a good and necessary thing. Without it we would be crushed by the weight of sorrow that builds as the years go by.

We’ve learned to live with the painful memories from that day, but we will “Never Forget!” It’s up to us to keep the memory of the fallen alive. This isn’t just another day. It’s a day when every American, especially Firefighters needs to stop and think of what we have, those who fight for it, those who died protecting it, and vow to keep their memory alive.

Never forget that every time we put our gear on the truck we honor the memory of the 343 firefighters who died while doing their job six years ago. Every one of us knows we may be asked to risk everything while doing our job. It’s not heroic or glamorous or anything else we may have thought it was before we took the oath. It’s simply what we do. We are born with it; it’s in our blood. Some see it as a curse; most consider it a blessing.

The firefighters that died that day were people like us, proud of their profession, their families and their ability to save lives and protect property. I’m sure there was a little swagger in their walk that morning when they started their shift; confident they could handle anything thrown at them and somehow walk away. We think the same way, if we didn’t, we wouldn’t be wearing these uniforms. But with that swagger comes a price. People expect us to save them, and we usually do. Sometimes we don’t, and sometimes we die with them.

Thousands of regular citizens showed up for work that day, entered the elevators, sat at their desks, talked at the water cooler and got prepared to start their day. Nothing could have prepared them for what happened next. Most of those that weren’t killed instantly waited. For us. We responded. As the world watched the drama unfold on their televisions, helplessly, we responded.

If they thought the job hopeless, they never would have tried it. They thought there was a chance, and they marched to their deaths. They didn’t go to work that day expecting to die. None of us go to work expecting to die. Ours is a different profession. We take risks. We work hard and punish our bodies, not because we have a death wish, rather, we have a wish that we can make things right when they go horribly wrong, as they did on September 11th, 2001. Those who entered the towers thought the poor souls on the upper floors had a chance and they went to go get them.

When the first tower fell, I knew. Before the top floor hit the ground, I said to my wife, “We just lost a lot of firefighters.”
“Why were they still in there?” she asked.”
“They were doing their job.”
She looked at me, shook her head and looked back at the TV, knowing if I were there, I would have been in the tower. It’s harder on our families than it is on us.

We owe it to the firefighters who died that day to keep getting on that truck and doing our best, whether it’s in New York City, Providence, Warwick or Cumberland and to keep doing what they did six years ago for them the final time; Our duty.

I learned an important lesson that day and the weeks and months to follow. The people we are sworn to protect are worth protecting. We stood together as a nation like nobody could have dreamed possible. We remembered what it meant to be Americans; we stood together, cried together and together have moved forward. Racial and economic divisions didn’t matter, differing political philosophies were irrevalant.

In a many ways we’ve returned to our pre-911 mindset, and that is unfortunate, but the togetherness and resolve that existed then still resides in all of us, and comes to the surface when necessary. I know it’s there, I remember, and that is what keeps me going.

It’s good to be alive, and an honor to be part of the Providence Fire Department, and member of local 799, but most of all, it’s good to be a firefighter.

Eventually, carrying people up and down stairs and into and out of the rescue takes it’s toll. Last week I felt something give. I’ve been hobbling around for about ten days now; back injury. It happened while transporting a twenty-five year old patient from her OBGYN’s office to the emergency room at Woman and Infant’s Hospital. The buildings are connected, the patient could have been transported to the ER by hospital staff in less than five minutes without ever leaving the building. Instead, the person in charge of the patient at the doctor’s office decided that 911 was the best way to transport the patient, non-critical, contractions about eight minutes apart, no complications.

I digress, pent up frustration at the abuse of the 911 system, I guess.

“Fat drunk and stupid is no way to go through life,” The dean told John Belushi in “Animal House.”

“Valium, Vicodin and Nacho’s” aren’t much better. I’ll be off the couch in a few days. I’m looking forward to getting back to work.

He could have been my brother or friend, or a guy I work with. If not for the drool dripping from the corner of his mouth and helmet he wore on his head he looked like your typical thirty-eight year old guy. He lived with people three times his age, sick, dying people in need of constant medical supervision. I wondered how he ended up in a nursing home. The inter-agency report I read as we rode toward Rhode Island Hospital didn’t tell me much, only that he refused to take his medication because it was crushed in applesauce and was threatening the other patients and staff. He didn’t look very menacing to me, but then I’m not ninety years old and confined to a wheelchair or bed.

“What are you doing living in a nursing home?” I asked, not knowing if he was capable of answering. He pointed to his head.

“What’s wrong with your head?”

“Motorcycle.” He slurred the word the best he could.

“Accident?” I asked. He shook his head yes.

“Were you wearing a helmet?”

He pointed to the helmet on his head.

“Am now.”

I found out later he had suffered massive head injuries as a result of a motorcycle accident four years ago. His Harley was ruined when somebody pulled out of a side street in front of him. He wasn’t going that fast, maybe forty, but fast enough to land him in a nursing home being spoon-fed medication for the rest of his life, his only excitement acting up and scaring the old folks.

Some days I think I have things pretty much figured out. Days like this I just look at my patient, shake my head and wonder.

“Rescue 3 a still alarm.”

The blow lights woke me before the PA system came to life. I looked at my watch through blurry eyes and was shocked to find that I had been unconscious for ten minutes. It felt like hours. When a call comes in to the Fire Alarm office, the dispatchers, after sorting out the information from the caller hit a switch on their console beginning the process of dispatching the proper response. On our end, the first indication that we are going out is the activation of the “blow lights.” Every overhead light in the building is wired directly to the fire alarm office, when they trip the switch the building goes from serene darkness to intense daylight. A few years of experience equips you with a sixth sense, a low hum, only able to be heard by some species of canine and rescue veterans fills the air before the light blinds you. I felt the lights before they came on.

0004 (12:04 a.m.)

“Rescue 3, respond to 8 Stimson Street for a man bleeding from the head.” I keyed my portable; I never had the chance to take it off of my belt.

“Rescue 3 on the way.

I rested for a minute on the bunk trying to figure out if this was a dream or reality. Just in case I wasn’t dreaming, I slipped on my shoes and headed for the truck. Renato was already there, the motor running.
“I know where that is!” Renato exclaims. “My brother used to live over there. We’ll be there in no time!” I am refreshed by his enthusiasm. There is nothing worse than a miserable partner. With Mike leaving I’m worried about my future on the rescue truck. Renato seems to be a great guy, but most young guys want nothing to do with rescue. The thrill of firefighting is understandably something that takes all of the good guys away from EMS.
We rode to the call in silence. I silently asked myself why I do this. The money is better, but the real reason is because I am one of the fortunate few who can say he loves his job. For ten years I worked the engine and ladder trucks. I fought a lot of fires in that time and learned a lot. The adrenaline rush felt while driving toward a fully involved house fire in the middle of the night, past people running away from the inferno’s with what belongings they could gather carried on their backs is indescribable. The pungent smell of smoke gets heavier the closer you get. Running into a burning building that anybody with a rational mind would be running out of is something that firefighters live for. I’ve spotted ladder trucks next to burning buildings, extended aerial ladders and rescued people hanging out of windows. On cold, wintry nights on rooftops full of ice I’ve clung to precipices, straddled peaks and chopped holes to ventilate. I’ve forced open doors, or knocked them down and attacked fires from the inside. I’ve dragged inch and ¾ hoselines equipped with a Task Force Tips capable of discharging 50-350 gallons of water per minute through smoke filled buildings. I’ve felt the heat, then found the fire; it’s destructive power raging unchallenged and unstoppable, gaining strength; until it met me. I’ve given the order, “turn in my line!” as flames rolled toward me and overhead, threatening to flash over, waiting for the pump operator to open the gate in time to release 90 pounds of pressurized water to the end of my line. I’ve knocked the fires down and waited for the smoke to clear. I couldn’t imagine doing anything else.
Then, I was transferred to the rescue division. I was only supposed to go for six months. I found out that I wanted to stay. Had I not spent ten years on the front line firefighting trucks, I never would have been able to change my career path. I still miss the smoke and fire, and some day might go back. For now, EMS is my life. It is more suited to my personality anyway. Thinking back to my childhood and the dreams I had, it was the obvious choice.
The popular television show Emergency was my favorite show back in the seventies. Johnny Gage and Roy Desoto were my first role models. As early as I can remember, I wanted to do this kind of work. When we played war games as kids I always wanted to be the medic. My vision of wartime heroism never involved killing the enemy, rather I dreamed of running through the rice paddies in Cambodia, bullets whizzing past my head, close enough to smell gunpowder, mortar rounds exploding all around me with dead guys everywhere. Disregarding my own safety I would go to the aid of my fallen comrades, taking bullets along the way, spitting out shrapnel and pushing morphine into the wounded soldiers. Once I killed their pain, I would carry the fallen on my back, using the fireman’s carry, back to the jungle and the safety of my unit. “Thanks Doc,” was all that I needed to hear.
“Rescue 3 on the scene.” I said into the mike.