Friday evening. We were driving down Capitol Avenue, headed up to area 9.
My partner Andrew Melnick was on his cell phone arguing with his girlfriend. “It’s just going to be me and Tom and a couple of guys from the Fire Department. It’s a guy’s night out,” he said.
As we drove down Capitol Avenue, passing in between the state Library and the gold domed capitol, I saw 451 parked ahead under the Shell sign at Capitol and Broad. “I’m going to stop and say hi,” I said.
This time of day with the western sky red and rush hour long over, if they called our number, we could easily shoot up Farmington or hop on the highway without much time lost.
As I turned into the parking lot, Annie Moore and two men came out of Capitol Liquor. They walked quickly past the gas pumps and then disappeared down Broad Street. I parked next to 451 and then stepped out of the car. Pat rolled down his window.
“I haven’t seen a Friday this slow in a long time,” Pat said. “We’ve been sitting here for three hours, not an accident, not even a drunk.”
“It’ll change,” Audrey said. “Give Annie and her buddies an hour to get their liquor down if we don’t get another call before then. How are you, Lee?”
“Good,” I said. “Who’s winning the game?”
Pat had the Red Sox on. “Yankees,” he said. “Sox loaded the bases in the first, and couldn’t bring anyone in.”
“You think wearing a Yankees hat is helping the cause any?”
“I try not to look in the mirror. Besides…” He lifted his leg up and pulled his pant leg up over his black high top boots to reveal red socks. “I’ve got to keep the faith somehow.”
“Maybe they’ll rally like last night.”
“Wouldn’t that be nice? It’s probably pushing our luck to hope for it. Still we deserve a break for our suffering. The gods haven’t been too kind.”
“No kidding.”
“I was reading this book about the Red Sox by Peter Gammons. He was talking about his father. His father’s on his deathbed and his last words are “Son, maybe the Red Sox will win in your lifetime.”
“It’s got to happen sometime.”
“They ever get in the series I’m getting tickets and taking my Dad. I don’t care what the scalpers ask for. You’d have to be there for that.”
On the radio I heard a roar. The announcer said, “Way back. Way back. Gone. Bernie Williams has hit a three run homer to put the Yankees…”
Pat turned the radio off. “I don’t think this is going to be the year.”
“It’s got to happen sometime.”
“451,” dispatch called.
“51,” Audrey answered.
“451, Take Lawrence Street for the unknown. 2nd floor. Third party caller. Wait for the PD.”
“Lawrence. The junkie motel. A little narcan maybe.”
“You want us to back you up?”
“No, we’ll be all right. We’ll call if we need you.”
I watched them pull out, lights whirling. They headed down Broad Street, their reflection visible in the windows of the Capitol Apartments across the street. The evening breeze, which had been dormant, picked up and I felt a slight chill against my face.
Andrew was just getting off the phone. “She’s driving me nuts,” he said. “Where are they going? I had the radio down.”
‘Lawrence Street for the unknown.”
“Let’s follow them. You never know at that address. Maybe it’ll be a double OD.”
We followed. It was only a few blocks away. As we approached the address we saw Pat and Audrey wheel their stretcher across the walkway overgrown with weeds. They stopped at the base of the stairs. You, Pat, took the blue bag off the stretcher and threw it over your shoulder. You grabbed the heart monitor, while Audrey carried the green oxygen cylinder. You stepped up onto the porch. Was it Troy’s Yankee hat that made you look invincible? How strong did you feel as you strode forward through the open front door, and disappeared from our sight.
We parked behind 451, its lights still on. We stepped out and turned our radios on.
I heard a pop pop. Then a scream. Audrey.
“Get down,” I said to Andrew. I ran toward the building, instinctively staying low.
“51! 51!” She cried on the radio.
“Come in 51!”
“Everyone quiet!” the dispatcher shouted. “51 what do you have!”
I scaled the porch steps in two strides, then pressed myself to the side of the door. I heard a wild sob.
I peered in quickly. It was dark. Audrey her back to me was on her knees. I thought I saw Pat on the ground in front of her. “82,” I said. “We’re out with 51, Send cops. Now.”
“82 what do you have?”
I stepped inside, my eyes quickly scanning the dark room as I approached Audrey. “Pat’s down. We need help now.”
“What do you mean he’s down? 82 come in.”
Audrey kneeled over him. “He shot him,” she said. “The man and the woman they were fighting, and Pat tried to break it up and he turned and shot him. And they ran.”
She pointed down the hallway. Her arm trembled. I saw no movement, nothing.
I rolled Pat onto his side. His head rolled to the side, his body flaccid. He wasn’t breathing. I tore his shirt off. With my flashlight I saw two holes in his chest. I didn’t need to feel his neck.
I heard a sound behind me and turned to see Andrew in the doorway. “He’s in arrest,” I said, “You need to tube him now. I’ll get the board. Audrey, you have to do compressions.”
She looked at me as if she didn’t understand.
“Start CPR,” I said.
She nodded, and got down on her knees and put her hands on his chest. Andrew reached for Pat’s bag. I rose quickly, stumbled on the heart monitor, as I brushed past Andrew, kept my balance and ran outside. I tripped on the bottom step, and tumbled hard against the ground, hitting my shoulder and knee. I rose quickly. My hand was bloodied. I hurried to the ambulance. I pulled out a long board and straps and ran back inside.
Andrew had his hand down Pat’s throat, struggling to get an ET tube into his trachea.
“Are you in?”
“I don’t know. I can’t quite feel it.”
“Are your fingers long enough? I’ll get your scope.”
“No, I’m in. I think I’ve got it.”
I attached the ambu bag. I squeezed it, while Andrew listened over the belly and lungs. “It’s good. It’s good.”
“Okay, let’s get him on the board.”
Andrew taped the tube down. Audrey kept up the compressions on Pat’s chest. I positioned the board at his side, and then altogether on my count, we rolled him on his side and slid the board under him. We tied the three straps across his body, clipping them to the board. “Unhook the ambu bag,” I said to Andrew. “Let’s make our run for it. I’ll take the head. You get the feet. Audrey watch my back. Right outside now. On three.”
I could hear sirens approaching. Andrew set the ambu bag across Pat’s chest, and we lifted up. My knee throbbed. Pat was two hundred pounds. Andrew struggled to hold his end up. For a moment I thought we were going to drop him, but I was able to raise hard with my right arm to counter balance Andrew, then I leaned against the wall with my left shoulder. “Have to hold on. Clear the way, Audrey.”
As we stepped through the door out into the dusk, I could see the lights of police cruisers and a Capitol fly car. I felt another hand on my shoulder.
“We’ve got it,” Ben Seurat said. “I’ve got this end with Lee. Help Andrew.” Brian Sajack took the foot end with Andrew.
“How is he?” Ben asked.
I shook my head.
“Oh, Christ,” Ben said looking at his lifeless face.
We made it down the stairs and laid Pat and the board down on the stretcher, then pushed him across the weeds. We lifted upon the stretcher, carrying it more than rolling. I looked back and saw Troy’s Yankee hat fall off Pat’s head. I tried to grab it, but it slipped from my fingers and we had to keep moving. I looked at Pat, the tube coming out of his mouth, Audrey still pounding on his chest, as she rode the side of the stretcher. It had to be a bad dream. I desperately wanted to wake up in a cold sweat. I nearly stumbled again as my knee almost gave way.
We lifted Pat into the back. Andrew, Audrey, Brian and Ben all climbed in, Andrew taking the head, Audrey doing compressions, while Ben reached for Pat’s arm, and Brian grabbed an IV bag from the shelf. “Drive!” Ben shouted at me.
“What happened?” Denny Creer leaned in the back.
“He’s shot,” Brian said, “We’re leaving.”
I limped around to the front, and put the car in gear.
“Drive!” Ben shouted again.
A police car led the way in front of me. Two followed behind. At each intersection, police cars appeared to block traffic as I sped toward the hospital.
I radioed. “Gunshot to the chest.” My voice cracked. “CPR in progress. One of our own.”
A crowd waited outside the ER. I saw Dr. Eckstein, Raul Martinez, Candy Bird, and two Capitol Ambulance crews. They had the doors open before I had even put the ambulance in park. I opened the outside door as the procession rolled him in. Everyone gathered around the stretcher -- Audrey not relinquishing compressions, Ben holding up two IVs, Andrew bagging. Raul pulled the front of the stretcher. “He got intubated right away,” Ben told Dr. Eckstein. “He’s gotten an epi down the tube, one epi and one atropine IV. He’s been in asystole the whole way. It started getting harder to bag as we pulled in. I popped his right chest as we pulled in.”
In the trauma room, they cracked his chest with the rib spreaders. Blood splashed all over the floor and onto Dr. Eckstein’s white lab coat. I watched as Dr. Eckstein reached her hand in and squeezed Pat’s heart. They opened up the blood bank. After twenty minutes a trauma resident wanted to call it, but Mary O’Toole told him, “No, keep going.”
“He’s asystole.”
She glared at him.
“Keep going,” Dr. Eckstein said quietly.
I found out later they called in volunteer ambulances from the suburbs – Bloomfield, Windsor, Newington, Granby, Canton, Windsor Locks, Glastonbury and others -- to handle city calls while nearly every crew of ours held vigil at the hospital. The trauma team worked him for over an hour. Dr. Eckstein didn’t call it until she had seen the assent in each of our faces. It was time. I stood in the room watching them disconnect the monitors, unhook the ventilator, and then sew his battered body back up. Mary covered his naked body up to his neck in a warm white blanket until they brought the body bag. The floor was pooled with blood and medical wrappers. I heard a page for environmental services to report to the trauma room.
Then I heard screaming from the hallway. Raul Martinez and two nurses held back Allison who howled like a wounded animal. She screamed “No! No!” Her face was angry and wild. She scratched Raul and kicked at him. “He’s not dead! He’s not dead!” she shouted. “Let me see him! I want to see him!”
Raul and the nurses held her while a now crying Dr. Eckstein sedated her.
I felt suddenly dizzy and had to sit down. I held my head between my knees. I felt a hand on my shoulder, but felt too nauseous to even look up.
“God bless you poor boys,” Mary O’Toole said.
Later I wandered to the snack room where I found Andrew. His eyes were red. He wouldn’t look at me when I asked him if he was okay.
“You did the best you could,” I said.
“I should have got the tube quicker.”
“Andrew, he died before he hit the floor.”
“I didn’t save him.”
“No one was going to save him.”
“Troy would have.”
“No, and he wasn’t there. You were. That’s what matters. You tried. He would have been proud of you.”
Andrew just shook his head. He didn’t speak.
I sat down next to him.
My shoulder and knee throbbed, my head hurt. I felt like my muscles, my chest, were empty.
