We responded for an unknown on Manchester Street in the Blue Hills neighborhood. “He was just right here talking, then he fell out,” the woman said.
The man wearing a grease stained mechanics uniform looked to be in his late sixties. He sat on the steel garbage can by the side of a one car garage as the woman and her husband held him up. He was unconscious. His breathing was irregular, his entire left side limp.
Troy looked at his pupils. “Right pupil’s dilated.” To the people, “What kind of medical history does he have?”
“He just a friend. He was in the hospital a year ago I know.”
“What’s he normally like? How did he get here?”
“He drove that car.” She pointed to an old Pontiac at the curb.
“Let’s get him to Saint Fran,” Troy said to me.
We rushed him to the hospital. Troy had me patch in a stroke alert. As I drove I watched him work with a flurry in the rear view mirror. He nasally intubated the man and put in two IVs. But as we neared the hospital, I could hear Troy talking to the man. When I came around back to pull the stretcher I saw Troy extubating him. The man coughed, and then Troy pulled the tube. The man looked at me and smiled.
“He’s healed,” Troy said.
His grip strengths were equal, his pupils back to normal. He’d had a massive TIA, a transient ischemic attack – a stroke that resolves itself. It wasn’t impossible, but I had never seen such a quick recovery from such total unconsciousness. I know it was crazy, but I had to believe it was Troy’s touch. While he had always been an exceptional paramedic, since he had come back, it was like he could do no wrong. In a space of a week we had three cardiac arrest saves. He had an aura about him now that made me feel he could save anyone by will alone.
Then we had a two-week lull like one no one had ever seen. There were no car wrecks, no shootings, and no cardiac arrests, at least none when Troy was on the clock. In those two weeks Troy delivered five babies -- four Patricks and one Patricia. The day the baby girl was born he bought a box of cigars and passed them out to all the crews on the road. He even passed out a box to the drunks in front of the Laundromat on Vine Street.
But Troy, who seemed to be trying almost too hard to make up for Pat’s loss, occasionally suffered from unpredictable mood swings that bordered on manic. I didn’t know if it was just stress from all that had happened or if he was on the verge of a true crisis. I watched him carefully.
He was pale, his eyes dark. He seemed very irritable. People would just ask him questions like how about the game last night and he’d snap at them in a tone that said leave me alone. I don’t care to be talked to by you. “What’s eating him?” they’d ask me. I’d just shrug, and say “That’s Troy these days.”
The morning was one where fender benders were breaking out all over town. We’d pull up, and people would be sitting there slumped in their seats, trying to look like they were in pain, while the other driver – of a Cadillac or a Volvo -- paced about, talking on his cell phone telling work he’d been in an accident and would be late. We’d walk about checking the cars for damage, not seeing any. “Guy’s got neck pain, wants to go to the hospital,” the cop said.
I felt the tension building in Troy all day. We were called to the home of a double amputee, who was running a fever and the visiting nurse said he needed to be evaluated at the hospital. “He just needs a ride to the hospital,” the nurse said. “I’ve called ahead, they’re expecting him.”
“You called 911 because he has a fever?” Troy said.
“Yes. Is that a problem?”
“You’re dam right it is. We came here lights and sirens for difficulty breathing.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I told them he was stable.”
I interjected then. “It’s not your fault. The problem is with dispatch. Generally though, if it’s not an emergency, call this number.” I wrote the non-emergency down on a paper I handed her. “You’ll get an ambulance promptly. It just won’t come lights and sirens.”
Troy was still stewing as we left for the hospital.
“Since we got called,” he said to the man. “I’m going to have to put in an IV.”
“Let them do it at the hospital. I’d rather you didn’t,” the man said.
“Look,” Troy said. “We’re a 911 ambulance. I’m a paramedic. This is my job. You don’t want anyone to take care of you, call a taxi next time.”
“But I have no legs,” the man said.
Troy looked even more annoyed that the man had zinged him so innocently.
“Get a handicapped van to take you,” Troy snapped back.
“Can I get you a candy bar? I said afterwards.
He took out his glucometer and had me watch as he pricked his finger. The result came up 160.
He walked away.
That night Kim and I were in front of the fire at my place. We’d had a few beers, and while in the past we would have fallen into the bed, tonight we were both heavy in our thoughts of our world in Hartford, and how it seemed like Troy and maybe all of us, might be coming apart.
“You need to talk to him,” Kim said. “He looks up to you. You might be able to get through to him.”
“He isn’t open to anything right now. The very thought that people are thinking about what he’s feeling is driving him away from them.”
“Linda says he won’t even talk to her.”
“Sometimes men hold things inside. It’s our way.”
“It doesn’t have to be.”
“I know that.”
I put my arm around her and squeezed her.
“I love you,” she said.
I held her there in front of the fire and stared into the blazing wood.
