Responding To Our Own

Once again the picture is worth a thousand words. Paul Combs' comment on Facebook to his friend and mentor is poignant and reminds me of the series of responders I have seen take their own lives over the years.

One guy who suffered from manic-depressive behavior was one of the reasons I wrote one of my lectures, One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest, as a way to show other responders about various psychiatric conditions through movies we watch everyday. Everyone loved this guy when he was manic as he would show up well before the 7:00 shift start time and have every truck checked and was well on his way on station assignments as the rest of us were pulling up. He of course suffered through the darkness too yelling at a BLS ambulance who warned us our lightbar was out on the way to a call to assist them on a seizure patient. The other ambulance of course didn't get on the county radio to embarrass him about the lightbar; indeed his lightbar was engaged per the switch, but it had an electrical short, but this was some of the fear in him that he responded as he did.

Similarly, his outburst when a nurse questioned his use of a non rebreather on a patient who was not oxygenating well instead of a nasal cannula was to hit himself in the head with a oxygen D cylinder. Some of us call that crazy when we respond to these calls on the street, but it isn't crazy, it's pain and he felt it every time a hint existed that he wasn't accepted.

In similar ways, a smart, young, and beautiful girl headed to medical school who worked as an ER tech at a Level I Trauma Center committed suicide by starting an IV and giving herself Etomidate and Succinylcholine.

These examples and many others exist for responders who take their own life. The question is how do we respond to our own, how do we better ensure our partner is there next shift and the one after that and so forth? I think some of it has to do with turning down the volume of some of our conversations. I think some of it probably means we drop some of the sarcasm which is like a thousand little daggers - each comment just another slice into the skin.

I don't know for who Paul Combs grieves, but I understand it and offer a hand of friendship and support to him.