In 2019, I was working patrol in a fairly affluent area of our city. There I was, in my paper spot, minding my own business and getting caught up on reports when the medical tone came across the air. My MDC bonked as I was dispatched to the medical call.
Non-breather. Suspected overdose.
Generally speaking, police cars are a hell of a lot faster than fire trucks. While the call wasn't in my beat, we are dispatched by availability and geographic location - and I was less than half of a mile from the location.
Kick the tires and light the fires, let's fucking roll!
Every kid grows up wanting to do heroic shit. It invades our dreams. We watch badass action movies and say to ourselves 'I can be that [insert stereotypical action hero here].'
We all want to save the fucking day.
I'm pretty sure the Tahoe caught a little air as I screamed up the overpass, lights and sirens blaring. I for sure did some Fast and Furious shit turning into the apartment complex. Thank God those police package Chevys come with a lower center of gravity. I glanced at my map to figure out which direction in the maze of buildings I needed to go. Why is it, in every apartment complex, building #1 is between builidng #12 and building #40? Who designs this bullshit?
I digress...
I stopped my ride in front of the correct building, clicked the siren off, and got out. I ran around to the passenger side and grabbed my pocket mask - the agency hadn't yet gotten the AEDs for the patrol vehicles. I sprinted up the stairs to the third floor (because no emergency ever happens on the ground level) and came face to face with a kid holding open the door to his apartment - my target apartment. This could couldn't have been more than eight or nine years old. He was thin with a mop of blond hair on his head. What struck me is that he wasn't crying. He wasn't even assed up in the slightest. He got me in the door, and then sat on the couch.
I entered the master bedroom and found the male lying on his bed with his girlfriend attempting to perform compressions. I directed her to help me get him onto the floor. I checked for a pulse. No blood coursed through his veins. I checked for equal rise and fall of his chest. Not even a twitch of movement. I began chest compressions and directed her to go to the door to wait for whatever backup I had coming and make sure the firefighters knew where to go.
I took a break from pushing his sternum to his spine to fish the two single use Narcan sprays out of my cargo pocket. I had never used Narcan before, and I treated the first one as a normal nasal spray, and tested it out. I then discovered they were "single use". Ah, fuck! Scratch that first dose.
I tore the other one from its plastic a foil wrap, stuck the nozzle into the dude's nose and depressed the plunger. I started compressions again, and fire arrived on-scene. They took a second to get ready, and then relived me. I stepped out of their way and into the master bathroom. My teammate, Yeti, arrived on-scene with fire and made sure I was ok. Then, just as I was told would happen during Narcan training, Dead Guy popped back to life like someone flipped a switch. He wanted to know why we were in his apartment.
The fire captain asked if the guy wanted to go to the hospital. I've never been a firefighter, but I was shocked they were leaving it up to him. Dead Guy said no. The fire captain did his best to educate DG on the dangers of not seeking immediate medical attention. I poked my head out of the bathroom to see his girlfriend also trying to sell him on not dying again. I looked to my left, and there was his kiddo. Still stonefaced and unwavering.
Fuck this guy.
One nice thing about Axon and their body worn cameras is that you can pull up recent videos with the app and watch them. So, I did just that. I took my phone out, thumbed through my videos, and then played the one of my arrival into the apartment.
"See that, dude?" I asked DG. "That's you. Dead. That was maybe five minutes ago."
DG looked away from the screen and muttered something akin to "I said no."
"Are you fucking kidding me, dude?!" I was done. I lost my shit on DG. "You're kid and wife had to stand there and look at your dead body, and you can't even give a shit about them enough to go to the hospital!"
"Oh, I don't give a shit?!" He retorted. "What a fucking cop thing to say. Fuck you guys."
Before I could go any further on my tirade, Yeti leaned his six and a half foot frame into the room and tapped me, bringing me out of my rage. I stepped over the mess of medical supplies and walked out of the master bedroom. I stopped at and looked at the kid. I didn't know what to say to him. He watched on as his dad's soul slipped from his body, and then he watched us bring him back to life. Then he watched his dad and I get into a pissing match.
"You did good, kid. You were very brave today."
That was all I could muster. So pathetic. I may as well have read from a WWII war-bond script.
I walked out of the apartment. I knew I couldn't leave Yeti on-scene alone, so I paced up and down the hall. I put some miles on those Bates boots that day. The fire department's crisis response (CR) unit arrived on-scene. My favorite CR guy, Tony, asked me what was wrong. Tony is a pretty perceptive dude. I told him what every cop would say - "nothing, bro. I'm good."
Yeti walked out and said we could clear. As we walked to our cars he asked me what was wrong.
"Fuck that dude, Yeti. We saved his life and he can't care enough about his wife and kid to make sure he gets help."
"That's the way it happens, man." Yeti shrugged. "Nothing else we can do. You kicked ass, now move on." Yeti was a SWAT dude, through and through.
Later in the night, my best friend and work-wife asked me about the call. Doc was a former ambulance jockey and Army medic. He was familiar with some of what I was feeling. I told him what happened. After venting, a long silence filled the air, punctuated only by the chirp of crickets, and the soft white noise of cars on the nearby highway.
"I...dude, I regret saving him." I shook my head and turned to Doc. "What the fuck kind of person regrets saving a life? Isn't that what we signed up to do?"
"Sure, man. But when you thought about the first time you would save a life, it was probably like it is in a movie. That just isn't how it goes. Instead of hating DG, recognize that you gave that kid his dad back. Maybe the life that matters in this one is that kid."
I knew Doc was right. I wanted to be able to just move on from it, but it hasn't been that simple.
Here we are, two years later, and I still feel guilty about the regret I felt over pushing Narcan up DG's nose and giving him a second chance. My sergeant had asked me if I wanted him to put me in for an award. I told him no, because if I was to earn an award, it should be for a life worth saving. He nodded his head knowingly, and we never talked about it again.
DG, if you ever read this, I hope you got the help you needed so that you could be the dad your kid deserves.
Comments