Short Story: Bleeding Out

This short story was my first entry into the world of writing. It deals with a very extremely deadly problem among First Responders and Military personnel across North America. It's called PTSD.

Bleeding Out

Ben takes the scalpel out of its shrinkwrapped packaging and places it on the table beside the bottle of whiskey. His fingers do not shake as they have for months, proving to him that this is the right course.

The only course.

In the background, he notices that the television is much too loud. Not for right now as its early evening, but later it will definitely bother someone in the building. Sounds of the hockey game are lowered by the remote.

Maybe I should wait and see if the Leaf’s win tonight. He chuckles to himself. Not likely! Even though he has been a fan of the underdog for years. He knows that unless the ownership puts out some real money into the players, get rid of some controlling players and gets rid of the Pylon (Phaneuf), they’ll continue to be the underdogs. Being a Canadian team doesn’t help with the tax issues either.

Quit stalling!

He looks around the room, taking in the photos of his wife, Laurie; now ex-wife, which he cannot put aside. No matter what, he is still in love with her. The problem lies within him. Not her. She’s done nothing wrong. All these years, she has supported him and when it really mattered, and he had turned on her as if it had been her fault.

Tears fall freely as he sees her on his arm at their first Fireman’s Ball. She is so beautiful and alive. Both are in their twenties, believing that they are invincible and nothing can go wrong. With her dark brunette hair and eyes, the red dress accents all her features to produce the complete package. She is grace, beauty, and sexual, all in the same moment. Many of his fellow firefighters would complain of being scolded by their own wives for staring too long. Yet although she turned so many heads, her focus was on him.

He remembers how excited they both were when he had gotten accepted by the Fire Department Hiring Committee and was offered a full-time position in one of the most exciting professions. The onslaught of intense training and studying was challenging as well as invigorating. She would help by quizzing him for hours on end till he wrote his probationary exam.

Ben fell in love with the professional look that the uniform and the services’ traditions set him and his colleges apart from any other professions. He also admitted to himself, that he enjoyed being seen as a hero to every kid who toured the fire hall or who he visited at school fire drills and public relation events. He would happily man a telephone for Jerry Lewis’s kids, 24 hours straight, participate in Muscular Dystrophy (MD) boot drives and Christmas food drives feeling the great satisfaction of helping others.

He also enjoyed the friendly rivalry between his fellow emergency agencies, the medics, and the coppers. This would be played out at the ice rink and the golf courses. It was all for a good cause, but bragging rights were gold. Although, he had to admit, it did get out of hand at times. Like the time, the cops were doing a sting operation to catch prostitutes with their clients. One asshole actual brought the officers a box of donuts and coffees in case they were having withdrawals. He would later bring them a pillow and a blanket in case they got tired.

That night the firefighters ran to six different garbage bin fires, called in by the same two coppers who were made fun of earlier.

Payback is a Bitch!

Over the years, Laurie gave him three beautiful sons. The first comes early in their marriage and then the next two in quick succession. The years flowed with hockey, school work, and summer fishing tournaments. He smiles as he relives the memories. Those years were filled with laughter and adventures as the family explored the campgrounds of Northern Ontario in search of the perfect Smore. The more chocolate and the gooier, the happier they were.

During that time, there were endless fires and emergencies. If was so damn exciting! Life was perfect. Maybe, too perfect.

In the 1990’s, due to changes in the building codes and fire prevention strategies, fire deaths and incidents dropped dramatically. For the Fire Service, this was both a blessing and a curse. Saving lives and property was the cornerstone of fire departments, but as call volumes dropped, sharp-eyed politicians and senior city management felt that was an excuse to cut fire department budgets. To counter that kind of thinking, Chief’s across the country moved into medical assist response.

Fire crews were trained in advanced first response care and defibrillation and due to their readiness were quite often able to arrive on scene well before paramedics thereby giving the victim a better chance of survival. What they were not trained for was the problem.

There was no training that dealt with dealing with an emotional family, or the sounds of breaking ribs while doing chest compressions, or the smells when the deceased voided themselves in the final minutes of life. The only insight that the crews were given on how to deal with their own emotions was to “grow a tougher skin.”

The program was such a success that the Paramedic Service became worried.

On the other hand, the firefighters were exposed to more death and trauma than ever before.

Hands beginning to shake, Ben remembers the first time he had performed CPR on a child. It was around ten o’clock in the morning when they were dispatched to a child struck by a vehicle outside of a housing complex. The child is laying limp on the road with a crowd already forming around the scene. After a quick assessment, Ben knows that the child is not breathing and has no pulse, so rolls him on his back and begins performing CPR while his partner, Dillon sets up the defib. As he’s doing compressions, Ben looks at the child’s face and sees his own child, Barry, instead. Almost the same age and same blonde hair. He closes his eyes to block out the vision and he tries to concentrate on his rhythm and count.

A commotion begins on the edge of the road, with a drunken man of about 30 years cursing that he was going to sue the city for not having a pedestrian crossing. He’s blaming the city for his boy being hit by the car when it’s obvious that it is his own lack of vigilance and his being drunk this early in the day. Ben wants nothing more than to kick the shit out of this idiot but clamps his mouth shut and focuses on the child.

When Dillon signals him that he his set, Ben gives the child two more breaths and clears the body.

“Analyzing.”

The machine finds that the heart is in ventricular fibrillation which means that it has lost its ability to contract and pump blood to the body. An electronic stock from the defibrillator can reset the heart. The machine announces, “Press to Shock.”

“Clear,” Dillon warns.

“Clear,” Ben repeats ensuring that he is not in contact with the child and cannot be shocked.

The little body jumps off the ground as the voltage surges through his chest.

“Check pulse.” The machine prompted.

Ben reaches and lays two fingers over the boy’s cardiac artery and is relieved to feel a slight rhythm.

They quickly bundled the child onto the stretcher and Ben and Dillon gather the medic’s gear and load it into the rig. The medic waves Ben into the rig to assist her while en route to the hospital. As the doors close, the medic checks the pulse again and finds none.

“Start CPR while I hook up the oxygen and my defib.”

Ben stands over the child and with one hand holding onto a rail attached to the ceiling of the ambulance, he begins one hand compressions on the boy. He cringes as he feels the little ribs crunch under the heel of his hand. The child has reverted back to Barry and although he knows it’s not real, Ben starts quietly crying, unable to stop himself. He continues the compressions as he sobs uncontrollably. If the medic noticed, she says nothing.

Half way to the hospital the medic calls to her partner to pull over. She uses her Defib to perform another analysis which leads to a second shock. With no pulse, they resume the race to the hospital. Ben keeps the chest compressions going.

At the hospital, the child is raced into the emergency ward and Ben and the medic are left behind like forgotten toys. The doctors and nurses do their magic, and the child is stabilized. Ben feels like a broken toy as his emotions run rampant from elation to despair. He still sees Barry’s face.

Back at the Hall, it is evident that something is wrong, but the crew gives Ben the space to deal with it by himself. They seem embarrassed by his show of feelings.

After his shift, Ben arrives home still upset from the encounter. Upon seeing Barry, he grabs his son and hugs him to his chest and breaks down. This, of course, scares Barry, who begins to cry himself, squirming to be released. Hearing the crying, Laurie rushes into the room and pulls Barry away.

“Damnit Ben, you’re scaring him. What the hell is wrong with you.”

Ben sees the expression of fear and something else, pity; in her face and turns away ashamed.

“Ben…”

As he passes the fridge, he grabs a couple of beers and heads down to his workshop where he stays most of the evening, only leaving it once he hears that everyone else has gone to bed.

* * *

He blinks as the memory dissolves and the present rushes in. He is still holding the scalpel, but his knuckles are turning white in his tightly compressed fists. He relaxes and forces himself to place the blade on the table. He reaches over and pulls the bottle of whiskey and fills his tumbler three-quarters from the top. The whiskey replaced the beer when he needed something stronger to push back the nightmares. He knows that alcohol is the last thing he should be taking, but it beats the night sweats.

Back when he had suffered his first breakdown, the fire service knew nothing of Critical Incident Stress (CIS) or more recently referred to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). As more and more emergency responders were affected, there was major indoctrination for all personnel of the signs and symptoms. But it was mostly lip service. No money was thrown at it and it was not recognized as a work related disease. When Ben had finally gone to see a counselor, it was suggested that he spend some time in the Emergency Ward to see both the good and the bad of emergency medicine as a way of conditioning himself. Firefighters only saw the worst of it. When he brought the idea back to his department, they said to go ahead and do it but on his own time and dime.

There was no program to help those suffering from PTSD except for Employee Assistant Plan (EAP) which allowed access to counseling, but not those who specialized in PTSD.

Afterward he coped as well as he could, but he was anxious every time a medical call would come in, worrying that he would have to respond to another child call. At home, he became moody and distant to both his wife and children. Barry seemed scared when around him, but Ben didn’t know how to approach him. He couldn’t discuss the incident with the boy. That would really traumatize him. Laurie tried to get him to open up, but he was scared that she would see him weak and so kept himself closed off. His drinking increased.

A call for an apartment on fire came in around 5:30 A.M. with reports of trapped people. Ben didn’t think at all. This was not a medical call, so there was no hesitation at all. He would soon realize that all the incidents were related. The east end of the building was involved with visible flame, but smoke was also coming from all windows and the eaves, which indicated that the fire was working its way into the roof system. Ben and his partner had been briefed that two boys were unaccounted for. The mother had been able to give directions to their bedroom and the crew entered the dense smoke and felt their way to the apartment entrance. As Ben’s partner opened the apartment door, they encountered a heavy, dense smoke.

Looking under the smoke, Ben could see the doorways to the two bedrooms. Mom had said that the second door was the boys’ room. He advanced the hose line towards the bedroom, shooting short blasts of water to the ceiling area to hold back a pending flashover. The heat was so intense that both Ben and his partner hugged the floor. They were seconds from being incinerated.

“Bed!” yells Ben through his voice amplifier. He handed the nozzle to his partner and moved to the bed. He reached his hand and it fell on a body.

“Got one!”

The room behind them starts flickering as the gasses within the room meets their ignition temperatures. The entire room is about to flashover, going from 250 – 300 degrees to 1200 degrees in seconds.

Ben and his partner make a rapid exit with the child, escaping just as the apartment flashes over destroying everything in its path. As they make their way to the exterior of the building, they pass a crew heading inside.

“Flash over!” Ben’s partner warns the incoming crew. They pass each other.

Ben rushes the child out of the toxic environment, feeling the temperature cooling the further he moves from the apartment. He stumbles out of the building, his eyes searching for the medics so they can help with the victim. He runs to the ambulance rig across the street and gently lowers the child to the stretcher.

As he does this, the skin of the child rips from the body, having caught itself to his bunker gear. The child’s skin hangs from his coat. Ben falls back trying to distance himself from the horror of the child’s body. He now sees that he rescued a corpse. And so does the Press. The cameras have been rolling the whole time. The cries of the mother carry over the fire scene.

As the sight and smells reach him, it is all he can do to keep his stomach in check. He busies himself with the work on the fire scene to distract him from the obvious.

After the fire is knocked down, Ben goes through the building to see the destruction in the light of day. He explains to his Captain his route to the apartment and how they entered and found the bedroom. He points out the bed where the child was found. Without the smoke and flames, Ben sees the crib which had been hidden earlier.

As he approaches it, he is confused. There is a small bundle in the middle of the crib.

“Looks like a roasted chicken, doesn’t it?” commented the captain sadly.

He sees the baby’s burnt corpse in a different light. The legs are held up high with its feet burnt off. The chest looks like a chicken breast; plump and expanded.

Ben staggers to the corner and loses the contents of his stomach.

Later in the day, he returns home. He is tense and introverted. He makes a beeline to his workshop and consumes a couple of beer within minutes. By supper time, he’s half in the bag. When the call for dinner comes, he makes his way towards the kitchen, leaning and relying on the walls to keep upright.

As he enters the kitchen, Laurie lifts a platter from the stove, bearing a roasted chicken. Ben reacts before he has a chance to think. He raises his arm and swats the tray with its horrible carcass away from him, screaming unintelligently. He crouches in the corner of the kitchen with a look of fear and anger dominating his expression. Laurie and the children freeze, wondering what’s next

He sits there watching the corpse on the floor, challenging it to move. He doesn’t see Laurie gather the children and move them to the entrance of the home and out to the car. He cannot take his eyes off the corpse, lying on its side beside the water cooler and the dining table.

It followed him home.

* * *

For two years now, Ben has seen his marriage dissolve and he now lives in an apartment, but it doesn’t bother him. The rye deals with that. However, due to the rye, he no longer has access to his children; not like they were comfortable to be with him.

Catch 22.

What does bother him 24/7, is the fucking chicken.

“He won’t leave” sobs Ben.

If it left, it might turn out okay, Laurie and the boys might come back and I might get some sleep.

He’s been off work on stress leave and the Union has warned him to get some help as they can only protect him so much. He needs to get through this.

As the memories fade, the frustration rises and as he looks around he sees the chicken everywhere. It use to shadow him in his dreams, but recently it’s with him when he’s awake. Just at the corner of his vision, almost like a dust mote that always moves when you try to focus on it.

He can’t live with it anymore.

In the real world, Ben grabs the scalpel and draws the blade across his arm, from the outside knuckle on a vertical line of the artery. The artery is cut numerously so that the clotting effect that the body utilizes cannot help.

The blood covers the table and pools on the floor. His eyes roam the room looking for his nemesis, but he can’t find him. It seems he has finally escaped.

As his life drains from him, Ben sees Laurie, pleading for his return. He smiles sadly and says, “I’ll be home soon Baby.”

Author’s Note:

Between April 29 and December 31, 2014, 30 first responders died by suicide. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is affecting EMS, Fire Fighters and Police Officers across the country the same way Canadian Veterans are being affected. If the powers to be, (Federal, Provincial or Municipal) will not assist these heroes, then we need individual Canadians to stand up and demand action to help our protectors and defenders. Please speak out!