The Addict in the Box

The dark of the night was starting to settle in as we pulled up in front of the house.  The continuous pulse of the red and white strobe lights that bounced off the walls of the house, the trees in the front yard, and the cars parked on the curb seemed more glaring than usual.  I scrunched my eyes tighter to see if I could distinguish the moving shadows that seemed to dance between the red and white lights. I took a breath, the kind of breath that you can hear in your soul, and stepped out of the unit and into the chaos.

The scene that laid out before me was typical.  There was a group of first responders gathered around the body of a man.  On the periphery, there were other individuals milling about.  Some of them were watching, one hand clasping a phone, another hand placed on their hip, and a look of curiosity on their face.  Others were frantically pacing, a cell phone pressed into their ear, holding crumpled papers in their hand, and a look of concern on their face.  And yet, there was another who had folded herself into a ball and was clinging to the red, rough brick of her house.  Her hands covered her face and if you listened ever so closely, you could hear her muffled cries.  I stepped back and watched the movements and listened to the words being spoken.  On chaotic scenes where life and death hang in the balance, it’s difficult to separate out the urgent from the crisis.  I have to isolate my thoughts and dive deep into my consciousness in order to make the next right move.

The body on the ground belonged to a man that was battered and beaten by a long history of battling drug addiction. His face was covered in grime and sweat, his eyes wild, and his voice flashed one moment in anger and in the next confusion caused by the meth that was coursing through his veins. I listened closely to the medics as they tried to use their words and their facial expression to try and coerce him onto their stretcher.  He needed to go to the hospital or else his body would remain there and the next group of responders to answer the call for help would be the coroner.  But convincing a drug addict to help us save his life is no easy feat but the medics were experienced and they were able to get him into their ambulance, or what we lovingly refer to as the box.

I walked to the shiny blue ambulance and popped open the side door.  The harsh white lights inside made me grimace a bit but as my eyes finally adjusted, I took in all of the movement that was happening inside of the box.  The medics were inserting IVs, pushing drugs, assessing his vitals, and filling out reports. Their constant movement reminded me of the sound of a bee swarm. I took a seat on the bench next to the stretcher.  The man rolled his head to face me and I looked deeply into his eyes and I allowed him to gaze back.  Eye contact is something that can be difficult for many first responders because it connects us too closely to the patient that we are treating.  But as the chaplain, I wanted to know that he wasn’t alone, even if that message came across through my eyes.  We held our gaze for a bit and then he started speaking in such a slurred way that I couldn’t understand him, but I knew by what I saw in his eyes, and by what I was hearing, he was in distress. I leaned forward so I could get just slightly closer to him and I shared with him some words of hope and words that he is cared for.  He locked eyes with me for one more moment and then he turned away. I hopped out of the back of the ambulance, and stood to the side, so they could take off to the hospital.  Again, I stood back and watched what was before me, family members in distress, police officers trying to get a report, neighbors milling about, and the remaining firefighters cleaning up the scene.  In the moment, in my mindfulness, I could observe the response to the incident in silence by retreating back into my thoughts and replaying what I had just experienced.

The addict in the box was able to touch my soul without uttering a single word.  He didn’t have to make a noise for me to hear him.  His eyes told me the story.  I don’t know how his story will end.  For most addicts, it doesn’t end well.  And so I take this difficult call, all the sights, all the smells, all the sounds, and I will store them in my filing cabinet in my brain.  Every once in awhile I may pull out one of those files to revisit it, but more often than not, I would rather leave it filed away.

#EMS #firefighter #ambulance #addiction #firstresponder #Lawenforcement #chaplain #firechaplain