Run Sheet
01/04/29
This seems to be a weekend of bizarre calls.
It's currently 0140 AM on the 30th, but because I haven't been to bed yet, it's still the 29th in my mind. That's how night calls work for me.
I just got home from a Jammer.
A "Jammer" is Firefighter slang for a heart attack. It comes from the cauuse of a myocardial infarction which is usually a piece of arterial plaque breaking off and plugging a coronary artery.
Plugged artery = a "Jam" hence the name "Jammer"
Anyway,
We responded to another of the local upscale homes. We were met by a fiftyish woman in a housecoat. She directed us upstairs where a man lay on his bed, he appeared fiftyish as well, he was very large, and very naked.
oh yeah, and very dead.
We got to work on him, performing CPR and going through the whole procedure as we always do. While my guys got down to it, I took the lady into the other room and asked her the usual questions. She was quite composed, considering her husband was laying dead in the next room.
"Is that your husband?"
"Yes"
Does he have a history of heart disease?"
"No"
"How old is he"
"54 today"
"Is he taking any medication?"
"Viagra"
"ah, okay, does he have any allergies?"
"No"
We stood there as the ambulance crew came in and attached the pads to him, checked him for heartbeat etcetera and got him on the gurney and wheeled him to the ambulance.
"Is he dead?" she asked me.
I never lie to people at times like this, I can't imagine it helping anything, but I'm not brutal either, "He's got no pulse or breathing, but they're doing everything they can for him"
She looked me in the eyes and waited for me to go on, she knew there was more. "They don't usually come back when that happens" I told her.
"It was his birthday today" She said.
"Oh" I said, not quite knowing what else to say "Did he have a good one?"
She smiled a little, looked me in the eye again and said "Well, I was giving him a blowjob when he died... you tell me."
We don't have any booze in the firehall, it's against regulations, so when we got back I stood a round of cokes for the crew and told them the story. We all raised a toast to Bill... the guy who died the way we all hope to.