Read In Case of Emergency for Free Online Page B

see Vick already kneeling by the couch, briskly rubbing the man’s chest with his knuckles. The whole place smells dank, stale.
    “Theodore? Come on, Teddy, talk to us.”
    The man doesn’t respond. Seizure? Drug use? EtOH?
    Ruth nudges me. “Go.”
    I stare blankly at her and then spring into action. I don’t yet have the confidence they do, that unique assumption that I can just stroll into a stranger’s home and start touching and talking to him. But I rush to get ablood pressure and a D-stick with my shaking hands; Carl hooks him up to the EKG monitor and the pulse oximeter.
    “His sugar’s 33!” I call out as the glucometer accepts the drop of blood and a number flashes on the small screen. I am at war with a Band-Aid: I am losing. One of the adhesive ends clings to my gloves. If he’s in this kind of shape, who called 911?
    But then she appears, an unconcerned woman holding a cup of coffee and a pack of cigarettes, her belly pushing out against her tank top and pajama bottoms. She tells us that he hasn’t eaten since yesterday, but she gave him his insulin as usual this morning.
    As if that’s his cue, Teddy turns into a monster. A swinging, grunting, drool-slinging brute who would’ve clocked me in the face if I hadn’t leaned back just in time—and yet even after this transformation, his expression remains oddly relaxed, childlike.
    This is what it looks like when someone’s brain is dying.
    I’m rooted to the spot while three firefighters and Carl pin down Teddy’s violent appendages. Ruth helps Vick get an IV line ready. The firefighter wearing moon pants holds up his flashlight so Vick can get a better view of a promising vein.
    My options are: (1) ask to hold the firefighter’s flashlight so at least it looks like I’m doing something, (2) try to administer oxygen to a person who’s behaving like a crazed gorilla, or (3) bum one of the woman’s cigarettes so I can smoke while I watch everybody work.
    With the IV line established, Vick pushes fifty millileters of dextrose through one of the ports and flushes it with saline. He’s able to achieve this only because four grown men are practically sitting on top of his patient.
    Teddy’s eyes open and focus on the room around him. “Oh, hey guys,” he says.
    “Teddy!” Carl says. He and the others climb off. On my last shift, Carl told me combative patients are his favorite type of workout.
    Our patient sits up, blinking. He looks at his arm, the crisscross of skewed tape holding the IV catheter in place. “Did my sugar get low again?” He manages a weak smile as he rubs his leg in the spot where Carl’s knee had pressed him.
    I wait for someone to explain to him his close call with death, or advise him to monitor his sugar more often. No one does. If anything, the vibe as we leave is casual. See you next time .
    “Piper, you have to jump in more,” Ruth says as we climb back into the ambulance. “I give everyone a pass on their first day of training, but this is your second. Which means starting now, every single moment of every single call you should be figuring out what you can do to help.”
    But she’s not talking about helping the patient, she’s talking about helping the firefighters. “Does that guy know he almost died back there?” I ask.
    “Teddy isn’t the brightest star in the galaxy.”
    “Maybe because he’s gone into severe hypoglycemia too many times.”
    The ambulance slows from Ruth’s usually leaden foot. “Maybe it is,” she says. “I don’t think you should be changing the subject right now. We’re talking about you, and how you can be a better EMT. Not Ted and how he can be a better diabetic.”
    “I only meant—”
    “No, you listen. Don’t make excuses. Don’t change the subject. If I tell you that you need to get better at the job, it means you need to get better at the job.”
    “You’re right,” I manage to say.
    Carl and I wash the ambulance in the parking lot of Station 710, which faces