Clingers

We call them ‘clingers’ at the station. I know we really shouldn’t, but thinking of them as people just makes the job so much harder than it already is. I am a First Response Paramedic; the one that arrives at the scene of a serious accident or injury to stabilise the patient before the Ambulances take over. I’ve seen a lot of things that I wish I hadn’t. I’ve seen car crash victims with limbs occupying seats that the rest of them wasn’t. I’ve seen motorbike riders that have skidded on asphalt at 150km/h without protective gear. I’ve seen what a sawn-off shotgun does to a human face. All of those things take a toll, but nothing gets me quite like clingers do.

You see, most people think death is quick. It isn’t. Even when subjected to enormous physical trauma, the human body can survive for a surprising length of time. Bleeding to death, particularly internally, can take minutes even if almost every bone is broken and the organs are damaged beyond repair. Massive hemorrhaging reduces blood flow to critical organs, which causes blood acidity to rise and body temperature to reduce. Clotting responses are impaired, meaning bleeding cannot be stopped. Death is inevitable, but in a cruel twist, it takes time. Time spent suffering and clinging to pointless life.

Every time, the reaction is one of surprise and often regret. People think that jumping off a building or stepping in front of a train will end their existence in the blink of an eye. If they’re lucky, they pick a very tall building or a very fast train, but often they don’t. They lie broken on the concrete slowly drowning in their own blood, with their eyes expressing utmost regret. They never expected to suffer in this way, and all I can do is sit with them to provide something that resembles companionship as they slip away. What bothers me about these clingers is not the regret on their faces as they die, though. It is the wide-eyed expression that almost looks fearful as they finally drift off the mortal coil that chills my blood.

The night that haunts me to this day saw me sitting in the misty rain beside the train line, holding a young woman’s hand as she slowly choked on her own blood and gore. She had stepped out too late, they almost all do. The impact is with the edge of the train, deflecting them off the track rather than throwing them under the carriages. The results are rarely immediately fatal. A look of shock and sadness filled her eyes as she contemplated how forty thousand tonnes of freight train had failed to end her in an instant. Her eyes slowly transitioned to an expression of fear as they all do, but this woman talked.

“I… can see…. what’s… holding…” she trailed off, coughing as blood filled her mouth again.

“I can see what’s holding… the light at the…. end of the tunnel…. And I don’t want…. to die anymore.”