the ambulance. We shocked her heart back into activity, but she never regained consciousness, and after a minute or two her heart went south again and never recovered. Because it was all happening in front of us—first talking, then not talking, then not breathing, then heart not beating, then heart beating, then not beating again—it was messy and complicated, and we had to keep changing tactics and drugs and procedures, and it came so, so close.
Somewhere during the shifts between dead and not dead, it struck me that this had almost all the earmarks of the Perfect Call. I looked up to say it only to find Chris looking at me with a lunatic smile and realized he’d had the same thought. This was so close. But not quite. It was just her, and there was no carnage.
So it couldn’t be a purely medical call. There’d have to be blood and bones and maybe even charred remains. It couldn’t be purely trauma, either. A pure trauma call means there’s nothing for us to do but stop the bleeding and hurry to the hospital. It leaves all the fun to the surgeons, and fuck them, anyway. No, it would have to be all-encompassing. There’d have to be a few dead people on the scene for us to gawk at and patients who would rapidly die of their injuries without immediate intervention, our intervention. Multiple mechanism is a phrase we invent and stick to—maybe a car wreck that starts a fire and pushes someone off a bridge. Or a gunshot that passes through the first guy’s head (killing him) and then nicks the next guy’s liver before hitting a gas tank and igniting the entire scene in a giant orange blaze, a funeral pyre from which we rescue the wounded. Or don’t.
And that’s the question. Does the patient have to live for it to be the Perfect Call? Further complicating the issue is whether a good call can be elevated to Perfect Call status if we save the patient. Does saving a life trump all the other elements?
In the end, we decide the answer is no. The patient doesn’t have to live for it to be the Perfect Call. And no, getting a save doesn’t elevate a good call to a Perfect Call. We reason that we didn’t cause the problem—we weren’t the ones who sped without a seat belt or overdosed on heroin or came out on the losing end of a murder-suicide, and we sure as hell weren’t the ones who dialed 911 and opened the door. We’re the ones who show up. And really, the Perfect Call isn’t about the patient. It’s about us. It’s about the experience, and for the patient, the experience is going to suck regardless. So a mundane call in which the patient lives because of our efforts doesn’t trump a real shit-kicker even if the patient dies. As long as we get there first, outperform the expectations, and do it fast and in the most extreme conditions, nothing else matters. Not every patient is going to live, so why should a death bring down the party?
And for us, it is a party. Chris and I have been partners for eight months; we’re not just coworkers now but friends. We hang out after work, I attend his daughter’s birthday party, meet his family. For twenty-four hours every third day, each of us is all the other has. We have the same sense of humor and complement each other in a Laurel and Hardy kind of way. I’m tall and lean; he’s a man of considerable size. He’s constantly in search of a bathroom. I can’t poop in public. He’s incredibly charming. My dry, sarcastic humor leaves people offended. He’s rarely left the Southeast; I’ve been to Asia three times. He’s an incredibly competent medic; I’m an eager pupil.
Having decided on the Perfect Call, we actively set out to find it. Management has divided South Fulton County into five zones, each manned by a different ambulance and each with its own flavor. The supervisor’s office is in Zone One. For everyone else, showing up at work means being totally on one’s own, but the Zone One crews sleep one sheet of drywall away from their boss. Because they can’t get away with anything, the crews here either exist as rule followers or get banished. The general rule is “Don’t fuck around in Zone One.”
Zone Four is known for being quiet—two-calls-a-shift quiet—and attracts the lazy and the