Emergency Response
by William Cass
The 911 dispatcher’s call for an ambulance came in a little before 4pm. A lone elderly male had fallen while mowing his lawn on the outskirts of town and had possibly broken a bone. Eric and I, the two youngest paramedics, were up next; I drove and Eric rode shotgun with both the lights and siren going.
When we pulled into the old man’s driveway, we found him lying on his back in the middle of the yard. He clutched a cell phone in one hand and grimaced in pain as we hurried to his side.
“Stepped in a damn gopher hole,” the old man growled. “Didn’t even see it.”
I took his vitals while Eric carefully inspected his right leg. It was a hot day – Indian Summer in the Northern Great Plains – and the man wore a sleeveless T-shirt, baggy Bermuda shorts, and rubber slip-on sandals. I watched the man wince at any touch near the lower part of his tibia. He cried out once when Eric ran his fingertips lightly over the disfigured lump there. Eric met my gaze and nodded.
“You’ve broken a bone above your ankle,” Eric told the man.
The old man’s eyes squeezed closed, and he gave a long moan. He dropped his phone to the grass, so I gently slipped it into a pocket of his shorts. The man had a coating of short white hair that reminded me of my grandfather and was about the same age he would have been if he was still alive.
“We’re going to splint you, get you on a stretcher, and take you to the hospital,” Eric said. “They’ll get you all fixed up there.”
He gave me another nod. Eric used one hand to keep the man’s leg stable and the other to remove the receiver from its clip on his hip and call the nearest ER. I brought the needed supplies from the back of the ambulance. We worked together with practiced efficiency and had the man up the ambulance in less than five minutes. I held the back doors open while Eric hopped inside and readied things for transport. As he did, I glanced at the half-mowed yard. An old push-mower with a catcher attached for clippings stood where the man had fallen; the cut rows were precise and evenly overlapped the way my grandfather had taught me.
I heard Eric ask, “You have anyone inside you want to ride with you or follow us to the hospital?”
“No.” The man groaned again. “I live alone.”
“Okay,” Eric said. He turned to me. “Let’s go.”
~
After that transport, we had only one more run, a quick nursing home transfer, before getting off shift at five. On our way to the parking lot, Eric asked if I wanted to grab a beer, but I begged off. I watched his pick-up leave the lot, then texted my wife. I told her I’d be home about a half-hour late, added a two-heart emoji, then drove off myself.
The old man’s house was about ten minutes out of the way. I parked in the driveway where I had earlier and got out of my car. I pulled the shirt tails out of my navy-blue uniform and walked over to the mower in the middle of the lawn. I double-checked the width of the rows’ overlap before I began mowing, moving slowly and carefully to keep my line straight. By the end of the third row, I’d sweat through my shirt. The good smell of the cut grass brought back memories.
When I finished, I emptied the clippings in a garbage can inside the open garage and stored the mower next to it. I paused to admire the pegboard over the man’s workbench which held tools arranged by type and ascending size; my grandfather had done the same thing. A recently washed and waxed Oldsmobile was parked in the garage’s center, the chamois that had been used on it draped over the workbench vice and dried stiff; that brought back more memories.
I considered leaving the old man a note to explain about the mowing, but then thought my grandfather would have told me not to, that it might suggest the need for acknowledgement. So instead, I took a last, lingering look at the neatly cut lawn, nodded, and started for home.
William Cass has had over 300 short stories accepted for publication in a variety of literary magazines such as december, Briar Cliff Review, and Zone 3. He won writing contests at Terrain.org and The Examined Life Journal. A nominee for both Best Small Fictions and Best of the Net anthologies, he has also received five Pushcart Prize nominations. His first short story collection, Something Like Hope & Other Stories, was published by Wising Up Press in 2020, and a second collection, Uncommon & Other Stories, was recently released by the same press. He lives in San Diego, California.