Rescue Me 15

*Author's Note: The idea for this story comes a newer TV series I've been watching, mostly because of the well-advertised May-December romance between two of the characters. This is my take on it which loosely parallels the show but has many differences from the TV script. It was fun writing, and I hope you enjoy reading it.

******

"No! Let me. No offense, but I can get up there a whole lot faster then you."

"There's no time to take offense. Go! Hurry!"

Power was out and the flames were licking all around as he flew up the stairs taking them two and three at a time for eight floors. Even though he was in extremely good shape, he was gasping for breath by the time he reached the ninth story.

He grabbed his flashlight, then headed down the hall that had the first hints of smoke seeping into it, to the last room on his left. He had no idea how the man got out on the ledge until he entered the room and saw a metal police baton on the floor by the huge glass window which lay in shards around his feet.

Not knowing or caring why this man had such a device, he stepped over the broken glass and up onto the ledge then looked to his right and saw the man who had his back to the wall, staring out into space.

"Sir! Over here!" he said, beckoning to the man to move toward him.

"I can't!" the man called back. "I'm not gonna be burned alive."

"You won't! I can get you down. Trust me. Just slowly work your way back to me, and we'll both be fine. You have my word."

"You can't know that!" the man yelled out.

"If you stay there, I do know what will happen. Please, slide my way now!"

"No. I can't," he said again.

Grasping at straws the young rescue worker said, "Sir. Think of your wife and your children. They need you."

Now much calmer, the man said, "My wife left me a year ago, and our only child was killed two years before that."

The fire-rescue man keyed the mike and said, "He won't move."

"Our ladders can't reach him, and he's too high to catch in a net. You have to talk him down. You're running out of time so hurry!" he heard his captain and mentor say.

"Roger that."

"Sir? I'm coming out on the ledge with you, okay? Just hold still."

He took a step to the side and the man hollered, "No! Don't come any closer or I'll jump."

Shaun Patterson had been a certified EMT/fire-rescue man for a little more than four months. After graduating from college and finding it impossible to find a professional job he wanted, he entered the academy after someone suggested it as a possibility. When he graduated, he was second in his class and assigned to a fire-rescue unit on east side of Seattle, Washington.

At 23, he was older than a couple of the other rookies on his team, but 30 years younger than the team leader, Captain Joe Michaels, who was coordinating their efforts on the ground below.

While he was fully certified, what he wasn't was experienced. He'd assisted in two rescues that involved heights since his arrival, but both of them centered around people who very much wanted to live and who were fully cooperative. This was a first and the biggest challenge of his budding career so far.

"Easy, okay?" he said as he tried to take another step.

"I'm not kidding! I will jump!" the man said coldly but loudly enough to be heard over the noise of the city.

Shaun heard his radio and reached up to respond.

"Go ahead."

"You're running out of time, kid. You've got to get back down. Things will get critical very fast. Talk him down now or get yourself down. Now!"

"I can't leave him," Shaun said defiantly.

"Listen to me," Joe said with urgency in his voice. "Listen carefully. You can't save everyone, and no one is worth dying for. Understand?"

Shaun didn't answer. He looked over at the man, and just as he did, he saw the fear on his face drain away. Although he'd never seen anything close to it before, he just knew. The man had decided. He also knew there was nothing he could say to change that decision.

Just as Shaun called out, "Please. I'm begging you. Don't...." the man stepped off the ledge with no visible sign of fear. He didn't scream or even make a sound on the way down. And yet, as hard as he tried not to listen, Shaun heard the sickening thump on the concrete sidewalk below as his mic crackled again.

"Get down NOW, Shaun! Do you read me?" he heard Joe yelling into his comm gear.

He began sliding left and stepped back inside before replying.

"On my way down now," he said as he stepped back inside the room.

The smoke was a lot worse now, and Shaun hadn't taken oxygen with him. The only thing working in his favor was that he was now descending. The smoke was thick in the stairwell, and it took everything he had to make it to the ground floor.

When he reached the bottom, Joe was there waiting for him with an oxygen mask. He strapped it over the younger man's face, then pulled his arm over his shoulder and helped him walk out of the burning building.

Exhausted, Shaun still couldn't help but look as they walked right by the man who'd been very much alive just minutes ago. The team had already covered the body, but he could see the twisted mass of broken bones underneath the heavy, white cloth, and the dark, red stain that was growing by the second.

"You did good," Joe told him over the noise.

"The hell I did! He's dead," Shaun tried to yell out as he breathed deeply.

"Hey. I told you. You can't save 'em all. Get that through your head right now."

With that, Joe left him to recover as he barked orders to the rest of his crew.

For the next week, nearly every waking moment of Shaun's life was spent reliving the jumper's last minutes on earth. He knew Joe was right. He couldn't save them all. But having lost someone he was that physically close to made him feel helpless, powerless, and even nauseous. And in between there was the frustration and the anger, most of it directed at himself.

It was policy that anyone in his position had to see a shrink, so Shaun had done so three days in a row that week. It had helped but only a little. After a fifth visit, he was fully re-certified and back on the job, although he wasn't sure the daily chit-chat had done anything for him at all.

*****

"Hey! How'd my mom do today?"

"Well, for someone with her stage of Alzheimer's, I'd say she did quite well."

"Listen, Claudia, I can't thank you enough for being here to care for her. You're a saint."

"Ms. Petri, I'm no saint. I do love my job, and I'm grateful to be able to care for your mother. But I am getting paid for this."

"I know. And you deserve every penny and then some. I just can't imagine having to put her in a home, and people like you make not having to do that possible."

Her mom's caregiver smiled then said, "That's very kind of you, Ms. Petri."

She grabbed her coat then said, "If you don't need anything else, I'll be going."

"No. Not at all. Thank you again, Claudia. Oh. And will you please call me Stephanie?"

The older, heavyset black woman smiled again, and said, "Of course I will. We're about the same age, I suppose, but since I'm basically working for you, I didn't want to presume anything."

Stephanie thanked her again then walked her to the door.

Once she was gone, it gave her a chance to focus in on just how grateful she was for Claudia's help as she went to her mom's room to check on her.

"Hey, there!" she said to her mother who was watching television.

"Oh, hi," she said back. "I'm watching a quiz show called Jeopardy. Have you ever heard of it?"

Her mom had said the same thing several times in the last month, so she only said, "Yes, I have. It's very popular."

"I agree. I think it has a good chance of catching on," her mom said, thinking she was informing her daughter of something new.

"How did you like Claudia, Mom?"

"Who?"

"Claudia. The woman who was with you today?"

"Claudia. Is she black?" her mother asked.

Her mom had raised Stephanie not to notice skin color, so the fact that she was asking that told her a lot about how far along she was. Alzheimer's affected short-term memory first, leaving things like childhood memories in tact for a very long time. That her mom was now saying things she'd never have dreamed of saying was troubling.

"Yes. Yes, she is."

"Oh, okay. Well, she seems very nice, I suppose. But you need to keep an eye on black people."

Stephanie sighed deeply at the remark, and before she could say anything else, her mom said, "Oh, look. That's the man who does the show. His name is...um...."

If she didn't distract her mom quickly, there was a very good chance she could get frustrated or even angry at not being to remember the name of the man who'd hosted the show since 1984.

"Mom? Are you hungry? Can I get you something to eat?"

"I know his name. I just can't remember it. It's right on the tip of my tongue."

"Mom!" she called out causing her mom to break out of the trance-like state.

"What? Did you say something, sweetheart?"

This was how things had were, only they'd been slowly getting worse, for the better part of the last two years.

Stephanie Petri was 38, and her mother, Helen Allen, was 68. As with so many other diseases, dementia could strike at almost any age over 40, far earlier than most people thought. The younger the person, the more rare it was, but it wasn't unheard for dementia to strike in the prime of life.

The first signs had appeared about three years ago when Helen would call her daughter complaining about being unable to find her keys or the remote control for her television.

After several such incidents in which she'd gone over and found both where her mother always kept them, she and her younger brother, Pete Allen, had taken her to the doctor who referred her for further testing. Two specialists and four visits later, Helen was diagnosed with Alzheimer's.

Pete had wanted to put her in a home as soon as possible and was still occasionally dropping hints about how much better care their mom would get in a place that specialized in caring for patients with dementia. But Stephanie could not and would not do that do their mother. Stephanie convinced their mom to move in with her, but because she had a full-time job, she wasn't able to be home with her mom during the day. So when Pete, who was quite well off, recently said he'd pay for home care as long as it was in his sister's home, she'd eagerly accepted his offer.

As a 911 operator, Stephanie dealt with stress all day long. Then she would come home and have to deal with whatever problems and/or mess her mother had created during the day and then care for her alone until she fell asleep.

Her breaking point came when, to her horror, she came home one evening a week ago, and her mom was gone. The door was unlocked, her mom's purse was in her room, and Stephanie knew she'd wandered outside. Her biggest concern was knowing her mother no longer knew her daughter's address or how to get back. Helen had always loved to walk, and Stephanie had no idea how many hours she'd been gone. It was possible her mom could have walked five or even ten miles and could literally be anywhere in the city. Even worse, she could have gotten in a car with someone and....

That thought sent fear through Stephanie's body to the point that she vowed she'd get help as soon as she found her mom. If they found her. She had no idea how, but she would get help.

To her tremendous relief, her friends on both the police and fire department went on high alert looking for her and an hour later a good samaritan had called from a local hospital where he'd taken the disoriented woman.

Stephanie headed straight there and thanked the man several times. His father had had severe dementia, and he knew the signs as soon as he watched her mom wandering around nearby his business. He'd walked her three blocks to the hospital then after asking several questions got her daughter's name. From there, the police did the rest.

After that incident, Peter had finally made it possible to bring in someone to care for their mother. Now, when Stephanie came home, the house was clean and orderly, and she didn't have to worry about her mother wandering outside and getting lost or not taking her medications.

After running all that through her mind in a second, she asked her mom again if she was hungry then led her to the kitchen to get her away from the TV.

"Go ahead and have a seat, Mom, and I'll get dinner started."

"Oh, okay. You know, I'm getting a little hungry," she said, having forgotten already why she was in the kitchen.

A few moments later, Helen asked, "How was your day at work?"

Stephanie was surprised whenever her mom asked her something that made her think she was possibly still okay. She knew full well her mom wouldn't remember anything she told her, but it was often cathartic to be able to talk about something she'd had to deal with in spite of her mom's condition.

"It was tough," Stephanie said. "I got a call about a fire in a hotel downtown. I got a fire-rescue team routed there along with the police, but there was a man on the ledge of the building who wouldn't go back inside."

Stephanie never expected her mom to contribute anything to their 'conversations'. She would normally just sit there and listen, if 'listening' was even accurate.

"Anyway, this man wouldn't go back inside, and one of the EMTs was standing just a few feet away when he jumped to his death."

"Someone died?" her mom asked.

Stephanie politely said, "Yes. A man jumped off the ninth story of a building. That EMT and his whole team, plus everyone who was watching saw him jump. It had to be dreadfully awful, you know?"

"What's awful, honey?" her mom asked as though she'd just walked in on a conversation.

Stephanie didn't start over, she just kept going.

"It's bad enough taking the phone calls, but those people who respond to them bear the brunt of it. I...just can't imagine...seeing that. How could you ever get it out of your memory?"

"I don't know, honey. But you know, my memory isn't what it used to be. That's for sure," was her mom's reply.

"I was on the line with that EMT for quite a while today," Stephanie said, ignoring her mom's comment. "I was supposed to be patched through to the team leader, but for some reason, he picked up. Shaun something-or-other. Peterson or Pierson maybe? The team leader was inside the vehicle and it was already en route, so he and I stayed on until they arrived. He was so nice, and so new."

"What's new, dear?" her mom asked. "Oh, that TV show. The quiz thing. That's new. Have you seen it?"

Undaunted, Stephanie continued her story-telling, hoping to talk her way through the stress of the event.

"He's only been there a few months. His captain, the team leader, is pretty tough on him. I guess he's made a couple of rookie mistakes, and gotten a couple of tongue lashings. He was really wanting to do a good job today, and then that poor man just...jumped."

"What man is that?" her mother asked absentmindedly.

"I felt bad for everyone involved, especially for the man who died and for his family. But I know Shaun had to be devastated."

Stephanie was chopping and dicing as she said, "I hope nothing was his fault. The last thing he needs is to get put on probation or lose his job for some other mistake."

"Did you get fired today?" her mom asked.

"No, Mom. I didn't get fired," she said as she realized that was about all she could handle on that one topic.

She just hoped this Shaun guy was coping with the tragedy okay. She hadn't seen it, but just knowing what had happened was gut wrenching. As stressful as her job could be, times like this made her realize how fortunate she was not to have to actually deal with the kinds of things first responders dealt with every day.

That evening at 10 o'clock, she turned on the local news, and just as she expected, the fire and the 'jumper' were the leading story.

****

One Week After 'the Jump'

"How you holdin' up, Rookie?" Joe asked as they arrived at the station at the same time that morning.

"Okay, I suppose."

"Did seeing the shrink help?"

"A little. Maybe."

Joe stopped and that meant he expected Shaun to stop, too. He did, then he turned toward the older man who, at about 6-feet, was as tall as he was, and listened.

"Look, you never forget their faces. I still remember my first like it was yesterday. A young girl in the back of a burning car. Both sides of the car were crushed and we couldn't get the door off. We managed to get her mom out of the front, but the back wouldn't budge. We were cutting and torching and using the Jaws of Life, but we just couldn't get her out."

Pretty sure what happened, Shaun didn't need to ask.

"The fire got so intense we had to back off. I had to stand there and watch her burn to death."

"Jesus. That's awful."

"Yeah. Yeah, it is. I've been doing this for 31 years now, and I've watched nearly 50 people die. Some as bad as that little girl. Some not quite as dramatic. But every one of those events is seared into my brain for life. And so are their faces of those I looked at before they died."

"How do you deal with it?" the younger man asked.

"For years, I drank. A lot. But about five years ago, the drinking got worse than the pain of seeing otherwise healthy people die right in front of me, so I quit. Cold turkey."

"That had to be tough."

"It was. But not as tough as what we deal with around here. Look, my point is this. What we do is real. This isn't some reality show on TV. Real people die every day, and as I told you, we can't save them all."

"And?" Shaun asked, knowing something he hoped would help was coming.

"So you focus on those you did help. You put their faces in the forefront of your mind every time you're tempted to think about one you couldn't save. That's the only thing that's really helped me over the years. It may not work for you, but it's kept me from going insane."

"That's good advice, Joe. I'll try doing that."

The older man slapped him on the shoulder then said, "Good. Now let's get inside and keep our fingers crossed there's no one we won't be able to save out there today."

That was the most Joe had ever said to him at one time, and it was the first real hint he even cared about Shaun as something more than a pain-in-the-ass rookie he had to keep on eye on so no one else got hurt due to some bone-headed, new-guy mistake. He had no idea whether or not the advice would work, but just the fact that this hard-nosed, old-school team chief cared, made going inside a little easier.

They were in the middle of a training class when the alarm sounded. Everything stopped as the men and women got up, geared up, and loaded themselves onto the trucks. Shaun was monitoring the communications again, and when he heard the voice of the 911 operator he thought it sounded familiar.

"Three-car collision at the off ramp of I-5 at exit 184. Witnesses report one vehicle has been totaled, another is in serious condition, and the third not seriously damaged. The driver of the first vehicle is still inside. All others are outside with injuries of varying degree. How copy?"

"Copy all," Shaun said, picking up the mic for the team again.

"Do you need me to stay on the line with you?" the female voice asked.

"No, but I wouldn't mind if you did. Can you?" he asked over the noise of the siren.

Stephanie now recognized the voice and said, "Shaun?"

"Yeah. Hey, I thought you sounded familiar."

"Yes, it's me. From...you know."

"The hotel. Yes, I remember," he told her. "You were a big help that day."

"I didn't do anything, Shaun. I just stayed on the line with you."

"That's not nothing," he told her. "It meant a lot to me."

"I'm glad. You doing okay?" she asked hopefully.