Reut Ravivalmost 6 years ago

I am an EMT and nobody taught me how:

Nobody taught me how to to say the words “I’m sorry, there’s nothing else we can do, your daughter is dead”. Nobody taught me how to listen to the harrowing, shattering scream of a parent whose child has just died. Nobody taught me how to talk a complete stranger down off a bridge, how to find a reason for them to live, how to assure them that they would get the help that they needed and everything would be ok. Nobody taught me how to bite my tongue when I went 2 hours over my finish time for someone who’d been ‘generally unwell’ for 24 hours and their GP had told them to ring 999. Nobody taught me how to hold hands with a dying person as they take their last breath, how to hold back the tears because it’s not my grief. Nobody taught be how to keep a straight face whilst a young man explains exactly what happened to the end of his hoover. Nobody taught me how to act when a patient pulls a knife on me. Nobody taught me how to work on a friend who’s choked and gone in to a cardiac arrest whilst we were having lunch.