Prologue
The blood wouldn’t come out, although you couldn’t see it. I could. It was still there. On my skin. On my uniform. On the soles of my shoes. Red. Thick. Permanent. No matter what I did, it was always there.
A spot seen from the very corner of my eye. A splash only visible when I walked past. A drop heard when I tried to fall asleep. A smell that never faded.
A telecommunications building in the Viaduct; it had blood. On the carpark, out the front. Black tar-seal coated in red.
A block of upmarket flats on Shore Road. Top floor. By the lift.
The Harbour Bridge, centre lane, Northbound. Oxygen masks and a fishing rod. A small child.
Blood.
There were more. Too many to mention. But when I walked past, I saw it all over again. When I fell asleep, I dreamed it all over again. When I opened my med kit, checked the saline and crepe bandages and 14 gauge needles. It was there.
Sanitarium Weet-Bix boxes. Blue and red.
Ducks and geese in a house in Belmont.
Crumpled cars. Broken bones. Burned skin. And blood. Always, always blood.
Sometimes, I was the only one to see it. The only one to feel it.
Sometimes, I felt so very, very alone.
They warned you, of course. They talked about ‘jobs’ that kept repeating. Certain injuries or ailments that made you feel sick when you got the call. Places that would always bring back memories.
I thought I could handle it. I thought I was made of stone. Invincible even.
But I am only flesh and bone. I have a heart that beats. Lungs that push through air. And a mind that can’t let go.
Singing in a church in Mangere. Such beautiful voices raised in prayer. Saying goodbye to their loved one. While we worked to start a heart that had long since stopped beating.
Upside down, the smell of spilt petrol filling my nose, the IV sliding in through clammy skin. “Get me out of here!” His words or mine, I don’t know.
Burned flesh. Bags of saline. Screeds of plastic sandwich wrap. The look in her eyes. She knew.
Sometimes, it was too much. Sometimes, I just needed to breathe different air. But where do you go to in an organisation that prides itself on staying strong? Never showing weakness. Always doing your job. No matter what. Where do you go?
I tried the call centre. It made sense. I couldn’t smell the blood in there. I couldn’t see it.
But blood talks. Blood screams. Blood moans and pleads and cries.
“Ambulance Emergency.”
“I can’t stop it. It’s everywhere. The glass just broke. His arm! Oh, God. The blood. Come quickly! Please!”
There were good memories. There were. Lives saved. People helped. Occasionally just a cup of tea put on and a cheese sandwich made.
There were good memories. But my mind chose to forget those.
An instructor once told me to make sure I stopped and smelled the roses.
But roses have thorns. And thorns cut skin.
By the time I’d reached a certain level of expertise—a level of competency that meant you should have been able to handle it all—my skin was torn to shreds. I did what was required of me. Sometimes well. Sometimes not. Sometimes the blood won. Sometimes I did.
I did what was required of me, but it got harder. The dreams got longer. And louder. And darker. Don’t get me wrong; I was good at what I did. I epitomised staying strong. Never showing weakness. Always doing my job. On the outside.
The inside was a different matter.
The medical director once asked me about a job. If I was OK. If my partner was.
I lied. Because it was expected of me. Because to admit you weren’t coping was to admit you couldn’t do the job. But I could. I was good at it. I saved lives.
We were all good at it. We were expected to be.
Covered in blood.
Days and nights blended. In Comms, out on the road, back in Comms again. Nothing worked. I tried. We all tried. Or at least, we tried the only way we knew how to.
The end was slow in coming. I didn’t see it, covered in blood as I was. But it came with a crowded house, stacks upon stacks of Weet-Bix boxes, and the failure to get an IV line in a patient who had been on his cold, rubbish-strewn floor, for seventy-two hours.
Veins collapsed. Skin brittle. Blood. Just there. But I couldn’t reach it.
Time passed. I recovered. The patient may not have, but I had to tell myself that he had.
Because how could I stay strong, not show weakness, and continue to do my job, no matter what, if I didn’t believe that?
Life moved on. Blood still visited. I did my job. I did what was expected. I played the part. No one suspected a thing.
And the blood came down in sheets of rain all around me.
Part I
1
I’m A Confident And Competent AO
I’m a confident and competent AO.
I’m a confident and competent AO.
I’m a confident and competent AO.
The words were my mantra. I repeated them silently as we sped toward an RTC—road traffic crash—in the city. The roads were slick with last night’s rain and the headlights of the ambulance danced along the white lines down the middle of the street, almost blinding.
I was glad I wasn’t driving but sitting in the passenger seat meant it was my job; my turn to tend to the patient.
I’m a confident and competent AO.
I was well trained; passed my ambulance officer course with flying colours. But somehow the reality didn’t match the fantasy of saving lives for a living.
Still, I was living the dream. In the Big Smoke. Auckland City where everything and anything could happen.
We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto.
“Ho,” Simon said from the driver’s seat as we slowed to approach the scene. “It’s a goodie.”
If a goodie meant twisted metal and the smell of spilt gasoline and the pitter-patter of rain drowned out by the sounds of a big city.
I’m a confident and competent AO.
“Don’t forget your helmet and jerkin,” Simon reminded me.
“Got them,” I said, trying to smile, my voice almost cracking with the dryness of my throat.
“‘Course you do,” he said on a grin. “You got this, Kylee.”
I liked Simon. I thought he perhaps liked me in a way I wasn’t ready to explore just yet. He’d offered to show me around the city. Give me the lowdown on all the best places to go when off-duty. Show me the shortcuts to the major centres. That sort of thing.
I’d declined politely. I’d been dating a guy from back home at the time. I knew it was doomed but when everything in your life is changing, you cling to the familiar.
Plus, my mother liked Kent and leaving home had been upsetting enough for my mum, so we were trying the long distance thing.
I hadn’t spoken to Kent in over a week. I thought he might have met someone else. I didn’t ask. He didn’t tell me. Sooner or later, the length of time we didn’t speak would mean we were over. I wasn’t in a hurry to confirm a thing.
Then I’d have to face my mother.
Simon parked the ambulance across the street, blocking traffic to the crash site. I stared at the car and wondered if it was a Toyota or a Ford or maybe a Subaru. It was hard to tell and it didn’t really matter. The safety cell had held, even if the driver was still trapped inside the vehicle.