It's the middle of the night
Tones start to ring
We go with sirens and lights
Help we've come to bring
A two car MVA, five patients on scene
With two fatalities
Overwhelming it seems
You don't see what I see
A child screaming, bleeding too much
You work hard to get to her, but you can't rush
You're halfway in the car, holding onto her hands
Quickly loosing hope, you hold onto every strand
And all of a sudden, the crying stops....
You're partner checks for a pulse, his head he nods
You don't see what I see
Mom is screaming, there's no calming her down
Til the day you die, you'll never forget her sound
You start working on her son, hoping he has a chance
But still the same outcome, death takes it's stance
You look over at the patient of the other car, afterall he was driving
He says he's not drunk, you know he is lieing
You don't see what I see
You go look at him and make sure he's ok
Before he's put in jail, but let out the next day
He can hardly comprehend everything that's going on
He shows no remorse for his doing wrong
You try to find dad and hope to offer some support
But nothing will console his childrens lives being cut short
You don't see what I see
You feel nothing but sorrow for this family's loss
And know for certain that drunk won't pay the cost
And you try to keep it together while you're still on scene
Although deep down inside, you're aching to scream
You save the ones you can while letting the others go
This side of EMS only few outsiders know.
You don't see what I see.
Author notes
Very few outsiders truly understand what EMS is all about. If you can take anything from this poem....let it be that it is not our choice who we save and who we let go. Sometimes the trauma of the patient is too much for even the doctors to fix.
A contest entry
- Toxic Lesson by Coco Mara.
510 points, ended October 22, 2007, 12 entries
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
Comments
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This is really good. It's dark and full of feeling...I really think that you've done a wonderful job at it. I had a friend who was an EMT.

