Long Shot by Meg D. Newman
In Fresno, 1978, Julie faces sexism when she applies to be an Emergency Medical Technician.
In December of 1978, an unexpected late afternoon downpour left the streets glassy, the sky dark and the air dewy. I had one final stop - the Star Ambulance Company, where I hoped to get a job. The company was housed in two reddish-brown, single-story family homes, with a partially bare lawn and a concrete path connecting the two. A hefty brown dog sat sphinxlike smack in the middle of the lawn area. On the same block were more single-family homes, some manicured and others years into disrepair. Typical for a block in Fresno. The site was only a mile from the city's urban center but the whole neighborhood had already crawled in for the night.
As I got out of the car, the big brown canine arose. When I came close to the ambulance property, he ran a blitz at me. I started to negotiate and a man popped out of the front door.
"Siren, it's okay, I got it." A switch flipped in Siren's head; he stood down.
"How can I help you, ma'am?" he asked.
It was clear he didn't want to help at all. And, when had anybody called me ma'am?
"I'm Julie and I'm here to apply for an EMT job."
"Oh really?"
The man smirked so loud a sniffling noise came out of his nose. His gimlet-eyed scrutiny almost caused me to flinch. I steadied myself. At twenty-three, I already had learned how to stand up for myself or be crushed.
Siren walked over and brushed against the man's hip and was rewarded with a two-handed head scratch. Dogs usually have impeccable judgement about people. Maybe this guy was cool?
"Well, okay," he said at last, "come on into the office. Have you worked anywhere else in Fresno as an EMT?"
It was a trick question. No woman had ever been hired as an EMT in the city of Fresno and he knew this.
"Not yet, but I'm hoping to work here." I felt my eyes light up.
Things were bustling inside the ambulance company's inner sanctum. Loud radio chatter and static wafted from the dispatch area adorned with two-way radios, speakers, city maps, and grids. He led me past the main area to a small side room and pointed to a single chair and a small table.
His face tightened and he mumbled, "Okay, I guess you could fill out an application here. By the way, I'm Larry."
The application was the standard one I'd filled out at every other ambulance company in the city. I finished quickly, stood up, placed my resumé on top of the application and handed it all to Larry.
"We don't want this," he said and thrust the resumé back to me.
"Well, I'd like to include it because it has some important stuff," as I thrust it back to him. My resumé covered things that the application didn't get near: being a co-captain of the Fresno State women's basketball team, passing the challenging physical qualifying exam and interview to be a California State Firefighter, and my extensive volunteer and community work.
I stepped forward, reached out my hand to shake and said, "Thank you for your time."
Larry just stared at me, then turned his back and said, "We'll get back to you. I don't know when."
As I left the office and headed toward my car, Siren trotted up to me, wagging his tail and hind body while carrying a well-worn stick. I stopped. He dropped it by my feet, moved back a few steps, then forward a few steps, shook his body, wagged his tail and waited. I felt a grin spread on my face and I knew he had already figured out that I was sixty percent labrador retriever. I was up for this - the game was on. I threw, Siren retrieved, and soon we advanced to his version of the chase-me-with-the-stick-in-my-mouth-but-don't-catch-me-but-please-almost-catch-me game. Eventually, Siren called time-out for a water break and plopped down for a deep rest. I leaned over, massaged his ears and neck, and whispered, "I hope I get to see you again, sweet Siren. Be a good pup."
As I headed to my car, I glanced back at the office window and my eyes met Larry's. There might have been the edge of a smile on his face.
I felt optimistic that they would offer me a job. In matters like this, delusional optimism was my modus operandi. If I had relented to the prevailing gender discrimination and my minuscule chances of getting hired, I would have been immobilized. So, this recurrent delusion served me well. It was the same MO I used to get on the basketball court in a gym full of men. My skills kept me there.
The head of Star Ambulance, Jim Kamet, called me two days later and invited me to interview the next morning. That day, I awoke long before my 5am alarm. I fell into my running clothes, did a little stretching and headed east to the packed dirt of the Fresno canal banks to meet my running partners. What started as a chilly, dark morning soon transformed into day leavened by sunshine and warmth. And, maybe, a new job. Hours later, after a long run, a hot shower and a hearty breakfast, the sun was bright and almost overhead as I hoofed the four blocks from my home to the interview.
On the way, I reminded myself why I took the EMT training in the first place. During the previous year, whether I was riding my bike, walking in my neighborhood, or driving in my VW bug, the Blueberry Pumpkin, I kept finding myself as the first person on the scene of one accident after another. I felt like a group of goddesses had intervened and were guiding me to take a First Aid course. Turned out this was a good idea - I was soon the only eyewitness to a woman having a seizure, a man fainting, two episodes of people having heart attacks, and no fewer than three car accidents. First Aid would not be enough. I knew it was time to become an EMT.
At the beginning of the fall semester, Corrine Lane, my EMT professor at Fresno City College, informed the class that none of the companies in the city had ever hired a woman EMT. By the end of the semester, she had gotten to know me. She had seen my leadership and EMT skills. At graduation, in a rousing pep talk, she pinned me against the wall, pointed her index finger and said, "I hope you will apply for an EMT job - you're just the woman to change this, I can tell."
And I totally believed her.
I felt energized and mesmerized by my EMT training - it was like I had entered a different universe, on a new planet, and I was aligning easily with its gravitational force. I even wanted to go back to school to take science courses for paramedic school, despite my spotty record in both math and science.
As I arrived at the ambulance company, Siren spotted me right away and came lopping over to greet me. Mr. Kamet stepped out of the office, and I shook his hand firmly.
"Call me Jim. Nice to meet you, Julie."
Jim was lean and tall with thinning but still noticeably red hair. I thought he might embody what my friend Lynn called a person with soft eyes, those people who inhabit the planet in a kind and helpful way. He led me to another attached building, set twenty feet behind the dispatch area. Inside three women and three men sat punching keys on adding machines, filling out forms and making phone calls. The aromas of chocolate and coffee hovered in the space.
Jim introduced me, "This is Julie - she's the one applying for the new EMT position."
Everyone looked up and greeted me. Joyfully. Then I felt each of their eyes riveted on me as I followed Jim back to his office. What was up with this? I felt like I had antlers coming out of my head and colorful stripes on my torso. Then the nickel dropped - I was probably the first woman to ever interview for an EMT position.
We both sat. Me in a comfortable dark green chair facing Jim, who sat behind an ancient mahogany desk. Must have been an heirloom. Eight by ten pictures of him and his family embracing and swimming in the ocean bookended piles of paper on his desk. Soon my eyes were drawn to the office wall where the distinct grey granite face of El Capitan was framed. This photograph caught the first rays of morning sun pouring into Yosemite Valley and alighting this unfathomably tall configuration. Another one captured the sunset and the rosy light of alpenglow suffused onto the body of Half Dome. Jim's office walls were an homage to Yosemite and made me think that maybe Jim had a well spent youth in this beloved national park.
"I want to know why you want this job," Jim began.
I remembered to be brief and gave him an abridged version.
"Are you ready to work hard?" asked Jim.
"Absolutely," I said.
"We're starting a new group of employees in getting their prerequisites for paramedic school at City College next semester. Is this something you'd be interested in?"
"For sure. That would be terrific."
"You met Larry the other day, and school is something he and I feel strongly about. We all must keep learning. By the way, do you know none of the ambulance companies in the city have ever hired a woman? There may be one woman who works part-time in the whole county."
"Yeah, Corrine Lane mentioned it once," I deadpanned.
"Is Corrine still teaching the EMT course at Fresno City?" I heard a full dollop of respect and affection in his voice.
"Yup. She's great," I said.
The interview was going well when Jim asked a series of questions about my availability for weekends, nights, and holidays, and the typical questions about prior jobs and references. At the conclusion of all that, I thought he might offer me a job.
Instead, he asked, "Have you always been an athlete?"
"Yes, forever, but up until now there haven't been many opportunities. Coming to Fresno State changed that for me."
Jim got up and said, "Let me show you our backyard area - it's behind the main garage where we wash and wax the vehicles when things are slow. We also do a few other things back there, you'll see."
On his way through the garage, Jim picked up my favorite round, orange object and flipped it to me.
"So, can you really play basketball?" he asked. He was serious.
"Of course," I said. He was still incredulous. More denial on my part.
We reached the long driveway, the court, and Jim walked about eighteen feet from the basket.
"Okay - you take five shots and hit any three from behind this line and you're hired."
Lady luck had just pulled up and delivered. At just 5 foot 4 inches, I'd never spent a lot of time near the rim. The backcourt was my domain to shoot and run the point, so this challenge was perfect. My love of the outdoors and sports had always been my pass key into many spaces, especially ones that were traditionally or exclusively male. Playing basketball often allowed me to transcend the barriers of gender and on a good day, the barriers of class, race, language, political beliefs, and age.
I compressed the basketball between my palms and noted its weight and size. I rolled it in my hands and checked the grip markings. There weren't many left; this ball had lived a long outdoor life. Facing the basket, I set the ball between my feet, rolled up and tucked in my sleeves. I kicked the ball back up into my hands and dribbled in the backcourt. I had to hear the ball's echo and feel its rise on the grey concrete. I pantomimed my ideal shot and emphasized my wrist action. I was ready.
I moved with a cross-over dribble to my left hand and elevated into a jump shot. Swish. The ball flowed through. All net. I didn't look at Jim. Put me on a court with a basketball, or on the ice, on skates, with a hockey stick and a puck, and I am anchored. Fully alive and engaged only in the present moment. I retrieved the ball and set myself up to take a center shot. This jumper was full of form, with my elbows and knees aligned. Swish. I dribbled to my right, spotted my angle and hoisted the ball. The right backspin on the release forced a high arc. The ball hit the backboard, ricocheted into the basket and rolled back to my feet. After that, I tossed the ball to Jim and hoped he would take a long shot too.
It was one hundred and five degrees; the heat radiated off the asphalt in diagonal lines and shimmered. The cows, clustered near the shade of two trees, were feeling it too, but farmworkers still were out picking nuts and fruit. My shift partner Peter and I were in Ambulance 7, heading to Sanger, a rural farm town, sixteen miles outside of Fresno. A woman had reported her husband as unresponsive.
Most people in the Fresno EMT world rooted for my success, but a few hoped I would fail so completely that no more women would get hired. On every call and in every interaction, I was cognizant that how I functioned could expand or contract opportunities for women. The scrutiny was both an honor and a burden.
Peter was my and everyone's least favorite senior partner to roll with. He spoke as few words as possible and expected the same from you, especially between calls. I spent most of a shift having conversations with myself.
At the call address, we saw a three-story apartment building.
"Oh fuck - he's probably on the top floor," Peter said. It had been that kind of day. Yeah, he was gonna be on the third floor. A short man in a baseball cap waved us down, frantically beckoning us into the parking lot. Once he registered that true help had arrived and his role was finished, his facial muscles visibly relaxed. We clocked this classic bystander relief many times a day. After we parked, he hurried us around to the rear of the apartment complex and pointed to the third floor.
"He's right up there. Good luck, because he's a very big man."
It was three long flights of a rickety wooden staircase with a long landing between each floor. When we reached the third floor, a tall, lean woman ushered us inside a small apartment. Heat, brightness and a pungent stench greeted us. Window curtains diffused some of the harsh sunlight except on the west side of the apartment where the hot sun glared.
"I'm Susan. George is in here," and she herded us toward their bedroom, and to George's bedside.
On this call I was the clinical tech and Peter was the driver and medical historian. According to Susan, George was forty-six. He lay shirtless on his back - he had a short neck and such a large, protuberant belly and chest that each part was no longer distinguishable. He probably weighed three hundred and fifty to four hundred pounds. Maybe more. When I touched his stiff, exquisitely cool body, I suspected he was already very dead. Had been for hours.
Pointing at George, Susan said, "I quietly left early this morning to visit my mother and then I came home and found this."
I began my assessment by looking and feeling for air movement that would signify breathing. Nothing. I tilted George's head back to better open his airway, and inspected his mouth for food, vomit, dentures, or anything that could have obstructed his breathing. Zip. I checked for a heartbeat. Nada. Altogether not a single sign that life was being lived in this body. We rolled George over to assess for wounds or injuries on his back and found prominent a reddish maroon discoloration the size and shape of Texas. This pooling blood suggested that George's heart had not been pumping for hours. Embalmers call this "postmortem staining." It is less commonly known as livor mortis.
If this had been a witnessed arrest and hours had expired, or if one of us had been a paramedic, we could have sent EKG strips to our base hospital and gone through a checklist to confirm our assessment that George was deceased. If verified, we would be granted the formal medical and legal orders to cease additional treatment. But in 1979, EMTs were required to continue CPR for the entire journey to the hospital, in this case forty-five minutes.
The heel of my left hand soon anchored itself on the bottom of George's sternum before I laced the fingers of my right hand through and started chest compressions. I stretched out my small lips and moved toward George's mouth to force more air into his lungs and breathe for him. This time, I caught the full impact of his vacant hazel eyes. This was the moment, on this call, when I felt my heart get nicked. Where my connection to another being was glistening, neon and acute. The lonely inlet where suffering, sadness and empathy bathe together and no defenses are admitted.
"Has George been sick?" Peter asked. "Does he have any medical problems you know of Susan?"
"No. Not really." After a long pause she continued, "I don't know because he will never go to the doctor."
"Does he take any medications?" Peter continued.
"None that I know of." Susan paused again, then said, "He hates medicines. He hates doctors. When I left at seven this morning, George was sleeping. Last night, he was fine, just fine. We were watching TV and eating pizza from Roma's. And drinking beers. He was himself. I've never seen him like this."
The air in the apartment remained still, like a sauna, and CPR on someone already dead is arduous work. My shirt, now glued to my body with sweat, had circular white stains leaching down my chest and out the edges of my armpits. Getting George to the gurney was an unwieldy two-person fire carry - Peter's arms looped under George's armpits from behind the head, and I stood in between his legs and lifted his hips and knees. We came close to dropping him onto the gurney.
"Getting him down the three flights is going to be a total bitch, you know that," Peter murmured under his breath as he walked past me to detail our path out the door.
"Yeah. I know." I nodded.
We agreed that Susan would meet us by the ambulance after she gathered her things. As we made our exit, we couldn't help but overhear her sharp and frayed voice on the phone.
"I don't know if I'll come for dinner tonight, Mom. I don't know. It depends on whether George needs to stay at the hospital tonight or if he can come home. I'll call you from the hospital."
I felt like I had entered a Twilight Zone episode where the wife didn't realize her life had thoroughly changed, but everyone else knew ten deep intimacies about her future. We had already seen her in a black dress by the casket at George's funeral and eating lonely dinners by herself.
Going down the apartment stairs with George on the gurney was the first time that transporting a patient was uncomfortable for my whole body. Normally all the lifting is done through the legs with an erect spine. This time my neck and spine were pulled down, twisted unnaturally, and burning with heat. The sheer weight of George, combined with the gurney, on the steps' steep decline, was excruciating. Peter cursed after every few steps.
Not soon enough, we were loaded and inbound to Valley Medical Center. Just sitting in the rear of the ambulance of that era, in the hot San Joaquin Valley was a heat-filled, unsteady, bouncy experience. Challenged by gravity and jostled about by centripetal forces, I bent over and performed CPR for the endless forty-five minutes. We rolled into trauma room one, and while a physician assessed George, I hugged Susan goodbye. We heard the doctor prepare Susan for the reality of the situation. He gave her time with George, then stopped the code and applied a time of death. A beeline of social workers and administrators filed in, and now Susan, rather than George, became the patient.
I left the glacial air-conditioning of Trauma Room 1 in a pensive mood and emerged back onto roasting asphalt. The heat radiated through the soles of my shoes and the glare of the midday sun came for all the metal parts of our trashed rig. I felt like I had just played a joyless three-hour basketball game with no refs, no time outs, and certainly no winner. Only exhaustion. I grabbed a new uniform pack - a full change including socks, underwear and shoes, and headed into the ER bathroom. I never traveled without two new uniform packs because I knew blood, sweat and worse were waiting to cover me during a twenty-four-hour shift. After guzzling two Nalgene bottles of water, I felt the ebbing of my own raw adrenaline. Now, I was ready to emotionally retrace the call. As usual, Peter was in no mood to process with me. I cleaned up the rig and sensed my body felt off; sore and uncomfortable. It was hard to linger in my own sensations as we were called back into service within twenty minutes.
That night, my sleep was wakeful, my body stiff, and my lower back ached. Unforgivably. I dreamed I was camping on a precipice of sharp rocks. When I awakened at 5am, my lower back was locked in a spasm. If I listed to either side or breathed deeply, I involuntarily yelped. I limped and yelped (for one must breathe) the four blocks to work. It took forever.
Jim, now my supervisor, looked at me as I walked in and said, "You are not going out today. You can barely move. Was this from that call to Sanger yesterday?"
Like a typical twenty-three-year-old, I said, "I'm okay, really. I can work."
I was not grounded in reality at that moment. I worried that if I couldn't work, they would assume I wasn't tough enough and fire me.
"No. No, you can't work safely. How much pain are you in?" Jim asked.
"Um, I'm pretty uncomfortable," I admitted. I was at level seven out of ten of miserable.
"Head home and get some ice on your back. Take some Motrin. Put a pillow between your knees and feet. Get some sleep. Call me tomorrow before three and check in. If things are better after four days of rest, you can do night dispatch for two weeks, because you aren't going out on the ambulance until you're square."
I nodded and said, "Thank you, Jim. Thank you so much."
Jim paused and gave me a knowing look. "By the way, Peter called in sick from the Sanger call last night. Go home. And no basketball until your back is better." Jim smiled, and his soft eyes said he knew even I didn't want to hoop.
I soon discovered the spine was the centerpiece and foundation of a body, or at least of my body. Every human effort, even washing my face, smiling, or eating watermelon, recruited my spine. With an isolated leg or arm injury, I was able to see and touch all my connecting joints, ligaments, and tendons. The spine was mysterious to me. It had inner parts I'd never related to before. Soon my lexicon expanded to include this hidden anatomy: spinal nerve roots and the spinal disc with its rim protector, the annulus, and the inner gelatinous nucleus pulposus. These parts protect the spine from compressive forces at rest and with motion. I was just twenty-three, accustomed to running six or more miles a day, playing hoops and other sports. Movement was my expressive language, my music and my joy. Any injury was an adjustment, but with the unknowns and complications of spine pain, I felt more vulnerable.
Within a week, I became the night dispatcher from 7pm until 7am. Each evening, Siren wagged his tail and yipped upon my arrival. Then we alchemized into a six-legged creature as we crab walked his bed into the office. Darkness fell fully after 9pm. After that, whenever possible, I kept the overheads off and just bathed myself in desk lighting. The office became like a cave so either of us could go to a window and see the stars perched high in the blue-black night sky. In the quieter moments, and there were many, I studied the city maps as Siren slept on my feet. Every city, including Fresno, has its Bermuda Triangle of streets - the disjointed ones that ended abruptly and reconfigure themselves a quarter of a mile away. Or not. These are the places where ambulances get lost and delayed. My job was to learn my way around them and guide my colleagues around them.
Inevitably, the blackness of night began its transition. Softer grey light seeped into the edges of sky, then a rim of yellow orange emerged and ascended on the eastern horizon. Every morning Siren and I would watch the sun's rays light up the droplets of water, sleeping on grass blades or hanging on leaves. This ritual buoyed my hope that my body would fully heal like it had from past injuries. In the weeks that followed, I responded well to physical therapy. I returned to ambulance work, without pain, in four weeks. You might say I skated through the spine problem with no penalties, at least none that I felt or imagined at the time. Little did I know what was waiting twenty years down the line.
Soon after I was back working on the ambulance, Jim invited me to his home for dinner with his wife, Joyce, and son, Stanley. A meal with his family was the equivalent of getting a major promotion at Star Ambulance. Joyce, like Jim, was tall, kind, and carried herself with a flowing elegance. One that felt like a gentle warm breeze in her presence. Stanley was their bouncy, adorable and athletic nine-year-old son. Joyce honored me with an elaborate meal: gomae with toasted sesame seeds, homemade tempura and hand-rolled sushi. The dessert was playtime with Stanley; nerf basketball, drawing together and reading him to bed. Afterwards, the three of us sat down over tea.
"How are you feeling about school starting up again?" Joyce asked.
"Well, I'm getting excited and I'm a bit terrified. In the past, I didn't do great in the sciences." I was thinking of all the tears that had been shed in the Blueberry Pumpkin after exams.
"Wait a minute, that's in the past," Jim interjected. "You've been doing fine since you went back."
"Yeah, but it's going to get a lot harder from here on out; you know that," I said.
"Most of us walk around with some level of fear, but it doesn't have to run the show. It's just there. Acknowledge it but keep moving forward." Jim stopped to let me mull over his advice.
"You have a lot to offer, he continued, and I know you can do this. It will be hard, but you can succeed. That's what I think, and I'm usually right about these things," he said.
Joyce was nodding the whole time, and after Jim's thoughts fully were absorbed, she added, "It's true, you can do this, Julie, and you need to be able to hold onto that as you go forward."
The whole evening was like a nourishing meal, and a partial remedy for my own parents' less-than-encouraging approach.
Going to paramedic school would mean building stronger math and science skills. It would mean squaring off with the overblown, fervent voice of my dad and his many derivations of, "You're too stupid. You don't know how to do math or science. You never will. You can't. You aren't smart enough."
But now, there were other voices in my head - Jim, Joyce, Corrine Lane and my incredible friends. A rooting section in the stands that I would come back to over and over as I made my next long shots.
 |
| Image generated with OpenAI |
"Like wildflowers you must allow yourself to grow in all the places that nobody thought you would."
- Author unknown
In December of 1978, an unexpected late afternoon downpour left the streets glassy, the sky dark and the air dewy. I had one final stop - the Star Ambulance Company, where I hoped to get a job. The company was housed in two reddish-brown, single-story family homes, with a partially bare lawn and a concrete path connecting the two. A hefty brown dog sat sphinxlike smack in the middle of the lawn area. On the same block were more single-family homes, some manicured and others years into disrepair. Typical for a block in Fresno. The site was only a mile from the city's urban center but the whole neighborhood had already crawled in for the night.
As I got out of the car, the big brown canine arose. When I came close to the ambulance property, he ran a blitz at me. I started to negotiate and a man popped out of the front door.
"Siren, it's okay, I got it." A switch flipped in Siren's head; he stood down.
"How can I help you, ma'am?" he asked.
It was clear he didn't want to help at all. And, when had anybody called me ma'am?
"I'm Julie and I'm here to apply for an EMT job."
"Oh really?"
The man smirked so loud a sniffling noise came out of his nose. His gimlet-eyed scrutiny almost caused me to flinch. I steadied myself. At twenty-three, I already had learned how to stand up for myself or be crushed.
Siren walked over and brushed against the man's hip and was rewarded with a two-handed head scratch. Dogs usually have impeccable judgement about people. Maybe this guy was cool?
"Well, okay," he said at last, "come on into the office. Have you worked anywhere else in Fresno as an EMT?"
It was a trick question. No woman had ever been hired as an EMT in the city of Fresno and he knew this.
"Not yet, but I'm hoping to work here." I felt my eyes light up.
Things were bustling inside the ambulance company's inner sanctum. Loud radio chatter and static wafted from the dispatch area adorned with two-way radios, speakers, city maps, and grids. He led me past the main area to a small side room and pointed to a single chair and a small table.
His face tightened and he mumbled, "Okay, I guess you could fill out an application here. By the way, I'm Larry."
The application was the standard one I'd filled out at every other ambulance company in the city. I finished quickly, stood up, placed my resumé on top of the application and handed it all to Larry.
"We don't want this," he said and thrust the resumé back to me.
"Well, I'd like to include it because it has some important stuff," as I thrust it back to him. My resumé covered things that the application didn't get near: being a co-captain of the Fresno State women's basketball team, passing the challenging physical qualifying exam and interview to be a California State Firefighter, and my extensive volunteer and community work.
I stepped forward, reached out my hand to shake and said, "Thank you for your time."
Larry just stared at me, then turned his back and said, "We'll get back to you. I don't know when."
As I left the office and headed toward my car, Siren trotted up to me, wagging his tail and hind body while carrying a well-worn stick. I stopped. He dropped it by my feet, moved back a few steps, then forward a few steps, shook his body, wagged his tail and waited. I felt a grin spread on my face and I knew he had already figured out that I was sixty percent labrador retriever. I was up for this - the game was on. I threw, Siren retrieved, and soon we advanced to his version of the chase-me-with-the-stick-in-my-mouth-but-don't-catch-me-but-please-almost-catch-me game. Eventually, Siren called time-out for a water break and plopped down for a deep rest. I leaned over, massaged his ears and neck, and whispered, "I hope I get to see you again, sweet Siren. Be a good pup."
As I headed to my car, I glanced back at the office window and my eyes met Larry's. There might have been the edge of a smile on his face.
I felt optimistic that they would offer me a job. In matters like this, delusional optimism was my modus operandi. If I had relented to the prevailing gender discrimination and my minuscule chances of getting hired, I would have been immobilized. So, this recurrent delusion served me well. It was the same MO I used to get on the basketball court in a gym full of men. My skills kept me there.
The head of Star Ambulance, Jim Kamet, called me two days later and invited me to interview the next morning. That day, I awoke long before my 5am alarm. I fell into my running clothes, did a little stretching and headed east to the packed dirt of the Fresno canal banks to meet my running partners. What started as a chilly, dark morning soon transformed into day leavened by sunshine and warmth. And, maybe, a new job. Hours later, after a long run, a hot shower and a hearty breakfast, the sun was bright and almost overhead as I hoofed the four blocks from my home to the interview.
On the way, I reminded myself why I took the EMT training in the first place. During the previous year, whether I was riding my bike, walking in my neighborhood, or driving in my VW bug, the Blueberry Pumpkin, I kept finding myself as the first person on the scene of one accident after another. I felt like a group of goddesses had intervened and were guiding me to take a First Aid course. Turned out this was a good idea - I was soon the only eyewitness to a woman having a seizure, a man fainting, two episodes of people having heart attacks, and no fewer than three car accidents. First Aid would not be enough. I knew it was time to become an EMT.
At the beginning of the fall semester, Corrine Lane, my EMT professor at Fresno City College, informed the class that none of the companies in the city had ever hired a woman EMT. By the end of the semester, she had gotten to know me. She had seen my leadership and EMT skills. At graduation, in a rousing pep talk, she pinned me against the wall, pointed her index finger and said, "I hope you will apply for an EMT job - you're just the woman to change this, I can tell."
And I totally believed her.
I felt energized and mesmerized by my EMT training - it was like I had entered a different universe, on a new planet, and I was aligning easily with its gravitational force. I even wanted to go back to school to take science courses for paramedic school, despite my spotty record in both math and science.
As I arrived at the ambulance company, Siren spotted me right away and came lopping over to greet me. Mr. Kamet stepped out of the office, and I shook his hand firmly.
"Call me Jim. Nice to meet you, Julie."
Jim was lean and tall with thinning but still noticeably red hair. I thought he might embody what my friend Lynn called a person with soft eyes, those people who inhabit the planet in a kind and helpful way. He led me to another attached building, set twenty feet behind the dispatch area. Inside three women and three men sat punching keys on adding machines, filling out forms and making phone calls. The aromas of chocolate and coffee hovered in the space.
Jim introduced me, "This is Julie - she's the one applying for the new EMT position."
Everyone looked up and greeted me. Joyfully. Then I felt each of their eyes riveted on me as I followed Jim back to his office. What was up with this? I felt like I had antlers coming out of my head and colorful stripes on my torso. Then the nickel dropped - I was probably the first woman to ever interview for an EMT position.
We both sat. Me in a comfortable dark green chair facing Jim, who sat behind an ancient mahogany desk. Must have been an heirloom. Eight by ten pictures of him and his family embracing and swimming in the ocean bookended piles of paper on his desk. Soon my eyes were drawn to the office wall where the distinct grey granite face of El Capitan was framed. This photograph caught the first rays of morning sun pouring into Yosemite Valley and alighting this unfathomably tall configuration. Another one captured the sunset and the rosy light of alpenglow suffused onto the body of Half Dome. Jim's office walls were an homage to Yosemite and made me think that maybe Jim had a well spent youth in this beloved national park.
"I want to know why you want this job," Jim began.
I remembered to be brief and gave him an abridged version.
"Are you ready to work hard?" asked Jim.
"Absolutely," I said.
"We're starting a new group of employees in getting their prerequisites for paramedic school at City College next semester. Is this something you'd be interested in?"
"For sure. That would be terrific."
"You met Larry the other day, and school is something he and I feel strongly about. We all must keep learning. By the way, do you know none of the ambulance companies in the city have ever hired a woman? There may be one woman who works part-time in the whole county."
"Yeah, Corrine Lane mentioned it once," I deadpanned.
"Is Corrine still teaching the EMT course at Fresno City?" I heard a full dollop of respect and affection in his voice.
"Yup. She's great," I said.
The interview was going well when Jim asked a series of questions about my availability for weekends, nights, and holidays, and the typical questions about prior jobs and references. At the conclusion of all that, I thought he might offer me a job.
Instead, he asked, "Have you always been an athlete?"
"Yes, forever, but up until now there haven't been many opportunities. Coming to Fresno State changed that for me."
Jim got up and said, "Let me show you our backyard area - it's behind the main garage where we wash and wax the vehicles when things are slow. We also do a few other things back there, you'll see."
On his way through the garage, Jim picked up my favorite round, orange object and flipped it to me.
"So, can you really play basketball?" he asked. He was serious.
"Of course," I said. He was still incredulous. More denial on my part.
We reached the long driveway, the court, and Jim walked about eighteen feet from the basket.
"Okay - you take five shots and hit any three from behind this line and you're hired."
Lady luck had just pulled up and delivered. At just 5 foot 4 inches, I'd never spent a lot of time near the rim. The backcourt was my domain to shoot and run the point, so this challenge was perfect. My love of the outdoors and sports had always been my pass key into many spaces, especially ones that were traditionally or exclusively male. Playing basketball often allowed me to transcend the barriers of gender and on a good day, the barriers of class, race, language, political beliefs, and age.
I compressed the basketball between my palms and noted its weight and size. I rolled it in my hands and checked the grip markings. There weren't many left; this ball had lived a long outdoor life. Facing the basket, I set the ball between my feet, rolled up and tucked in my sleeves. I kicked the ball back up into my hands and dribbled in the backcourt. I had to hear the ball's echo and feel its rise on the grey concrete. I pantomimed my ideal shot and emphasized my wrist action. I was ready.
I moved with a cross-over dribble to my left hand and elevated into a jump shot. Swish. The ball flowed through. All net. I didn't look at Jim. Put me on a court with a basketball, or on the ice, on skates, with a hockey stick and a puck, and I am anchored. Fully alive and engaged only in the present moment. I retrieved the ball and set myself up to take a center shot. This jumper was full of form, with my elbows and knees aligned. Swish. I dribbled to my right, spotted my angle and hoisted the ball. The right backspin on the release forced a high arc. The ball hit the backboard, ricocheted into the basket and rolled back to my feet. After that, I tossed the ball to Jim and hoped he would take a long shot too.
It was one hundred and five degrees; the heat radiated off the asphalt in diagonal lines and shimmered. The cows, clustered near the shade of two trees, were feeling it too, but farmworkers still were out picking nuts and fruit. My shift partner Peter and I were in Ambulance 7, heading to Sanger, a rural farm town, sixteen miles outside of Fresno. A woman had reported her husband as unresponsive.
Most people in the Fresno EMT world rooted for my success, but a few hoped I would fail so completely that no more women would get hired. On every call and in every interaction, I was cognizant that how I functioned could expand or contract opportunities for women. The scrutiny was both an honor and a burden.
Peter was my and everyone's least favorite senior partner to roll with. He spoke as few words as possible and expected the same from you, especially between calls. I spent most of a shift having conversations with myself.
At the call address, we saw a three-story apartment building.
"Oh fuck - he's probably on the top floor," Peter said. It had been that kind of day. Yeah, he was gonna be on the third floor. A short man in a baseball cap waved us down, frantically beckoning us into the parking lot. Once he registered that true help had arrived and his role was finished, his facial muscles visibly relaxed. We clocked this classic bystander relief many times a day. After we parked, he hurried us around to the rear of the apartment complex and pointed to the third floor.
"He's right up there. Good luck, because he's a very big man."
It was three long flights of a rickety wooden staircase with a long landing between each floor. When we reached the third floor, a tall, lean woman ushered us inside a small apartment. Heat, brightness and a pungent stench greeted us. Window curtains diffused some of the harsh sunlight except on the west side of the apartment where the hot sun glared.
"I'm Susan. George is in here," and she herded us toward their bedroom, and to George's bedside.
On this call I was the clinical tech and Peter was the driver and medical historian. According to Susan, George was forty-six. He lay shirtless on his back - he had a short neck and such a large, protuberant belly and chest that each part was no longer distinguishable. He probably weighed three hundred and fifty to four hundred pounds. Maybe more. When I touched his stiff, exquisitely cool body, I suspected he was already very dead. Had been for hours.
Pointing at George, Susan said, "I quietly left early this morning to visit my mother and then I came home and found this."
I began my assessment by looking and feeling for air movement that would signify breathing. Nothing. I tilted George's head back to better open his airway, and inspected his mouth for food, vomit, dentures, or anything that could have obstructed his breathing. Zip. I checked for a heartbeat. Nada. Altogether not a single sign that life was being lived in this body. We rolled George over to assess for wounds or injuries on his back and found prominent a reddish maroon discoloration the size and shape of Texas. This pooling blood suggested that George's heart had not been pumping for hours. Embalmers call this "postmortem staining." It is less commonly known as livor mortis.
If this had been a witnessed arrest and hours had expired, or if one of us had been a paramedic, we could have sent EKG strips to our base hospital and gone through a checklist to confirm our assessment that George was deceased. If verified, we would be granted the formal medical and legal orders to cease additional treatment. But in 1979, EMTs were required to continue CPR for the entire journey to the hospital, in this case forty-five minutes.
The heel of my left hand soon anchored itself on the bottom of George's sternum before I laced the fingers of my right hand through and started chest compressions. I stretched out my small lips and moved toward George's mouth to force more air into his lungs and breathe for him. This time, I caught the full impact of his vacant hazel eyes. This was the moment, on this call, when I felt my heart get nicked. Where my connection to another being was glistening, neon and acute. The lonely inlet where suffering, sadness and empathy bathe together and no defenses are admitted.
"Has George been sick?" Peter asked. "Does he have any medical problems you know of Susan?"
"No. Not really." After a long pause she continued, "I don't know because he will never go to the doctor."
"Does he take any medications?" Peter continued.
"None that I know of." Susan paused again, then said, "He hates medicines. He hates doctors. When I left at seven this morning, George was sleeping. Last night, he was fine, just fine. We were watching TV and eating pizza from Roma's. And drinking beers. He was himself. I've never seen him like this."
The air in the apartment remained still, like a sauna, and CPR on someone already dead is arduous work. My shirt, now glued to my body with sweat, had circular white stains leaching down my chest and out the edges of my armpits. Getting George to the gurney was an unwieldy two-person fire carry - Peter's arms looped under George's armpits from behind the head, and I stood in between his legs and lifted his hips and knees. We came close to dropping him onto the gurney.
"Getting him down the three flights is going to be a total bitch, you know that," Peter murmured under his breath as he walked past me to detail our path out the door.
"Yeah. I know." I nodded.
We agreed that Susan would meet us by the ambulance after she gathered her things. As we made our exit, we couldn't help but overhear her sharp and frayed voice on the phone.
"I don't know if I'll come for dinner tonight, Mom. I don't know. It depends on whether George needs to stay at the hospital tonight or if he can come home. I'll call you from the hospital."
I felt like I had entered a Twilight Zone episode where the wife didn't realize her life had thoroughly changed, but everyone else knew ten deep intimacies about her future. We had already seen her in a black dress by the casket at George's funeral and eating lonely dinners by herself.
Going down the apartment stairs with George on the gurney was the first time that transporting a patient was uncomfortable for my whole body. Normally all the lifting is done through the legs with an erect spine. This time my neck and spine were pulled down, twisted unnaturally, and burning with heat. The sheer weight of George, combined with the gurney, on the steps' steep decline, was excruciating. Peter cursed after every few steps.
Not soon enough, we were loaded and inbound to Valley Medical Center. Just sitting in the rear of the ambulance of that era, in the hot San Joaquin Valley was a heat-filled, unsteady, bouncy experience. Challenged by gravity and jostled about by centripetal forces, I bent over and performed CPR for the endless forty-five minutes. We rolled into trauma room one, and while a physician assessed George, I hugged Susan goodbye. We heard the doctor prepare Susan for the reality of the situation. He gave her time with George, then stopped the code and applied a time of death. A beeline of social workers and administrators filed in, and now Susan, rather than George, became the patient.
I left the glacial air-conditioning of Trauma Room 1 in a pensive mood and emerged back onto roasting asphalt. The heat radiated through the soles of my shoes and the glare of the midday sun came for all the metal parts of our trashed rig. I felt like I had just played a joyless three-hour basketball game with no refs, no time outs, and certainly no winner. Only exhaustion. I grabbed a new uniform pack - a full change including socks, underwear and shoes, and headed into the ER bathroom. I never traveled without two new uniform packs because I knew blood, sweat and worse were waiting to cover me during a twenty-four-hour shift. After guzzling two Nalgene bottles of water, I felt the ebbing of my own raw adrenaline. Now, I was ready to emotionally retrace the call. As usual, Peter was in no mood to process with me. I cleaned up the rig and sensed my body felt off; sore and uncomfortable. It was hard to linger in my own sensations as we were called back into service within twenty minutes.
That night, my sleep was wakeful, my body stiff, and my lower back ached. Unforgivably. I dreamed I was camping on a precipice of sharp rocks. When I awakened at 5am, my lower back was locked in a spasm. If I listed to either side or breathed deeply, I involuntarily yelped. I limped and yelped (for one must breathe) the four blocks to work. It took forever.
Jim, now my supervisor, looked at me as I walked in and said, "You are not going out today. You can barely move. Was this from that call to Sanger yesterday?"
Like a typical twenty-three-year-old, I said, "I'm okay, really. I can work."
I was not grounded in reality at that moment. I worried that if I couldn't work, they would assume I wasn't tough enough and fire me.
"No. No, you can't work safely. How much pain are you in?" Jim asked.
"Um, I'm pretty uncomfortable," I admitted. I was at level seven out of ten of miserable.
"Head home and get some ice on your back. Take some Motrin. Put a pillow between your knees and feet. Get some sleep. Call me tomorrow before three and check in. If things are better after four days of rest, you can do night dispatch for two weeks, because you aren't going out on the ambulance until you're square."
I nodded and said, "Thank you, Jim. Thank you so much."
Jim paused and gave me a knowing look. "By the way, Peter called in sick from the Sanger call last night. Go home. And no basketball until your back is better." Jim smiled, and his soft eyes said he knew even I didn't want to hoop.
I soon discovered the spine was the centerpiece and foundation of a body, or at least of my body. Every human effort, even washing my face, smiling, or eating watermelon, recruited my spine. With an isolated leg or arm injury, I was able to see and touch all my connecting joints, ligaments, and tendons. The spine was mysterious to me. It had inner parts I'd never related to before. Soon my lexicon expanded to include this hidden anatomy: spinal nerve roots and the spinal disc with its rim protector, the annulus, and the inner gelatinous nucleus pulposus. These parts protect the spine from compressive forces at rest and with motion. I was just twenty-three, accustomed to running six or more miles a day, playing hoops and other sports. Movement was my expressive language, my music and my joy. Any injury was an adjustment, but with the unknowns and complications of spine pain, I felt more vulnerable.
Within a week, I became the night dispatcher from 7pm until 7am. Each evening, Siren wagged his tail and yipped upon my arrival. Then we alchemized into a six-legged creature as we crab walked his bed into the office. Darkness fell fully after 9pm. After that, whenever possible, I kept the overheads off and just bathed myself in desk lighting. The office became like a cave so either of us could go to a window and see the stars perched high in the blue-black night sky. In the quieter moments, and there were many, I studied the city maps as Siren slept on my feet. Every city, including Fresno, has its Bermuda Triangle of streets - the disjointed ones that ended abruptly and reconfigure themselves a quarter of a mile away. Or not. These are the places where ambulances get lost and delayed. My job was to learn my way around them and guide my colleagues around them.
Inevitably, the blackness of night began its transition. Softer grey light seeped into the edges of sky, then a rim of yellow orange emerged and ascended on the eastern horizon. Every morning Siren and I would watch the sun's rays light up the droplets of water, sleeping on grass blades or hanging on leaves. This ritual buoyed my hope that my body would fully heal like it had from past injuries. In the weeks that followed, I responded well to physical therapy. I returned to ambulance work, without pain, in four weeks. You might say I skated through the spine problem with no penalties, at least none that I felt or imagined at the time. Little did I know what was waiting twenty years down the line.
Soon after I was back working on the ambulance, Jim invited me to his home for dinner with his wife, Joyce, and son, Stanley. A meal with his family was the equivalent of getting a major promotion at Star Ambulance. Joyce, like Jim, was tall, kind, and carried herself with a flowing elegance. One that felt like a gentle warm breeze in her presence. Stanley was their bouncy, adorable and athletic nine-year-old son. Joyce honored me with an elaborate meal: gomae with toasted sesame seeds, homemade tempura and hand-rolled sushi. The dessert was playtime with Stanley; nerf basketball, drawing together and reading him to bed. Afterwards, the three of us sat down over tea.
"How are you feeling about school starting up again?" Joyce asked.
"Well, I'm getting excited and I'm a bit terrified. In the past, I didn't do great in the sciences." I was thinking of all the tears that had been shed in the Blueberry Pumpkin after exams.
"Wait a minute, that's in the past," Jim interjected. "You've been doing fine since you went back."
"Yeah, but it's going to get a lot harder from here on out; you know that," I said.
"Most of us walk around with some level of fear, but it doesn't have to run the show. It's just there. Acknowledge it but keep moving forward." Jim stopped to let me mull over his advice.
"You have a lot to offer, he continued, and I know you can do this. It will be hard, but you can succeed. That's what I think, and I'm usually right about these things," he said.
Joyce was nodding the whole time, and after Jim's thoughts fully were absorbed, she added, "It's true, you can do this, Julie, and you need to be able to hold onto that as you go forward."
The whole evening was like a nourishing meal, and a partial remedy for my own parents' less-than-encouraging approach.
Going to paramedic school would mean building stronger math and science skills. It would mean squaring off with the overblown, fervent voice of my dad and his many derivations of, "You're too stupid. You don't know how to do math or science. You never will. You can't. You aren't smart enough."
But now, there were other voices in my head - Jim, Joyce, Corrine Lane and my incredible friends. A rooting section in the stands that I would come back to over and over as I made my next long shots.
No comments: