A Hard Lesson Learned

After talking with a friend of mine, I am recalling one of the most special events in my life. Although my involvement in this event was not my best moment, I am remembering the event and not only the history lesson learned, but the personal, hard lesson that I learned immediately.

I have wrote about this event many times in my life, and share this story in almost every class I teach on "customer relations". From time to time, I still get requests for a written version of this event, so here it is.

It occured many many years ago, when I was an EMT-Basic and before I went to paramedic school. I was working part-time at a small county hospital as an EMT on the ambulance. The hospital used the part time pool as back up for the emergency calls and for all of the interfacility transfers.

So one day, I was ordered to take this woman to a Memphis area hospital and truthfully I was pissed off about it. I was a fresh EMT and I wanted to do the emergency calls. That is what I went to school for, not these long boring transfers. I felt like that it was beneigh me. I was so much more important than this routine, boring interfacility transfer.

So me and my partner went upstairs to get the patient. Sadly, I wasn't as nice as I could have been. Her accent was almost impossible to understand and I just didn't want to hear her whin about the trip. She was going to have her broken hip surgerally repaired. God I didn't want to do this trip. Why did it have to be me? I was there for the emergency calls, for those lives I can save. I was a newly trained life-saver dammit and this was a waste of my talent. We pick her up and move her over to our stretcher, not as gently as we could. We carry her around the corner and hit the wall, not paying attention to what we are doing. We load into the unit roughly and head out on our way for the 2 hour trip. She is still trying to talk to me and I don't want to try to understand the accent.

I almost didn't take her blood pressure, but I did because I had to. I was going to take one blood pressure and then sit up in the captain's chair and ignore the patient. So I had to roll up her long sleeve shirt to get the blood pressure and I something caught my attention, a group of numbers tattooed on her forearm. Oh my God, I know exactly what this patient was.

Over the next two hours, I heard a first person account of the most horrible event of World War II. I learned of this patient watched her father shot in the back. I learned of this patient watching her mother walking nude into the now-known shower rooms and never returned. She told me as a young child, she learned that she was left alive for breading purposes.

I listened intently as this lady spun a web of historical truth, of unbelievable horror, racism, and death. I listened as this woman showed me respect and kindness even though I withheld those very things from her. I listened thinking this woman has all the rights to be pissed at the world; yet she was so kind and patient with me.

Looking back, its funny how that heavy accent was lost as she talked about the horror. I didn't have a bit of problems understanding what she was saying.

I also learned that day that everyone has a story, everyone has their own walk and path they have taken. I also learned that if I am lucky, I will be given a glimpse into their world.

I haven't lost that lesson.