When the call came into the station, the dispatcher reported that the line disconnected after a person requested paramedics on scene. They attempted several callbacks, but there was no answer.
“Malcolm, are you here?” I quickened my strides as I rounded the corner from the hallway into his bedroom and found him unconscious on the bed, his hands lying peacefully over his chest.
“Malcolm,” I cried out and rushed to his side, dropping my jump bag at my feet. “Malcolm, can you hear me? Can you open your eyes?” I touched his shoulder and shook him gently.
When he didn’t respond, I leaned in closer, tilted his head back slightly, and lowered my ear to his mouth, hoping to feel his breath on my cheek and see the rise and fall of his chest. It was there but faint, as was his carotid pulse beneath my two fingers on his neck.
“His pulse is weak, and his breathing is shallow. I’ll check his blood sugar levels; you hook up the heart monitor.”
“Stay with me, Malcolm,” I pleaded, willing my voice to remain steady and calm under my increasing concern as I pricked his finger and drew blood. “Everything’s going to be okay. We’ve got you, I promise.”
I’d been so hyper-focused on Malcolm that I hadn’t noticed Alex wasn’t in the room with me.
“Alex!” I shouted.
Now wasn’t the time, I thought; Malcolm’s pulse wasn’t just weak from a sugar imbalance—it was weak because his heart wasn’t getting enough oxygen.
“Alex,” I called out again, straining to hear any signs of movement, wondering if he’d accidentally left the ECG monitor in the ambulance.
All I heard in return was silence.
With no other choice, I grasped the radio clipped to my shirt and asked, “Medic one-four-nine, do you copy?”
As the words left my lips, I heard my voice crackling through the static of a radio in the hallway.
“What the hell?” I didn’t have the luxury of time to question it; I needed assistance.
“Dispatch, this is medic one-four-eight requesting backup at the scene. I’ve got an unresponsive seventy-two-year-old male who is unconscious and has a history of diabetes. I suspect he’s suffered a cardiac episode, and my fellow medic has disappeared. Over.”
“Copy medic one-four-eight, sending additional backup now.”
I placed an oxygen mask over his face, adjusted the levels, and began prepping an IV line, as I needed to start pushing fluids to help with his circulation since his lips were beginning to turn blue and his skin was cold and clammy.
“Malcolm, can you hear me?”
There was still no response, so I checked his pupils; they were dilated and unresponsive to my light.
“Come on, Malcolm, stay with me,” I begged him while grabbing the glucose gel from my bag.
It was then that movement caught my peripheral vision, giving me pause. However, it wasn’t until a hand clampeddown over my mouth and a sharp pinch pierced my neck that confusion quickly turned to panic.
My cries for help came out garbled as I struggled against an unyielding grip. I scratched and grabbed at the person’s hands and kicked my legs until I fell backward and bounced my head off something hard. Suddenly, a heavy fog enveloped me, causing my limbs to lose all sense of feeling. At the same time, an unfamiliar numbness took hold, and my eyesight faded until nothing remained but darkness.
Chapter Twenty
Jameson
“Oh, thank goodness you boys are here; the beeping is driving me batty.” Mrs. Wallace said, looking somewhat exasperated as we approached where she was standing on her front lawn.
“Not to worry, we’ll check things out. You did the right thing by calling us. Carbon monoxide is odorless but deadly,” Cruz reassured her.
“I was napping on the couch and even without my hearing aids in, it’s crazy loud.”
“That’s by design, Mrs. Wallace. Just wait out here while I check the levels inside.”
“Please be careful, Jameson. I can’t afford to have your mom upset with me if anything were to happen to you.”
“No worries, ma’am, I’ve got all the protective gear I need.”
