Andrew Vladeck

There’s No Place Like Home

It was an absurdly gorgeous spring day in New York’s Central Park and my Ranger partner, Linda, and I were patrolling (or, as we often referred to it, pa-stroll-ing) through the Conservatory Garden.  All of the flowers had exploded at once and everyone was euphoric.   Linda and I commented to each other how blessed we were to have such a wonderfully random job – to be running around with school kids, teaching nature stuff and climbing rocks one minute, and the next be on routine park patrol without a care in the world.  Just then we heard a shout for help – aimed at us. 

“Help, Ranger! Help!” Linda and I flashed looks of trepidation at each other. We had received no training ­– medical, nor enforcement – to help anyone in trouble. We were primarily educators, though for that too we were barely trained.  It was the trial-by-fire approach of city bureaucracy: untrained educator-officer with silver badges and funny hats, educating and enforcing the law.

We hustled to the scene.   We rounded the corner past an azalea in magnificent bloom and arrived before a gorgeous fountain. There on the concrete was a skinny white man laying unconscious, with a circle of people around him.  An attractive, healthy-looking young blonde woman was crying and frantic, as others tried to console her.  She said she was his girlfriend and that he had just collapsed.  The man’s lips were blue.  He appeared to be in his mid-thirties, and looked pretty beat up, even for someone who wasn’t breathing.  He was emaciated. He was missing many teeth and the ones left were rotten.  The thought that he and his girlfriend made an odd couple flashed through my mind.  Some strangers were giving him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.  “Good grief,“ I said to myself, “there’s no way I’m doing that.“  In either case, I was the one in uniform, and etiquette dictated that Linda and I should make ourselves useful. My only medical training was from my lifeguard certification in high school.  At the very least, the situation called for checking for a pulse, as this was something Central Communications would want to know when they dispatched an ambulance. I kneeled next to his pallid body and placed two fingers on his neck where his carotid artery should be while placing my ear over his mouth to feel for his breath.  All eyes were on us.

As I completed this maneuver I leaned back up and my eyes met with those of a joyfully astounded young woman. She was smiling widely and kneeling directly across the man’s lifeless face.  She cheerfully ejaculated, “oh my god, Andrew?  Hi!  I didn’t know you were a park ranger!“  It took me a second or two to place her. It was the flute player I had met not 12 hours earlier at a show downtown – possibly the only rock-flautist I had ever met. I looked at her. The crowd looked at us. I blurted a quick hello and announced to all that the man had no pulse.

I grabbed the radio from my hip to request an ambulance.  For the sake of those assembled, I wanted to present myself as a pillar of strength, an island of calm, a seasoned officer.  I pressed the transmit button and in an authoritative voice I initiated contact, “Manhattan 77 to Central, K.”  Central replied, “Manhattan 77, this is Central, proceed.”  I continued stoutly, “Be advised…” but then I lost control of my voice, as it swung upward an octave and I spoke louder and faster, blurting: “adult male, approximately 35, unconscious, no pulse.  Requesting ambulance. Conservatory Garden, 5th Avenue at 106th Street.” I got the point across, but it wasn’t going to win me points for composure. 

After an eternity of 2 minutes, EMS arrived.  A burly black medic stepped out of the vehicle, took one look at the fella and gruffly said to the girlfriend, “Heroin, right?”  She shook her head and said no.  Without taking his eyes of the girlfriend the medic mashed an oxygen mask to the man’s face, and asked coyly, “you sure about that?”  She denied it again.   The medic asked how old the man was, while forcing air into the man’s face. She answered “seventeen.“  The medic retorted, “Really?“ and without taking his perturbed glare off the girlfriend, in one fluid motion, made a fist, gave the man a wallop on his chest, then pulled up the man’s sleeve, revealing a barrage of red needle marks down the man’s arm, asking dryly, “How ‘bout now?”  She finally acquiesced, admitting her boyfriend shot up in the bathroom. The medic exclaimed, “Now we’re getting somewhere,” and with a syringe containing a clear fluid that he immediately produced, gave the man his second shot of the morning. 

What then followed was one of the more dramatic recoveries I’ve ever witnessed. Within a minute of receiving this antidote, the formerly fairly-dead man opened his eyes, sat up, and moaned weakly, “Ooh. Where am I?”

The medic offered, “You’re not in Oz anymore,” and wheeled him into the ambulance.

Posted on 04/15/11 at 08:58AM | Filed under: | 3 Comments