Emergency

This sample answer is from Cherrybrook Technology High School, which asked 2022’s students to

Write your own original narrative. This story may be linked in terms of ideas/concepts or characters or form to any of the core or craft texts but should represent something that you are particularly interested in writing about. You may write in any form except poetry. 800 words.

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Professional Standards Committee – Incident Investigation into the Death of Senior Paramedic Anthony J. Orchard – Ref # 27-3-237. Statement of Paramedic Officer Nin A. Morgan – Transcript

Morgan: I would like to put on the record from the outset that I had warned my line managers of Senior Paramedic Orchard’s perceived failure to adapt to the new direction since Directive Six was introduced in February of this year.

Chair: It has been noted.

Morgan: Dispatch received a call and we responded at 1422, arriving on the scene at the north end of Ferguson Street at 1436. We had been on a crib break from 1200 to 1300 and we had both been on day shifts for the last week.

I was on treating duty and Para. Orchard was driving. We had agreed that this was the most effective way to deliver service, since Tony had been very clear about his resistance to Directive Six.

Chair: To be clear, Para. Orchard stated his refusal to supply existential relief to those patients whose situations were deemed hopeless and whose social scale permitted it?

Morgan: That’s correct.

Chair: How long before the incident did he make these views clear?

Morgan: In my recollection, on the training day in early January, and then the next day, when the LCPs were distributed. He refused to take the one he was issued.

Chair: And this is how he came to use your LCP to end his life?

Morgan: That’s correct.

Chair: Thank you. Please continue.

Morgan: I was the lead in treating the patient, who had a stab wound to the rear shoulder area. I assessed the injury and determined that the patient’s subclavian, axillary, and brachial arteries were undamaged, but I thought – and Tony concurred – that there had been damage to the nerves, probably the suprascap. and axillary, and that the tricep muscle had been severed.

At this point Dispatch flagged another call that the National Club, which is one block north. It was a male in his fifties with suspected cardiac arrest. I know that I should have turned my radio off before arriving at the scene.

Tony told me to turn off the radio and not to think of attending that job. He was the senior officer, so I complied with that. He said we should take the patient to the Morrison Hospital, and I began strapping him in to the stretcher. As I did so I remembered that the Morrison often has bed-block in the afternoons, and suggested we take him to St. Lawrence’s. We loaded the patient and I looked in his wallet for ID and emergency contacts. I saw that he had a blue card and was listed as a Superfluous Tradesman – Bricklayer.

I drew Para. Orchard’s attention and he said I should not have looked, and that the patient’s Scale Position was irrelevant. I reminded him that, under Directive Six, blue card holders were not priority, and that we would be told that in whatever triage we presented him to.

Para. Orchard halted the vehicle. We were very nearby the National Club and he got out, opened the unloading doors, and started shouting. I got out and –

Chair: What was Para. Orchard shouting?

Morgan: He…ah…he said… “Fucking social Darwinism”, and that he didn’t get into this job to kill people. Then he sat on the loading step and started crying. Traffic was banking up around us and then the doorman from the Club came over to ask if we were there for the cardiac arrest job.

Para. Orchard shouted at him to fuck off. I said to Orchard that we could take both, but that the cardiac arrest would be priority and so he would go to the Morrison. If we made two drops to the hospitals permitted by each patient’s scale, we would likely lose them both.

I said that Directive Six made it clear that the higher-scale patient took priority. I pointed out that the lower-scale patient was Superfluous and couldn’t earn anyway because of the nerve damage to his arm.

Chair: And what was Para. Orchard’s response?

Morgan: He continued crying. He said it was unbearable.

Chair: What did he mean by that?

Morgan: I don’t know.

Chair: Continue.

Morgan: I knew that Tony didn’t have his LCP so I took mine out, but found that the sound suppressor wouldn’t screw on to the barrel. It was the first time I had used it. I told Tony and said that we’d have to call Dispatch and explain that a relief was going to happen in a Zone 1 area but that we didn’t have a working suppressor. He just kept crying and saying we were murdering people because they were poor. I made a call and effected existential relief on the patient at 1456. I was exiting the back of the vehicle when Tony wrestled the LCP from me. He stepped away, put the LCP in his mouth, and fired.

It happened very fast. I was very shocked. I mean, the Directive had been quite clear about patient priority.

Chair: And so at this point you had a dead colleague, a relieved patient, and a waiting patient?

Morgan: That’s correct. The doorman assisted me with the bodies, and I got the cardiac job into the vehicle alone and took him to the Morrison where he was triaged at 1508.

Chair: And the bodies?

Morgan: The National Club agreed to keep them until the Waste Collection Team could pick them up. I believe they went into the kitchen cold room. I returned to the station for my second break at 1536.

Chair: Thank you, Para Morgan. The inquiry is grateful for your statement.