It Is Always the Boyfriend

We were sitting down to dinner after a steady day capped off with Battalion-level training. Jim had produced one of his culinary masterpieces. Side note: his ability to create fantastic meals was inversely proportional to the number of dirty dishes he left behind.

As usual, a hot quiet meal was not in the cards. The tones dropped — unresponsive two-year-old at an apartment complex on the Ave.

The kitchen cleared in seconds. Battalion 61, Engine 61, Ladder 61, and Medic 61 were flying down the avenue. Dispatch had nothing further.

We arrived to a mob of people screaming and crying. A woman ran up to Darrin and handed him a limp little boy.

Darrin sprinted to the back of the medic unit. We followed.

Mike, our BC, told the L61 and E61 officers to stay with their apparatus and follow the medic unit to the hospital. He’d wait for the deputies.

The back of that unit was controlled chaos. I got the airway secured. Marc got the IV. The rest of the guys were on compressions, drawing medications, running the algorithm — all the organized frenzy of a pediatric CPR. I called the ER. Two-year-old, CPR in progress, airway and IV secured, running the asystole algorithm, five minutes out.

The ER techs had the doors open before we stopped rolling. Nurses and a doctor held the corridor doors as we wheeled him in. We did the turnover and I stepped back to write the report while the guys cleaned up the unit and got it back in order. Dan and Duane came in from their rigs to check on things.

Nobody had said much. There hadn’t been time.

The guys were standing around the medic desk while I finished the paperwork. Maybe five or ten minutes passed.

Then the chaplain came through with the family.

It went dead quiet.

They walked past us without looking, which we were grateful for.

Figure 1 Adobe Firefly Image

Then the toddler’s older brother — maybe five years old — tugged on his mother’s sleeve and asked if he could play with his little brother now.

We went outside.

It took a while before anyone was ready to go back in. I composed myself enough to hand over my written report. Nobody could look at each other, which was fine.

We caravanned back to the station — almost. Dispatch dropped a multiple vehicle MVA with entrapment on us before we cleared the parking lot.

It wasn’t. It was a minor fender-bender with a crowd of people complaining of PEMCO pain.

The deputies came by the station later that night. The boyfriend had smothered the baby.

It is always the boyfriend. If there is a dead child and the boyfriend was in that house, it is all but guaranteed.