The vibration of the pager has a sound all its own

The vibration of the pager has a sound all its own.

It's a low, insistent buzz — felt before it's heard — and in the fraction of a second before the speaker crackles to life, your body is already deciding what to do. Static. Modem tones. Then the dispatch, flat and efficient: Car versus motorcycle. Intersection of Route 299 and 44/55.

I am standing in my laundry room. It is a Saturday afternoon. Thirty seconds ago, I was thinking about where my wife and I might go for coffee.

Now I am a bundle of nerves pulling on my boots.

As a volunteer EMT, still newer to the work than most of the people I ride with, I'm not waiting at a station or posted in a parking lot. I am living my regular life until I'm not — until the tones drop and everything else becomes secondary. Given the location, I'll head directly to the scene while other volunteers bring the ambulance and the rescue vehicles from the station. This means I will likely be the first responder to arrive. I will be responsible for evaluating the emergency, triaging, providing what care I can, and directing bystanders and other first responders as the situation develops.

The drive is three minutes. Stress-induced time dilation makes it feel much longer.

I keep reminding myself of the old adage: slow is smooth, smooth is fast.

I pull up to find people clustered around a motorcyclist lying on the ground. Not moving. It is daunting to be first on scene with no backup, no ambulance, no senior partner to defer to. I don't know what I'm walking into, whether the bystanders will help or get in the way, or what the sixty seconds before I arrived looked like.

I grab trauma shears and a tourniquet from my car. I pull on my gloves. I check the scene. I take a breath.

Okay. Let's get started.

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