Invisible Scars

If you cut your finger, there is a possibility that a scar will show up on our skin. That scar will remind you for the rest of your life. Scars are also left behind on somebody’s mind.

I’ve been a paramedic for more than five years now. In those years I came across a bunch of different horrifying things. I’ve seen car accidents, heart attacks and strokes. Also houses you couldn’t imagine there would somebody live inside.

Every time I saw something horrifying, or something I wasn’t expecting, that left a scar on my mind.

All those scars gathered together you can find as stories on the following pages of this book. Sometimes I had to cut off stories or had to extend them a little bit. I am trying to protect the privacy of persons and patient involved.

All these stories have a few things in common. The most important one, all are real and happened. The second, dark humour.

I know, for an outside standing person that might sound very bizarre. Let me explain it. “Normal” humans can cry when they see a dead or dying person. As a paramedic, I need to help. I can’t help if I start crying beside the relatives. I can’t be emotional in such situations.

Now you might think paramedics are cold and sociopathic persons. But we aren’t. While in training and through years of experience, we learn a special “mindset”.

As soon as we get into an overwhelming situation, our bodies start to work. We are going over checklists in our mind without even thinking about them. Our muscle memory starts to work out what needs we need to do and immediately executes it.

It’s almost like our minds are watching our body do stuff without controlling it.

But what has that to do with dark humour? Every human has emotions, you can’t turn them off. We as paramedics get together after and hard mission and talk about it. That is the time when our emotions come back and need attention.

It isn’t as simple to get some of those horrifying pictures out of your mind. For example, I can remember exactly the first dead person I encountered in my paramedic life. But the more often I tell somebody about that experience, the easier it gets for me.

Everybody has a way to cope with certain situations. We as paramedics choose storytelling and a dark sense of humour. Don’t ask me why that is, because I don’t know that.

If these above lines don’t prevent you from reading on, join me on my journey through my paramedic life. Be prepared to laugh at situations you couldn’t imagine laughing.