A nugget of Big Medicine every day. #82 Advice for the ages Early in my career as a paramedic, I was lucky enough to work with the late great Gil H. – one of the last of the previous generation of gentleman medics. Gil had started working on the rigs […]
Hal Newman
157 posts
A nugget of Big Medicine every day. #81 Intersections I miss the intersections. On the job, when we arrived at an intersection there were mere seconds to survey the situation and decide whether or not to proceed. “Clear right,” said my partner. “Clear left,” I said to myself. And then […]
A nugget of Big Medicine every day. #80 Breaking bad news It’s an odd talent. I’m really quite good at breaking bad news. When I went through medic school there were no how-to instructions on breaking bad news. Maybe they just left the bad news delivery to the cops, the […]
A nugget of Big Medicine every day.#79 Ciao Bella We were dispatched to a road traffic crash for a pedestrian down. On the way to the call the radio crackled with an update – the victim was a seven-year-old male trapped beneath a car. We hadn’t even made the intersection […]
A nugget of Big Medicine every day. #78 Mother moose The hunting trips were a family tradition. Kim and his kin would head up country to shoot some moose. That year the hunting permits specified calves. Kim set up shop in the woods. He waited until a moose calf came […]
A nugget of Big Medicine every day. #77 Jesus of Montreal It should not have come as any surprise to me when, during the summer of 1993, I became known among the cops and paramedics on the streets of Hochelaga-Maisonneuve as Jesus of Montreal. As a paramedic, I’d had a […]
A nugget of Big Medicine every day. #76 Boy racer Sometimes it’s the emergency flashers that brings them close like moths crowding a bright porch light on a warm August night. Other times it’s the mesmerizing slalom through slower traffic on long stretches of highway. It looks so easy they […]
A nugget of Big Medicine every day. #75 Tethers We were working a road traffic crash up on the Jacques Cartier Bridge in Montreal. It’s an unforgiving bridge because it features three curves including a big one in the middle where the deck passes over Saint Helen’s Island. The view […]
A nugget of Big Medicine every day. #73 Learn to hold hands Chris has big hands. When he shakes your hand there’s a sense of comfort that’s conveyed along with the warmth of his embrace. Di and I were the first couple Chris married after he became a pastor. We […]
Il vient un temps dans la vie de chacun, où il vaut mieux vivre le moment que de le questionner et/ou le défier à outrance… Nous avons tous répondu à des appels qui tombaient dans la zone dite « grise »… soit la Dead Zone des services d’urgence, dont l’instruction théorique ne […]