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 […]
Hal Newman
146 posts
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 […]
A nugget of Big Medicine every day. #72 Collateral damage We got the news just before the start of another day shift. We cried like babies. I remember sitting on the back bumper of my rig with Blake Camp and trying to make sense of it all. Every rig in […]
A nugget of Big Medicine every day. #71 Don’t say this at home In learning the french language as a paramedic with Urgences Sante [Montreal EMS], I had several linguistic misadventures. These are two of my most spectacular wipeouts. On a night shift we pulled into Le Chalet de la […]
A nugget of Big Medicine every day. #70 Men with guns Men with guns are seldom rational. I knew something was wrong the moment he came into the store. It was just a few days before Christmas and while it was cold outside on the streets it wasn’t cold enough […]