Legacy

If it bleeds, it leads. That’s all too true today as media outlets fill their publications with murders, accidents and other tragedies. Between the time of the event and the story’s publication, medical professionals transport the victims from the scene to the hospital, simultaneously working to keep them alive. University students Aaron Webb, Floyd DesOrmeaux and Audra Jones stumbled upon the emergency medical services field.

Webb was in high school, thinking about what he might name his next rock band before becoming a paramedic. DesOrmeaux went from singing and studying opera at the University to working at his father’s business firm before becoming a paramedic. Jones managed a struggling coffeehouse before becoming an EMT-Basic.

Their lives were full of false starts until they became immersed in the medical field; they haven’t looked back since. They’re still in school, studying for careers beyond paramedicine, but when it comes to balancing scholastic obligations and saving lives, the scale often tips in favor of the latter.

“It’s nothing like television.”

The helicopter ride was a stuffy one.

Aaron Webb, kinesiology junior, and a pilot are taking the 15-minute trip from Hammond to Our Lady of the Lake Hospital in Baton Rouge. Their patient is a two-year-old baby girl who just stopped breathing.

The propellers hum, whirling while they cruise at 120 mph, 1,000 feet above the capital city.

Nothing frightens Webb, the 30-year-old Acadian Ambulance helicopter paramedic from Baton Rouge. But he has always had a soft spot for transporting children.

“I’ve never lost sleep over anything, but most people would agree, in my field, dealing with kids is the more difficult situation. Everybody feels for the kids,” he said.

The scene seems ripped from hospital television dramas, but the experience is nothing like the small screen portrays.

“It’s nothing like television where you see everybody running,” he said. “If everybody ran with the stretchers with people on them, people would be tripping and falling. It doesn’t happen like that. Family members would probably like to see that because that’s what they see on TV.… but we have to look out for ourselves and the patients.”

Around the station, Webb is calm and collected. He fills the breaks during his 24-hour shifts by plucking his acoustic guitar. He watches a movie here and there on one of the several televisions at the station. He might even read a couple chapters of Tom Robbins’ “Still Life with Woodpecker.”

Webb took a break this semester to work and obtain sufficient funds needed to finish up his tenure at the University. Not having to worry about schoolwork has lifted a large burden off Webb’s shoulders.

“School is 10 times more stressful than my job,” he said.

Unlike the majority of other students on campus, Webb didn’t go straight from high school to college. But, he never foresaw becoming a paramedic.

“[This job was] never something I thought about doing in high school,” he said. “Somebody was talking about it in the last few months of my senior year, and there I was.”

Webb worked 12-hour shifts when he attended school, and now he’s working 24-hour shifts since he doesn’t have to accommodate his class schedule.

“On the helicopter, we have less calls than [most ambulances] do in that time-frame,” he said. “We average five to six calls in a 24-hour period, almost half are cancellations.”

Webb doesn’t mind cancellations. They give him a chance to enjoy the sights the ride back to the station has to offer.

Webb started before Hurricane Katrina and had the chance to fly over Tiger Stadium when the Saints hosted one of their four games in Death Valley. He remembers seeing the end zones stripped of their traditional purple and gold and repainted black and gold.

“You don’t see that sort of thing everyday,” he said.

The job does have many cons: the seemingly never-ending shifts; the money going toward education rather than a new guitar.

But even after working for almost a decade, Webb said it’s still worth it.

“Some things become so routine,” he said. “But there are situations when you … know you’ve been a really big part of saving a life, making sure they have the best care possible. That’s one of the most gratifying parts of the job.”

“I got tired of being a jerk.”

Floyd DesOrmeaux, anthropology junior, was tired of the consumer finance business.

“I had to repossess a sofa loveseat and a chair for nonpayment,” DesOrmeaux said. “Then I had to watch this 50-year-old lady lie down on the floor to watch ‘Oprah.’”

Instances like this caused DesOrmeaux to quit his job at an $8 million firm at the age of 29. He changed his lifestyle and became a paramedic for Acadian Ambulance.

“I got tired of being a jerk,” he said. “When I started doing [this job], I found out how naïve I was. It was an eye-opener. I was dealing with a part of society that was something you read about in the newspaper. I went from being micro-managed in every little task to doing what is expected of you on your own.”

DesOrmeaux is studying at the University to become a nurse while taking care of his wife, Jennifer.

His wife, a one-time college athlete, suffers from “serious back issues” after being a paramedic for around 14 years. Her discomfort is caused by degenerative discs and fibromyalgia, a chronic condition characterized by widespread pain in the muscles.

On campus, he’s a 45-year-old part-time student that sports his uniform or “street clothes,” depending on whether he has to work after class. Between making time for forensic anthropology, folklore and foreign language, he takes online classes at Excelsior University.

In his 17th year on the job, he has more than enough on his plate.

“I just [keep going]. That’s the only easy way to explain way it,” he said. “I don’t want sound pompous and say it’s because of my self-determination. I just know it’s what I have to do.”

DesOrmeaux originally planned to get his physician’s assistant degree, but taking care of his wife and family became top priority earlier this year. With so much going on outside the walls of campus, schoolwork doesn’t easily fit into his schedule.

“It’s hard as hell,” he said. “I could probably have a 3.5 [grade point average], but I have to make sacrifices for the sake of my family. My wife is slowly getting better. I’m very fortunate, and I’ve had wonderful teachers who are very understanding.”

On the ambulance, he rarely gets an adrenaline rush anymore.

“All we can do [for these patients] is keep them around until we get to the hospital where the doctors can take over,” he said.

Physically, he admits the job is a “young man’s game,” but emotionally, he still responds to each case.

“When it stops bothering you emotionally, that’s when it’s time to get out,” he said. “When you become numb to someone else’s pain and suffering, it’s time move on.”

With numerous hours under his belt, the thought of quitting his job to focus on family and his job has crossed his mind.

“I’ve come too far to quit,” he said, sharing his new goal of going into hospice nursing.

It will be yet another change, but his years of experience in the medical field will make the transition to a hospice nurse less jarring.

“Whenever I go to a house, my own personal philosophy is that I have to treat that patient, and then, if they’re there, the patient’s family,” he said. “I have to treat the family psychologically. I have two minutes to become their best friend and to have their total confidence. If I can make the patient’s last days more comfortable, then I can make the family’s last days more comfortable, and I feel like I’ve done my job.”

In the meantime, he appreciates the little free time he does have.

“I make myself have free time,” he said, mentioning how he and his wife are making landscaping changes to his house and getting into pottery. “But I know when I’ve done too much. I’ll feel it, and say to myself, ‘Here comes the Aleve.’”

The man who once studied to be an opera singer at the University in the early ’80s, who once worked as a ruthless businessman, who lives for the rush of keeping a gunshot wound from leaking too much blood in the back of the ambulance, has now become a man of few needs.

DesOrmeaux’s only wants are a hospice job, a little free time to spend with his wife and a bottle of Aleve to take off the edge.

It’s not a glamorous wish list, but it’s enough for him.

“I love blood. I love guts. I love it.”

Lately, Audra Jones, who is in the first year of a two-year master’s degree program, has a new outlook on life — love it or leave it.

“Why do something if you don’t love it?” she asks. “Either learn to love it or get the hell out.”

The outspoken 21-year-old speaks from experience. Before taking on fewer shifts as an EMT-Basic for Acadian Ambulance, she “practically ran a Charlie’s Coffee location.” After quitting that job, she found an ad in the paper and began her training in the medical field.

With school and her new job, she was working nearly 80 hours a week.

“I used to sleep maybe two hours,” she said. “I was miserable, working shifts with nothing to enjoy.”

Lately, she’s calmed down, pursuing a master’s degree in forensic anthropology while working 24 hours a week as an EMT.

She’s no longer in it for the money. She works for the thrill, preferring paramedic routes in Prairieville to the transport jobs in Baton Rouge.

“If I work outside of Baton Rouge, I’m going to get emergencies,” she said. “There are the cardiac arrests, the car wrecks where you can do something to really help, gun shot wounds [and] stabbings. That’s what I live for.”

She lives for the sight of blood. In fact she said she only feels the adrenaline when she gets a signal 99 — the call where the patient is dead on sight.

“I might get to see decomposition. It’s like, ‘Oh my God, I did something that applies to what I want to do with my life,’” she said.

For the most part, Jones is a calm EMT; her M.O. is helping the patient. Nothing else.

“I don’t think of patients as people, because it’s a job,” she said. “If you’re a patient, you’re no longer a person to me. You’re an object, and it’s my job to do this to make you better. I’m not going to get emotionally attached to you.”

The only thing that tries her patience is the “B.S. calls.”

“It’s not my time you’re wasting. You called 911 and our ambulance has been assigned and has to transport you,” she said. “A mile down the road, a real emergency could happen, and we can’t respond to that because we have you in the back, and you have a headache.”

Contrary to popular belief, not all of the calls emergency medical professionals receive are plots for future episodes for “C.S.I.” Most of Jones’ shift is spent at the station, writing research papers and waiting for the next call. The hours aren’t ideal either — 6 p.m. to 6 a.m.

But the nightlife is just another aspect that she loves about the job.

“I love the night. You’re sharing it with so few people,” she said. “During the day, everyone’s here. At night, it’s you, your partner, all the crazy people up at night with you, all of the emergency personnel at the hospital, the police, the fire department, it eliminates so much of the population that it feels like a smaller world.”

In a year’s time, she has transformed. She’s one of the few people who have experienced first-hand how short life can be.

She now applies those experiences to her life. So much so that she created a bucket list. She wants to play tennis again. She wants to start a softball league. She wants to skydive.

Why? The reason is simple:

“Life is fleeting,” she said. “Be happy with every moment you have, you could die at any second.”

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