The Phone Rang

Sunday night we were readying for our winding down time, my husband and I. We'd both showered and were in our robes and house slippers. I'd just curled on the couch with a book, snuggled beside him. It was 9 p.m.

The phone rang. My father-in-law was on the floor, my mother-in-law said.

We rushed to put on our shoes and britches and dashed over to their place. They live just across the hill, not even a mile.

My father-in-law, who is 73, sat in the floor, leaning against the couch. He was crying out and clutching his chest. He had a heart attack in 1995 and has angina.

My husband, the professional firefighter and EMT, took charge, getting vital signs, asking questions. Call the ambulance, he said, even though the vitals looked okay.

Not long thereafter the aunt and uncle from just up the hill arrived. Around here everyone has a scanner and one of our cousins heard the call go out, and so called my father-in-law's sister.

My mother-in-law rode in the ambulance; we followed after we locked up the house and picked up a couple of items we thought my father-in-law might need. My husband's sister, who lives closer to the city, beat us to the hospital.

The wait in the waiting room was long and midnight came and went and daybreak was on the horizon before we got the results of some blood work back.

To make a long story short, they kept my father-in-law even though the blood work and X-rays and EKG were all negative, and he's still up there doing tests. But he seems to be alright.

The rest of us are very tired.

During the drive in and at various points during the very long night, my husband fussed about the volunteer squad that responded. They didn't do much that suited him and with the county's blessing the rescue teams now bill people's insurance companies when they respond. To my husband's mind, if you're going to pay for the service then you should get professional service, not the cats and jammers kids.

I'm just a civilian who hasn't a clue what should be done in such an emergency, so I wouldn't know if they did anything right or wrong. Neither would the majority of the citizenry, which I suppose is his point. If you're going to have to put out the money when someone responds, you should get what you pay for.

Since someone is responding, and we're a capitalistic society, then the responders have earned something. Perhaps his real complaint isn't that they're charging, but that the volunteers are currently charging the highest rate of anyone in the area.

And if they're going to charge even more than the professionals, then the professional expects them to do it right.