Report From Engine Co. 82 - Dennis Smith [91]
A large crowd has gathered in front of the building. One man is agitated, and he shouts, “Why don’t you put that man in a fire engine and take him to the hospital?” He speaks clearly, without any trace of the black dialect or the ghetto localisms. I ignore him, because I know that he doesn’t understand the workings of an emergency service. We don’t take people to the hospital because it ties us up. We deal in seconds and minutes. Seconds and minutes determine life and death in our business. But this man doesn’t know that. He only knows that a man is bleeding on the street, and there are no ambulances to take him to the hospital. He yells again. “You motherfuckers don’t care about black people. If that man was white you’d have him in a hospital soon enough.” Many in the crowd nod in agreement, and others stare with interest. I look at the man on the ground, and then look at the intruder. I would like to tell him about the kind of work firemen do. I would like to tell him about people in this very neighborhood who are enjoying life only because of the actions of firemen. But it won’t make any sense. This man doesn’t want to like me. Not here. Not now. Another time, perhaps, I can tell this man that I care as much as he about the bleeding man at my feet. Even more important, J can ask him why he thinks I don’t care.
Four ambulances turn the corner at Intervale Avenue—the disaster unit from Bronx-Lebanon Hospital. The Chief radios the word into the building, and firemen begin to carry the victims out. They are in chairs, or on stretchers. An attendant brings a wheel chair to me, and we lift the bleeding man into it. The attendant rolls the chair to the ambulance, and the driver assists us as we lift the chair into the antiseptic confines of the truck.
No one ate hamburgers in the firehouse today. They were ruined, but even if they were not burnt and dried out I don’t think anyone would have felt like eating. It is after six now, and I’m sitting on a bed by my locker, putting on a clean pair of socks. The Chief called the hospital, and they told him that three of the victims were dead on arrival. The large woman was dead. She was eight months with child. Two men were dead, but Benny puffed life into the baby.
And now Benny is lying in a bed in the men’s ward of Bronx Hospital. He collapsed finally, after bringing the small, breathing girl to the ambulance. The men’s ward at Bronx is a dingy place, and I’ve seen many firemen recoup there after they brutalized their bodies in the course of their work. There are sixteen beds in the square, dim-gray room, and lying next to Benny is Joe Mazillo who was one of the men who fought his way down from the roof. And next to Joe is Lieutenant Connell who supervised the roof operation. The department medical officer has told us they will remain in the hospital for at least three days, for rest, blood tests, and X-rays. But Jim Stack will have to stay a little longer. He is across the hall in the intensive care unit, suffering dangerously high blood pressure and nerve palpitations. He felt a shocking pain as he helped George Hiegman connect the pumper to the hydrant. And Artie Merritt has been transferred to the Manhattan Eye and Ear Hospital where he will spend the night. He cut the cornea of his eye as he hit a table corner while crawling through the smoke. Three human beings are dead, and ten are hospitalized for a fire that should have been routine.
I wonder what all this means. Is it ontological proof—that what God gives, He also takes away? Or does it mean that if there were no drug addicts in New York City people wouldn’t have to put chains on roof doors?
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