I remember sitting in the back of the ambulance after it was over, blood on my gloves, adrenaline still burning off like static. My partner and I just looked at each other and laughed—not because it was funny, but because we got through it. No one got hurt. The patient was safe. We did the job.

That’s the job. One minute you’re making fart noises, the next you’re standing in someone’s living room making life-and-death decisions.

By the time we got there, it was too late for anything but catching. In the backseat of that beat-up Buick, with snowcapped peaks behind us and traffic crawling past, a little girl let out her first cry. The dad cried too. So did the mom. And for a brief second, the world felt right.

If there were Oscars for field performances, I’ve seen some shoo-ins.

I’ve seen a lot of pain on both ends of a bad decision. But this one? It blurred the line between justice and vengeance—and left me wondering if either one walked away clean.

I wrote this after treating a man so full of bitterness it practically steamed off him. He was rude to his wife, combative with us, and made every second of the call feel like punishment.

I wrote this after a call that still haunts me—a crack apartment, a patient unraveling, and a single line I’ll never forget: “I wish I were dead now.” She didn’t say it for attention. She meant it.

In the span of twenty minutes, I watched that young man live through every human emotion on the spectrum—denial, rage, grief, panic, and finally, love.

The Cadillac was the closest I’ve come to believing I might get shot while sitting still. This wasn’t a call—it was a pause between chaos, and that’s what made it worse.

This piece is about the raw, technical act of starting an IV line under pressure—while your hands shake, the rig bounces at 60 mph, and a patient bleeds out in front of you.

Fishbowl was written on a day I realized just how exposed we really are out there. You spend your shift watching the world through a windshield, but sometimes the world stares right back—and doesn’t blink.

I wrote this one on a night where the job didn’t break me—but it sure as hell wore me down.

But behind the tics and worn clothes was a mind that still burned with precision—an ocean of knowledge in a man afraid to ask for help because he didn’t want to be seen as stupid. That line hit me hard. Because I’ve felt that too—the need to be understood, the fear of being dismissed.

I wrote this one after a shift that I’ll never forget—not because of what happened on the calls, but because of who rode along with me. My wife. She sat in the back of that rig, smiling like she belonged there, taking in the city, the chaos, the heartbreak, and the quiet in ways I hadn’t in years.

Writing this wasn’t about judgment. It was about survival. Because in this job, sometimes the only way to cope is to step back, laugh at the absurdity, and remind yourself that it’s okay to feel better when the rig doors finally close and the world is just a little bit quieter.

Part II of the story.

I wrote this one after a night that left me shaken—not because of blood or violence, but because I came face to face with something I’d never considered: someone impersonating me. Not me personally, but the uniform, the role, the responsibility.

I was sick. Really sick. And still dragging myself through shifts like a half-dead extra in a pandemic movie. The humor in this post is barely holding up the weight of how awful I felt, but that’s part of the job sometimes—you show up sick, you cough into your sleeve, and you pray you didn’t just give Sweden a gift-wrapped Denver flu bomb.

I wrote this one out of sheer frustration—and a creeping sense of violation. The job already demands so much: your time, your sleep, your sanity. But it shouldn’t demand your privacy.

This call was the inspiration for Chapter 1 in The Trilogy Project.