What It’s Like to Lose a Child Patient

In Short: Memorable.

My ambulance then was nowhere near this modern! (Photo: Chiradech on YayImages)

I was an ALS medic in rural northern California, and there’s one call I think of often — even though it was 38 years ago. We were dispatched to a possible drowning in the Mad River, which reaches the Pacific just north of the town of Arcata, where we were based.