The Infamous EMS Sense Of Humor

My EMT instructors are starting to tell their adventure stories. While I have always expected this, and they are told in the expected tone of boastful teacher, with a hint of baffled amazement, I still find these stories and their telling slightly distasteful. You can imagine one of these tales. They involve a detailed location: unclean house, destroyed automobile, nursing home. They have a patient who unwittingly became involved in the messy story. They have the hero who must deal with a situation beyond comprehension, who has a moment when they aren't sure it will turn-out ok. The outcome is never predictable. The story may end happily, unhappily or ambiguously, but there is always a moral. So far none of the story makes me uncomfortable. I believe these tales are an important part of our training. All the students need to realize that people before them have seen the bad stuff, and have all survived.

However, where I start to smell and taste something not quite kosher is with the humor. The jokes are always told with the medic's eyes darting to the side. They are remembering the situation and the incongruous thoughts that their brain created to take them away from the gore. These thoughts are unbecoming, but we all have them. These are the thoughts that make us laugh our
t loud while looking at a loved one's remains in a coffin. These are the thoughts that make us tell a joke when a co-worker tells us about their divorce. These thoughts make us remember the farting and pooping of death instead of the anguish of the family members. I know I can't judge these storytellers. I know my discomfort comes from knowing this will happen to anyone who regularly experiences these things, and that it keeps them sane. It just makes me sad that we can't all be Vulcan logicians and see the bad parts and know them for what they are: inevitable parts of all our lives.

Now, I don't mean to be a total bummer: for a more light-hearted view of a similar topic check out this Talk of the Town in the latest New Yorker: Last Call.