I'm sure over time, I'll have the opportunity to tell plenty stories. Although this is a tragic one, it's not one of the nightmares.

I had worked as an EMT for several years and hit the streets with my freshly minted Paramedic card. I was in command of my vessel. The decisions were mine to make. I was in charge of every scene at which I arrived. I hated it. Almost from the start, I hated street medicine. We were all idealistic when we started, but things change when you spend most of your shift running system abusers and driving Miss Daisy to dialysis. I lasted a year on the street, but I had mentally checked out a couple of months back when I entered negotiations with the company's safety and remote medical division. I was accepted, trained and ultimately deployed to a drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico just over a year after getting my paramedic card.

I spent my first six months on this rig, and was apparently impressive enough that when they got the call to staff another rig and needed someone to make an impression, they called my number. So I reported to that rig for my next hitch. That's the background.

I arrived at my new rig to find the supervisor from the previous company running the show. This guy had been doing this type of work for many years, and frankly I found him to be grossly incompetent.

Let me take a step back here, and explain that the offshore medic is about 98% administrative job, and only 2% medic work. The fact of the matter is those guys work incredibly safely in an enormously risky occupation. Even the greenest kid takes on adult responsibility in very short order offshore. He has to. His life depends on it. Even though we spend the bulk of our hitch attending to the mundanities of the rig operations' administrative functions, we have to be medically ready at all times. The medic on smaller rigs is also the Helicopter Landing Officer. That was one of my duties on this rig. So on the second day on the rig....

The lift boat was jacked up platform level at one of the opposite corners of the platform, while my rig was on the wide side. Our configuration cantilevered the drilling floor over the platform so we were in line with the well in which we were drilling. In this configuration, our drilling floor overhung the helideck (a small 25 by 25 helicopter landing area). High above, and clear of all obstructions was the rig helideck, an Octagon with 65 feet of wide open landing space. I was in my clinic/office/bedroom when I heard the helicopter approach. It was a routine flight for the small helicopter and just the pilot was in it as he came to pick up a guy to take him to shore. He and I were waiting up in a safe area on the rig, expecting the helicopter any moment. We were blind to the area behind us. We heard the helicopter approaching and heard operations give him a "green deck" (OK to land at pilot's discretion). Suddenly, we heard to fast WHACK WHACK, and about a second later, no more helicopter sounds.

We looked around the corner from our high vantage point, and men from every direction were running to the platform. They called me on the radio and said "medic to the platform with your gear. Helicopter is in the water."

We determined later that, for unknown reasons, the pilot had tried to land on the obstructed platform helideck. As he approached the rig, he realized he was not going to make it and tried to reverse back out. When he did this, his main rotor blades struck the substructure of the drilling floor and the helicopter went into the water. Inverted. Since rule #1 in any emergency situation is "Don't become part of the problem," no one was allowed to just dive into the water. We watched the helicopter float just barely submerged, for a few minutes, and just about the time that the liftboat had launched their rescue boat, the helicopter disappeared from view, down 68 feet. We knew that the current below would push the helicopter away, so the rig electricition (clever guy) fashioned a rope with a 3 hook jig and started "fishing" for the helicopter. Amazingly, he caught it. We tied it off to the railing of the liftboat.

It took about 3 hours for a nearby dive boat to come to our aid, but the helicopter company's response team was already onboard. They provided slings for the liftboat crane operator to bring the helicopter up.

I'll take a timeout here to let you know that whenever an emergency happens offshore, boats and helicopters show up from every direction to render assistance, especially when there is a man overboard situation, which we clearly had.

So anyway, the dive boat arrived and the diver took the slings and some rope down with him. He secured the pilot in the position found and attached the lifting sling. The helicopter was lifted from the sea floor and placed on the back of a crew boat. As we all watched, my Offshore Installation Manager (OIM) and the oil company representative, and myself decided that we were the team to go and recover the body. We took a 4 man device and the crane put us on the deck of the boat. All of the lexan (glass) was broken out of the helicopter, and the pilot was tied in where he was found. Basically near the roof of the aircraft. I crawled into the aircraft, deflated his lifevest and released the pilot so I could assist in sliding him out for the body bag.

I looked at his face. He was so young. There was evidence that he was conscious when he finally inhaled water. We got him out and zipped him up in the body bag and returned to the rig.

I knew from that day on that I had been drastically changed somewhere along the line. My brain processed information differently. My emotions were completely calm. My OIM was shaken but OK. The Company Man called for a helicopter that afternoon. His last words as he departed were, "Fuck this. They don't pay me enough for this shit." He was changed that day too.

For me? It was another day at the office. I slept fine that night. I don't know when and where the change occurred prior to that day, but I was definitely a different person. This day was the proof. I'll never be what I was before I became a paramedic.

I guess I'm OK with that. I have some amazing defense mechanisms.

A post script: After proofreading this piece, it kind of feels like the type that @Vickidoc might like to have read in a live show. Let me know.

pps: I decided to open this up to "members" so they could see a sample. I'm satisfied that it is good enough to be representative of what I can do. I really need to find a way to get us to 50 supporters so the live shows can improve. I also wish to note that stories like this may show up from time to time, but I really want to bring the funny. That, too, needs people.