- Breijo, you have a transfer in Puerto Padre. Someone is in danger.
(Interviewee and interviewer cross-eyes)
- Well, Breijo, what do we do now? When do we meet?
- Tomorrow, here, at 8:00 in the morning.
***
Life's contingencies. Those that for much anticipation and calculation always surprise and generate tension, fears, anguish... determination. A storm of feelings, pure adrenaline.
Passion and drama. "It the same can be a pregnant woman in the urgency of childbirth, a heart tired of beating, an accident, head trauma, respiratory arrest, thrombosis, a fall, a fracture ... we always face something, every day." This is how Alfredo Breijo Cabrera, a paramedic-driver, sums up his work; the same work that fills him with pride because nothing offers more pleasure than "feeling useful and knowing that this person will return home to his family".
***
It's April 6th, a happy day for Iliana Pérez, the first case in Las Tunas with a positive diagnosis for COVID-19. Today she will be discharged, the wait, the pain, the guilt are behind; now there is only room for gratitude and relief.
- "But, is it you again?" - The 38-year-old woman smiles as the crew of Ambulance 010 arrives. Iliana has overcome the nightmare and "the constant pain in her soul."
"You see, my husband told me that I was fine and thank goodness because we are going home", says the resident in the community of Guayacán, in the municipality of Jesús Menéndez, to Yamilet Fernández Ávila, mother of two young people, one is internationalist and the other is an emergency worker; Yamilet, who accompanies her on the way back, was before her support in that other trip full of frights.
***
Nurse Yamilet, paramedic Breijo and doctor Frank Villares Viamontes receive the information. They are in charge of the transfer to the province of Holguín of the first positive patient in Las Tunas to the new coronavirus. Then the ritual begins, a saving ceremony in the shadow of SARS-CoV-2: pajamas, two green gowns and an equal number of pairs of gloves, masks, glasses and boots, chlorine and hypochlorite. With each one in its function and position, the Ambulance 010 starts its journey.
Yamilet remembers: "Iliana starts talking to her husband by phone, he tells her that he is fine and she tells him that she is also going to the Military Hospital. Then she asks me: "Could it be that he is well or he tells me so that I don't worry? I answer her: "Calm down, he is well." There was a lot of anxiety in the air.
Once at the health facility, the team delivers the patient. "As she was being admitted to a new unit, she had to remove her gown, mask, boots and everything was put in a disposable bag. After leaving her in the place, we took off the first pair of gloves and the first gown, then we fumigated the cart with hypochlorite, which was closed and after a few minutes reopened to be washed and closed again. Then we proceeded to take off the second pair of clothes, and with the pajamas we went to bathe, dress again and, well, to return.
In those moments every precaution is little and each member of the team takes care of the safety of the other. "Although we were calm, there is always some concern. You always have doubts, but we had taken all the measures," he says.
***
Getting home and telling about it was complex. The mother of this nurse with 24 years of experience, has diabetes mellitus, is a cardiac patient, hypertensive and suffers from kidney failure.
"Next to my little house, in the municipality of Majibacoa, my parents live. I told my mother that I had transferred a positive patient and that I needed her to stay isolated from me. Imagine, everyone was worried! and immediately asking if I had put on gloves, mask if she had taken care of me... I locked myself in the house until 14 days later I went to work."
For his part, Breijo, the paramedic, says he was not afraid: "I had already faced an outbreak of cholera in Pinar del Río in the port of La Coloma. So it was not strange for me to work with this rigor. It seems to me that I make fun of the coronavirus with extreme care, I am very demanding with the nurse, with my own protection and with the safety of the whole car. We were beating the fear and the coronavirus.
***
There are several professional and personal keys to this work. Those who face unpredictable situations know that this is a job in which "every day we learn a little bit more", Yamilet will say, "Faith and trust", he will sentence in another opportunity to refer to those "handles" in moments in which life depends on how agile and skilled they are. Love cannot be lacking, "a daily taste for how much is done," says Breijo, the man who enjoys giving birth, because nothing compares to the act of birth.
In the midst of so much tension, calm prevails. When the situation escalates in intensity, one must literally take the bull by the horns. "This is where life is saved. What we apply in the mobile is vital for the later work in the Emergency Intensive Care Unit (EICU). And I'm telling you, it's very hard to lose a patient. But it gives you great pride to know that a person will go home because of our work too.
***
It's Sunday, May 24th.
-Breijo, you have a transfer in Puerto Padre. Serious case...
The interview, a stumbling interview, must be interrupted. Duty calls and the ambulance crew will leave, again, in search of life. Afterward, in a dialogue that will not be restful either, Alfredo Breijo, the paramedic, will tell about the nearly seven hours he spent caring for that patient and the subsequent joy of seeing her recovered. Then he will confess: "Oh, what am I going to tell you, the moment motivates me, when I have to apply a code eleven and activate the siren to get there fast, to save a life; there is something that fills me inside and makes me feel that I am useful, that the life of a patient depends on me."
Life's unexpected events generate tension, anguish, and adrenaline. As contradictory as it may seem, there is also calm, psychological preparation, a cold mind and a warm heart. If the new coronavirus unleashes a "cytokine storm", inside the ambulances, firm wills will put up a good fight against COVID-19, or any shadow of evil.
