Pulse Quotes

“Seven bucks. The price of a soul. Or a double quarter pounder with cheese.”
― Jean Knight Pace, Pulse: A Paramedic's Walk Along the Lines of Life and Death

“maybe we could also have a little conversation about jumping and/or falling from buildings. Generally speaking, this is a thing that we—as medical professionals—advise against.”
― Jean Knight Pace, Pulse: A Paramedic's Walk Along the Lines of Life and Death

“I see dead people—not because I was born with a paranormal ability to see spirits and help them resolve old issues—but because in my work as a paramedic there are a surprising number to see.”
― Jean Knight Pace, Pulse: A Paramedic's Walk Along the Lines of Life and Death

“There are days. Days when we’re not too happy about the calls we have to go on. Sometimes we handle it graciously. Sometimes we don’t.”
― Jean Knight Pace, Pulse: A Paramedic's Walk Along the Lines of Life and Death

“An equipment malfunction. A moment of humanness and error and imperfection. That split-second look of horror between partners, that strange connection in a moment when nothing could be done, and things went down from there.”
― Jean Knight Pace, Pulse: A Paramedic's Walk Along the Lines of Life and Death

“But true or not, safety or not, potentially life-saving or not, I will never enjoy looking into the face of an unwilling person and saying, “You’re going. You’re going because you’re too far gone.”
― Jean Knight Pace, Pulse: A Paramedic's Walk Along the Lines of Life and Death

“We don’t take life. And we don’t give it. God and fate and science govern those choices, sometimes allowing us to extend life, sometimes to heal life, sometimes to withdraw it from the unsustainable supports that want to carry it. Blurry lines of medicine. Lines that are hard to see through tears.”
― Jean Knight Pace, Pulse: A Paramedic's Walk Along the Lines of Life and Death

“You know, the worst thing about being a paramedic is always having to wonder if there’s something I could have done to make someone live.”
― Jean Knight Pace, Pulse: A Paramedic's Walk Along the Lines of Life and Death

“We’ll die from good things and bad things in all the wrong proportions—sugars and medicines, needs and wants. A dozen flavors of addiction. Sleeping pills, narcotics, methamphetamines. Breath too slow or heart too fast. All ashes in the end. Sometimes we can help with Narcan, the bag valve mask, chest compressions. But if the brain has died, then no heart thump or lung pump will ever bring you back. Not to yourself.”
― Jean Knight Pace, Pulse: A Paramedic's Walk Along the Lines of Life and Death

“Sometimes I just want people to vomit into the bag, to use their perfectly capable legs, to call their doctor during the day, to have appropriate equipment or skills for falls, to live in assisted care facilities if they always need assisted care, to go to bed at night, to stay off drugs, to stop cussing at strangers, to stay in when it rains, and—for the love of all that draws breath—to keep their clothes on. Is that too much to ask?”
― Jean Knight Pace, Pulse: A Paramedic's Walk Along the Lines of Life and Death

“Our next call is a pediatric psych. Depressing, every one. And depressingly frequent.”
― Jean Knight Pace, Pulse: A Paramedic's Walk Along the Lines of Life and Death

“If you’re lucky, you’re posting at the Dairy Queen parking lot, just trying to enjoy your Reese’s Blizzard in peace. And then, bam, four minutes later you’re standing in a puddle of blood, trying to put somebody’s insides back, well, inside.”
― Jean Knight Pace, Pulse: A Paramedic's Walk Along the Lines of Life and Death

“We enter crack houses and foster houses, group homes and strip clubs, trailers, mansions, split levels, ramblers, ramshackles, bungalows, old houses, new houses, brick, vinyl, aluminum, wood. We enter bars, temples, bowling alleys, churches, skating rinks, doctor’s offices, jails, barges, fields, factories, stores, gas stations, laundromats, cars, woods, bushes, Walmart, Target, Dillard’s. Buses, apartments, malls, schools, studios. Tonight, we enter the country”
― Jean Knight Pace, Pulse: A Paramedic's Walk Along the Lines of Life and Death

“We’re the ones who walk into your house, into your emergency, into your life that will never be the same. When we walk out, we’re never quite the same either.”
― Jean Knight Pace, Pulse: A Paramedic's Walk Along the Lines of Life and Death

“I would soon learn that many things in EMS didn’t go well. Rollovers, shootings, stabbings, beatings, murders, suicides, car accidents.”
― Jean Knight Pace, Pulse: A Paramedic's Walk Along the Lines of Life and Death