Part 24: The Merlin Way

Try as we might, Bill Brown and I didn’t fit in with the rest of the class in the EMT refresher course we were taking two evenings a week at Arbutus Volunteer Fire Department. Bill was a paramedic from New Hampshire, and like me an entering emergency health services student at UMBC.

It was like a club, and we were not members. Everybody else in the classroom worked at a local firehouse or rescue squad except for us, the two strangers, the unaffiliated out-of-towners.

We felt about as welcome as Mormon missionaries at a bachelor party.

The instructor, firehouse veteran Don Mackey, had a facility for colorfully blunt and direct speaking, often punctuating his remarks with “…and you can take that to the bank.”

The curriculum was familiar, all standarized according to Department of Transportation guidelines, just as it was throughout the country. Straightforward and simple.

This sense that Bill and I were unwelcome interlopers wasn’t entirely imaginary.

One evening, Mackey called on me to answer a question about manual traction for splinting a femur frature.

“Well, back in Tennessee,” I began to respond, “We would…”

“[F-bomb] Tennessee,” Mackey interrupted. “You’re in Merlin now. We do things the Merlin way.”