Motor vehicle versus bicycle. Usually not serious. Start code two response, lights, no sirens. Then I hear another voice, a first responder, frenzied, and I flip the siren and floor the gas.

"Step it up, now!"

Arive on scene a minute later. A sweeping glance tells a tragic tale of a life ended far too early. Three EMT's kneeling in a growing pool of blood, making a show of performing CPR, knowing the futility of their efforts. A mostly finished case of beer. Two officers holding back one of the victim's friends from the intoxicated driver, screaming his hatred of the man he did not know until minutes ago. I relieved the guy on compressions so he could ready an airway and O2. My palms press in to the yielding flesh of his sternum and I know there is no life left to this young, strong boy. Even through the blood I see he is younger than me...much younger. Logic tells me the blood on the ground is roughly half of his bodies volume. Every compression forces a few more precious drops to the ground. Someone takes over for me as I strip off my gloves and prepare to run escort for Rescue 2. The gloves I drop to the ground, hoping to leave the memories of what I've just seen with them. Even with all precautions his blood is now part of me. Not for the first time, not for the last. The faces of my comrades say that they know, too. The rushing, grabbing equipment and cot, radio calls to the hospital to prepare them. It's all a show. This boy was not meant to live, was not alive. There is nothing we can do, but we cannot do nothing. I race ahead of the ambulance to block the one major intersection then fall in behind to make sure they had enough personnel to unload. Pulling in to the parking bay I see they are set. Sitting in the parking lot in my Jeep I look from the blood on my wrists and hands up to the badge on my chest. My fingers touched the well worn metal crest and I wondered, not for the first time, was what I just saw worth the weight this badge sometimes carried? What a temptation to be rid of the weight. A shadowed figure emerged from a police cruiser caught my attention. He started toward the door of the ER then saw me and turned toward my truck. He stopped ten feet away and looked up with tears on his cheek. In the silence his whisper washed over me like the rumble of thunder.

"I know you couldn't...I mean...hey, thank you for trying."

He turned and walked toward the ER to hear what he already knew, too. I looked back down to the metal symbol on my chest. I made up my mind again, not for the first time, that I could bear the weight the badge carried. I made up my mind, turned the truck, and headed back to the family who'd have to understand my silence one more time.