A Teaser from Final Sin

There wasn’t anyone there who didn’t look like they weren’t ready to heave. Julie felt sorry for the vollies, the members of the local volunteer ambulance corps. At least she and Matt were being paid to be there. Then again, no amount of money was worth witnessing the carnage that was lying there before them.

Matt had done the unwelcome task and already pronounced one of the girls dead. It was obvious death, obvious to anyone. Trying her best not to step into the pool of blood or disturb anything else vital to the crime scene investigation that would follow, she finished preparing the one girl who was still alive for transport.

A young man in his late twenties or early thirties, Julie wasn’t sure without reading the patient care report, had been burnt when his shirt had caught fire. He was sitting huddled and guarding his severely burnt arm as Matt treated him. He looked scared and in shock at the events around him and wouldn’t look at any of the police officers who had responded. Julie assumed that it was his need to deny the trauma.

A broad shouldered officer came through the door and took command of the scene. He seemed hardened to the butchery, almost as if he had seen too many gruesome scenes just like this one. Dressed in a dark blue baseball jacket, open collar knit shirt and khaki pants, he donned a pair of latex gloves he had carried in his pocket and began an almost detached visual inspection of the room. The springy snap of the elastic gloves stretching to fit his large hands was in sharp contrast to his motionless stance. Other officers at the scene deferred to his judgment and took instructions from him as he calmly took in the entire scene. He was concerned with the best way to collect the pertinent evidence to tell the story of what had happened.

As Julie and one of the ambulance crew members moved the surviving girl to the gurney, she risked a quick look at the tall officer’s dark eyes and noted that there was a thinly disguised veil of dismay. He had intrigued her with his stony expression and seeming aloofness to the horrors, and his complete focus on the collection of relevant clues.  Somewhere in the recesses of her mind, it was a comfort to Julie that the cop was not completely indifferent to this horror or detached from the human cost.

For Matt and Julie, their tour of duty had started out like many others. There had been a call to a minor motor vehicle accident, another for chest pains and one more for a cancer patient who needed to go to the hospital for treatment. Many of the upstate New York communities had contracted with Paramedic services to complement the existing ambulance corps and provide emergency medical response. Whether paid or unpaid, the certified corps always responded with Emergency Medical Technicians who were capable of handling most emergencies. When the Paramedics were dispatched as well, IV drugs and additional hands could often help make critical differences when necessary.

This call had gone out over the radio for a burn victim, so none of the responding police, fire fighters, volunteer ambulance crew nor paramedics were prepared for what they found when they reached this isolated tool shed. From the outside, the grayed wood had seemed serene enough, and the one small window had been caked over with dirt. She didn’t think that she would have given the shed a second glance under normal circumstances. But this was far from normal. No one had anticipated the horror scene inside.

Final Sin

Final Sin is the first of my two EMS mystery stories.

I’ve been a NYS Emergency Medical Technician since 1987 and a volunteer with Stony Point Ambulance Corps ~ my whole family works and volunteers in emergency medical services. While Final Sin, and it’s sequel Hyphema, are works of fiction, many of the EMS perspectives are very real.

Being an EMS volunteer has been a completely enriching experience and has given me a wonderful opportunity to be a vital asset to my community which depends on volunteer emergency services. All of these years of being an EMT has also given me great insight into the beauty and fragility of human life.

I hope you will share some of my experiences – please read my books Final Sin and Hyphema. And why not consider volunteering in your own community and helping your neighbors in their times of need?

Taking an ambulance ride & Final Sin

Have you ever been a patient in an ambulance? How did it make you feel? Did you wonder about the people who were caring for you, what their training was, how much they cared about your well being? I’d love to hear your comments below.

I have the memory of being a patient twice in the past, once after a relatively minor car accident and once for a severe asthma attack. The asthma attack was especially scary because the treatment en-route was vital, it was definitely more than just a transport.

I also have the terrific perspective of being one of those trained individuals giving care to patients on the way to hospital. I’ve been a volunteer EMT with my local ambulance corps since 1986. Sometimes the care provided is simple compassion and transport… sometimes we work hard to save a life. I’ve delivered babies – and I’ve done CPR trying to restart a heart. Both successful CPR and holding a newborn in your arms can give you a really heady feeling.

My entire family is in emergency services, both volunteer and career. That’s why, when I wanted to write a mystery suspense, it seemed natural to make my characters emergency service professionals. Going by my own experiences, where else do you get to see so much of life?

I encourage each of you to consider volunteering with your local ambulance squad; the rewards of being able to do something to help, to give some people the only chance they may have, and to know that you have provided (at the minimum) comfort and reassurance is never-ending. There are many ways to be a vital part of your community, give your ambulance corps a chance – it is definitely worth it.

About Final Sin:

Deputy Sheriff Commander Jake Carson has his hands full…

investigation of a brutal multiple homicide, a troubled son and a

vindictive ex-wife. He meets young, free-spirited paramedic Julie

Jennings. When Julie becomes the subject of an obsession, it puts both

of them in danger…

Download a FREE Final Sin “discussion starter package” complete with free bookmarks – it’s perfect for a book club or library discussion group.

for multiple e-book formats http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/2354

from Amazon (print) http://bit.ly/GEgv6

This is me…

It was a rainy day in April 1945 when my parents got married. A few years later, my sister was born; four-plus more years and several attempts later, my parents conceded that they weren’t destined to have another child. So, they blew the money they had saved for a new baby on a new (used) car and a vacation in the Catskills. That’s where I began…

I was raised in apartment 2D in the Bronx – our move to apartment 2G (in the same building) when I was eleven was a monumental change in my life as my parents moved off the sofabed in the livingroom into a bedroom of their own. My sister and I helped paint our new livingroom with one-inch wide paintbrushes – nothing was impossible.

Growing up was always an adventure for me, especially with an imagination as active as mine was. I remember three strangers to our neighborhood that mysteriously disappeared into the basement of the building next door on an almost daily basis. One day, a daring friend and I crept down after them to observe what they were doing. They had clips and wires coming out of the building’s telephone junction box! Convinced that we had discovered some huge international espionage plot, we were giddy with excitement. When they turned in our direction, we ran, frightened for our very lives. That was the last time we ever saw them.

As if I needed any encouragement into the world of make-believe, I studied Theatre Arts and Drama at the High School of Art and Design, Fordham University and the New York Academy of Dramatic Arts. After some humble, probably annoying, pleading, I managed a nondescript and all too short walk-on in the movie “Plaza Suite” starring Walter Matthau and Maureen Stapleton (How many degrees to Kevin Bacon?). I appeared (very far off) off-off Broadway and did a summer stint as a lighting technician at the Lake Placid Center for Performing Arts. I also worked my way through college as an undercover retail fraud investigator.

My parents believed in mandatory community service although the choice of what we did was up to us. My sister was a Candy Striper at the local hospital, I joined the New York City Auxiliary Police at our local precinct – my dad was the Auxiliary Police Captain. That’s where I met my husband, at least REALLY met him. We had gone to the same high school (he studied photography) but my only vague memory of him was when he, in the guise of a by-the-book hall monitor, tried to prevent me from going to the backstage area to work on an upcoming play. True, it was between class periods and I didn’t have a hall pass, but the theatre students were used to making their own rules. Anyway, back to the Auxiliary Police… I thought he was an egomaniac snob, he didn’t care for me much either.

We kept getting assigned together as patrol partners and even though we built a terrific reputation as partners and seemed to communicate almost telepathically, I complained to our superiors. The Patrol Sergeant, the Lieutenant and the Captain (MY dad) kept pointing the finger at each other for the decision making process that kept throwing us together. A year and a half later, we had our first date; two weeks after that, we were engaged. He kidnapped me and refused to bring me home until I said yes, I figured I’d ask my father to beat him up. But when I told my parents that Mark had proposed, my dad clasped his hands together and said “Thank God!”

We settled in the suburbs less than an hour northwest of the city and began our family. Shortly after the birth of our daughter, I pursued a free-lance writing career and worked out of a home office. As a teen-ager I had written a few articles for a weekly Bronx newspaper and had since dabbled in poetry and pieces of prose just for the fun of it. After our son joined the picture, I managed to convince a few more rags to print my articles. This was about the time I had a weekly column as “Bonzo, the Ape” and shared profound thoughts on life. Since then, I’ve written more commonly as myself, sometimes conducting interviews (and trust me, you wouldn’t believe the things people sometimes tell you about themselves!), covering Grand Opening events, researching new trends and fashions, writing advertorials and business profiles, and just about anything else that will sell. I also spent a few summers teaching Creative Writing to kids in a local program.

Both my husband and I joined our local ambulance corps as volunteers and went on to become New York State Emergency Medical Technicians. I’ve helped to deliver babies, did CPR during codes, pulled people out of car wrecks, splinted broken bones, monitored the vitals of drug overdoses, stopped bleeding, and held patients’ hands enroute to the hospital. Both of our kids have followed us into the E.M.S. community and, often, dinner conversation at our table is not for the weak of stomach. Many of our friends are also involved with the local emergency services, medical and fire, and it isn’t unusual to have a festive holiday party empty out as soon as a pager goes off. The stories we swap are never boring.

My daughter and my son have justified every gray hair I’ve gotten. They’ve kept me on my toes, made me laugh, made me shake my head and cry, shared their dreams with me, allowed me to boast about them, and have each become a vital part of my inner circle of close friends. I’ve done the gamut of class mother, Girl Scout leader, Cub Scout mom, school parents’ association, and advisor in various youth groups. My favorite age has always been whatever age they were at the time. I love it when we hang out together or they invite me to go someplace with them and their friends. Both of our “kids” are terrific adults and I love following their various adventures.

I’ve always played a favorite game I call “What if?” whenever I see something unexpected, do something new, or hear about some adventure. I mentally place fictional characters into the setting and then I ask myself what if THIS happens, or THAT? By staying involved in my community, active with my family, reading avidly and even surfing on the Internet, I get a lot of fuel for my overactive imagination.

That means a lot of stories – please, join me

http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/chellecordero Who is looking at my blog? (hello world!)

United States Russia Germany Netherlands United Kingdom Canada Ukraine India France South Korea

…and the results are in

On Tuesday I posted my contest for the Creative Blogger Award that my friend Lindsay Townsend nominated me for.

Participants had to choose which statement/trait of one of my heroines that I did NOT share – only two people chose correctly and (drum roll please) the winner by random draw was Tina Poznansky. Tina won a copy of Forgotten.

The correct answer, by the way, was #4 – I grew up in da’ Bronx NYC, the only borough to start with a “D”. ;>

…and for those who guessed other choices:

• #1: I worked in the publicity department of McCall’s Magazine through a temporary agency while I was in college.
• #2: I went to the High School of Art & Design in Manhattan.
• #3: I love collecting glass miniatures and even have a shadowbox shaped like a house filled with small glass cats (a cat house?)
• #5: Duh, I live and breath about my volunteering as an Emergency Medical Technician with my hometown ambulance corps.
• #6: I didn’t say I married him folks! But yes, one of my ex’s was in the F.B.I. (this was apparently a favorite choice…)
• #7: The year was 1977, Mark and I were just leaving my parents’ when we came across the scene of a raging and size-able rubbish fire outside an apartment building – there was a car next to the burning rubbish and kids hanging out on a fire escape a few floors above…

Thanks so much for playing along.
I had a lot of fun and hope that you did, too.

EMS Tales

Paramedics Julie and Matt encounter several different types of emergency calls in Final Sin – it is very real life that one never knows what kind of situation they might be dispatched to. Even when your dispatcher includes information about your call, it doesn’t always match what you find.

In the excerpt from Final Sin posted on May 25, Julie and her partner Matt are dispatched to a possible heart problem. What they find instead is a woman who wants them to use their defibrillator on her car battery because her car won’t start! (By the way, this is a true story borrowed from an EMT that we know)

To complicate matters, the woman believes that she has been poisoned by her beloved cat!

No matter what the call, EMS professionals know that any crisis, real or imagined, is of tantamount importance to the patient – and they are all trained to provide high standards of care. Still, there are some calls you can’t help but chuckle about afterwards –

Here are some TRUE stories that have been overheard in conversations between Julie, Matt and scores of EMS professionals:

The dispatch information was “a woman complaining of severe stomach pains” = about half an hour later the EMT called dispatch to let them know that she delivered an “8 1/2 lb male stomach ache”.

The Paramedic was trying to get the female’s health history when she was told the woman was pregnant with Elvis Presley’s baby – the year was 2004.

The crew was dispatched to the scene of a tractor trailer accident. When they went to apply MAST trousers (anti-shock garment) and removed the driver’s jeans, he was wearing very dainty and frilly pink panties… It seems a husband came home early and the man left in a hurry!

The call was for a man “complaining of pressure in his chest” – when the crew arrived, they found the man’s two grown sons sitting on his chest because he had gotten angry with his wife over some shopping bills.

If you are an EMS professional – share your humorous stories in the comment section (…just please remember HIPPA when you do):