New nickname

My doctor dubbed me the Grim Reaper last night and to others, mentioned the name, Angel of Death. You know, that guy with the pale bony face who supposedly appears right before someone kicks the bucket? Not that anyone has kicked the bucket in my presence for a long time but because all of my injured Marines have been kind enough to do it when I happen to be taking pictures with my camera. Yes, I have caught every single accident with the mechanism of injury for all of the trips to the hospital. My last shot of each of these days is usually what ever it is that took them out.

Guess that's one of the strange perks of being a corpsman/unit photographer. For my last two patients I took over, I was there in the ER talking to the Doc on duty, telling them the story about what happened and the patient history. Towards the end of me passing on the info, a light would flare in my head and I would say "wait", pull out my camera and sure enough, there it is.
Sort of spooky, because when I see the injured Marine, my brain goes into crisis mode and the camera goes down into the bag and I forget that I even had it then at the hospital. Then the thought would rise up in my consciousness, was I filming or taking pictures when it happened? I never remember actually taking the picture and the actual memory of the event has always been different then the reality that my camera shows.

It's first hand proof for me that adrenalin does warp space and time.

Another thing that sinks afterwards is all of the aches and pains that comes from running on that adrenalin and manhandling people around. I'm getting old. I also didn't miss the waking up in the middle of the night trying to figure out how I could have done something different and second guessing myself. I'm not afraid of dying or getting blown up, what I'm afraid of is having those I'm responsible for get hurt and not being able to save them.