The paramedic Elizabeth Bonilla park your ambulance in a residential block in the Bronx. Another ambulance and fire truck are already there, their lights turning the street a haunting orange. Neighbors congregate on their steps to watch. Some drink wine.
“We have to get dressed,” says Bonilla as he gets out of his vehicle. The call is about a possible case of COVID-19, which means you need gloves, masks, and a plastic gown.
An empty stretcher waits on the sidewalk as four paramedics, including Bonilla, run up the stairs.
About 43 minutes later, three paramedics emerge. Bonilla, 43, a veteran of the fire department, follows them five minutes later. He walks slowly, with an oxygen tank in his backpack.
“This is tough, very tough,” he says.
The coronavirus pandemic has killed at least 8,900 people in the city of New York, apart from another 3,900 deaths whose causes were not confirmed by a laboratory.
At its peak, emergency calls increased almost twice the usual average. The volume has dropped in recent days, perhaps an indication that the crisis may be easing. Still, the city’s 4,000 emergency fire department workers are passing jobs to keep up.
“I think nobody was prepared for this,” says Bonilla.
To get an idea of what paramedics like Bonilla are facing, The Associated Press followed her through the first half of her 16-hour double shift on Wednesday.
3:30 pm.
Bonilla arrives early for his 3 pm shift, but the team his ambulance is using is late. A call at the end of their shift kept them busy longer than expected.
When the vehicle finally arrives, Bonilla moves it in front of Emergency Medical Services Station 3, in the Castle Hill neighborhood of the Bronx.
She places her personal equipment in the ambulance. He puts in a plastic ball full of disinfectants and hangs his stethoscope.
Her thermos is filled with lemon and ginger tea, to help her stay calm.
Bonilla pulls disinfectant wipes out of the bag and starts cleaning. Rub your seat, the steering wheel and the rest of the driver’s area and then do the same with the passenger area. Then disinfection ends at the back.
The pink color of Bonilla’s tools makes them easy to see: pink scissors, pink keys, pink tape, just like her walkie-talkie and hand sanitizer.
You also have three colored braids dedicated to three relatives with cancer. A green and orange for her mother, who has leukemia and skin cancer; a blue one for her father, who has prostate cancer; and a pink one for her aunt, who suffers from breast cancer.
“Hair is life,” he says. “And when you have cancer you lose your hair, and this makes me feel like I have them with me.”
She has not seen her mother or father in two months. You cannot, due to your exposure to the virus and their high-risk status. Bonilla has been trying to help them manage their lives remotely in their rare spare time.
“I am a single mother,” says the mother of two children, ages 22 and 16. “I’m dealing with things at home and being a mother to my parents and so I come to work and I’m taking care of other people, and I do it all over again the next day. Taking care of others is my thing ”.
4:45 p.m.
Almost two hours after his shift started, Bonilla and his partner have still not received a call from the office, something unthinkable a week ago.
They have been answering five to seven calls per shift and sometimes working two shifts a day, doing their best to help patients while N95 masks and oxygen tanks are in short supply.
Social distancing measures have somewhat contained the spread of the virus and this has alleviated the demand for paramedical services. Bonilla is sure the calm will be brief, as she fears another COVID-19 surge once New Yorkers return to their jobs.
“It is the eye of the storm,” he says.
The first call comes five minutes later. Bonilla parks the ambulance in front of an apartment building. He gets out of the vehicle, puts on his gloves and a mask, takes the equipment he needs and enters. Minutes later, she goes out with a patient, who is conscious, but with respiratory help.
They arrive at a nearby emergency room almost 30 minutes later and hand the patient over to doctors and nurses, all in protective clothing: gloves, face shields, and gowns. Bonilla brings the empty stretcher back to the ambulance, sprays it with disinfectant, and places it back in the back.
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6:55 p.m.
Ambulances are piling up at the entrance to the emergency room while Bonilla’s unit finalizes the documents and when they receive the next call they realize they are completely blocked. Operators eventually pass the call on to another ambulance.
A few minutes later they are back on the streets, to answer another call.
They arrive at a house and find a family in chaos. Screaming erupts in the doorway, a disagreement between family members over whether the patient should risk exposure to the virus by going to the hospital.
Bonilla asks for police assistance and two officers control an enraged middle-aged man while Bonilla evaluates her stepson in the ambulance.
Twenty minutes later, the ambulance leaves with the patient. The stepfather cries and screams when they leave.
9:15 p.m.
After dropping the patient off at the hospital, Bonilla and his partner rush to their station for a quick snack. She leaves the building moments later, with a box of donuts and coffee in her hands, and says they have received an urgent call, which will take her a short distance to the home in the Bronx, next to the Whitestone Bridge.
Bonilla places the oxygen tank and the empty stretcher in the back of the ambulance.
He turns the vehicle around, out of the eyes of the neighbors. He takes off the mask, takes a paper towel and wipes the tears away.
“You can’t do anything,” he says.
Slowly, she takes off her robe and gloves. Go back to the driver’s door, grab a bottle of disinfectant, and spray yourself from head to toe.
A relative comes out of the house, a young man about the age of Bonilla’s oldest son. She sits on the stairs, puts her hands to her face, and sobs.
Bonilla drinks from her thermos and keeps her gaze straight ahead.
“You hear the crying,” he says. “You hear and see everything over and over again.”
11:55 p.m.
Bonilla has been sleeping with the lights on and with gospel music. Anything that gets you out of your head calls like that last one.
“You hear the crying,” he says. “You hear and see everything over and over again.”
Now he is back at the station, after a brief pause. He will start again at 11 for another eight-hour shift, replacing a companion who needed the night to rest and be with his family.
“I’m exhausted,” she says. “Emotionally exhausted and physically exhausted and definitely mentally exhausted.”
She changes the topic of the conversation and talks about the prayers, explaining how her faith helps her continue. His family too.
And then there are the victims of the pandemic, new every day, who she knows depend on her experience and her support.
“The moment I walk through the entrance, the families, it is as if they have seen God,” says Bonilla. “They expect immediate help. They have that sense of relief and then they leave you full responsibility. You have to make sure that you stay strong for them. ”
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