This is only a test

It was my first day at one of the three sites I have, hour one. I was just finishing my tour with the one and only health clerk (or technician?), Rietta, when we both turned toward the sound of a scream. It was a sight to behold: one person carrying a child flailing around like a fish out of water, the child's face and shirt covered in blood. "Nosebleed," I thought to myself. I strapped on a pair of gloves, grabbed some gauze, and was ready for their arrival into my office.

How exciting! My first customers to this office ever! The girl was still screaming, making it difficult to think or speak, so maybe that's why no one mentioned to me she's autistic and hates both the sight of blood and being touched. She's still flopping around on the floor, swatting away from me, and I'm starting to stress about how I'm going to silence her in a timely manner. By now the main office staff had come out of their offices to see the commotion and clearly this was my chance to demonstrate I'm a perfectly capable nurse that they're stuck with. I can hardly hear myself think when I get tapped on the shoulder by Rietta: "I'll take the nosebleed, you've got chest pain." She points to the corner of my office where I have a teacher sitting tripod style on a chair, clearly an ashen gray green that until that point I'd only read about in textbooks. I pointed at a man and told him to go call 9-1-1 - this man later turned out to be the principal - while I sat with the gray teacher. The principal comes back to tell me that the 9-1-1 operators wanted to speak to me, but when I go to pick up the phone line, it's dead. So, I call them back, tell them we've already called, but rather than wanting to say anything to me, they tell me the screaming in the background (the nosebleed was still going strong) is too loud for them to hear anything and someone's already on their way. Minutes later, the firetruck arrives, soon followed by the paramedics to whisk the teacher out.

And that was that. I looked at the clock: ten minutes had elapsed from the time the nosebleed began. I don't know what happened with the nosebleed - when I returned from talking with the paramedics, there was only silence and a mess of blood on the floor. The unconfirmed report I received later that day was that the teacher had a heart attack. And I was only just getting started...