Define irony: At the job where I’ve started questioning my future, I’ve now had two separate incidents in which I’ve had a health issue entirely connected to work. I’m still not convinced the first one happened, but I had another li’l situation this week.
I was covering the ceremony to mark the fifth anniversary of the officers killed in Downtown Dallas Wednesday. I started getting borderline woozy, but as an institution of journalism in North Texas, I kept tweeting to you let you, the people, know what was going on.
I wandered under a tree and hunkered down for a bit.
Loyal Scaiaholics will recall my advice to journalism students: Get to know the TV photographers. They often stay at the same station or in the same city longer than reporters, so they know everyone and have good insight.
As I hunkered, the photographers surrounded me to ask how I was doing. One brought me a bottle of water. Another had flagged down the paramedics I tweeted about, gently encouraging me to stay hunkered and stop wandering off.
“This is embarrassing,” I explained. “It’s only 90 degrees today.”
“Yes, but it’s not usually this humid,” the parademic said as he took my temperature, which was approximately 175 degrees. “Don’t get embarrassed. One of the cadets collapsed. We had to help him, too.”
“So it really is the humidity!?” I said, flabbergasted.
Over 12 years living in Texas, I’ve lived through the hottest summer ever and driest period since 2000. And I’ve gleefully stumbled into wildfires and hurricanes. But a day in the 90s makes me dizzy.
The other paramedic had me sign a form saying I was declining a trip to the hospital for observation. They asked what I was going to do the rest of the day. My plans now included a nap in my air conditioned truck [which might not be far off from a normal afternoon. Are ya with me, news directors who’ve tried to manage me during my career?!].
An off-duty officer said he was shuttling people to their cars and offered me a ride. I pointed at my truck, which was parked in a media area about 200 feet away and said I could walk.
“Nah, get in,” he countered.
We all came together, North Texas, to ensure an idiot from Ohio wouldn’t get heat stroke. Just like we came together five years ago.
A few blocks away at Thanks Giving Square, they opened their chapel for extended hours Wednesday. Their president, Kyle Ogden, said it was a good way to bring people from different backgrounds together.
The officers who were killed were providing escorts to a group protesting police shootings in Louisiana and Minnesota. Back then, we all got “Back the Blue” shirts.
Now, we’re right back to protesting police.
Ogden and I talked about how we might argue, and totally change each other’s minds, about politics, and it can be frustrating that it takes something like the shooting in Downtown Dallas or the September 11 attacks to get us to think about what we all have in common instead of posting angry messages on Facebook.
We all came together after the July 7 shooting. We all came together when I got a bit loopy. And that’s my pledge to you, North Texas: I’ll keep getting sick occasionally to show us the importance of staying together.
“Way to make the police memorial about you,” we’re all saying as read this.
