Funeral procession

The week before I received my Paramedic card in the mail made me second guess my decision of ever wanting to become a Medic. I had been working at my company for about a year and a half and became pretty good friends with my boss at the time. He was a great guy, very easy going and I admired him as a paramedic. Well that particular day I was in another city that was not covered by our division but was a part of our division attending a funeral. The funeral was for a 50ish medic who died of a heart attack. Our company is one that is known to be there to support each other not just in our division but as a whole. So that day we were there for support for the family whom we did not know but cared for just the same. It was Me and a few others from my work including my boss who was following our ambulance in the supervisor truck. We were a little late getting up there and were one of the last of the companies to arrive. There were about 50 other ambulance/fire vehicles also there that day. We went in and stayed the duration of the funeral and it was time to head to the cemetary to lay this poor medic to rest. As I have said we were one of the last to arrive so we were also the last in the procession with only one unit behind and my supervisor ahead about 2 ambulances at this time. We slowly drove along heading to the cemetary. There was so many of us so they had quite a few of the roadside police to help direct traffic and keep us safe. It was quite a way to the cemetary and we were driving about for about 30 minutes at this point. We all had our lights on minus siren for obvious reasons to honor this fallen hero. So we are nearing the end of an intersection and one of the road police is on the right of us. Suddenly out of nowhere comes this old beat up car and it tries to pass us on the right. I am not sure what he was thinking because with such a long procession there was no where for him to go. In the process of this he hits the motorcycle cop right in front of our ambulance. The cop flies about 10 feet from his bike and lands on the sidewalk to the left of us. I immediately tell my partner to pull over and call my boss back to help us. I got out of the unit and approached the cop to see that he was severely injured he had a laceration to his head that had uncontrolled bleeding and and multiple open fractures to his tib/fib and femurs. I stayed at his head most of the time talking to him and holding pressure and trying to help ventilate him. I am not sure what he said to me than but I learned that day that sometimes nothing you can do is going to help someone. I felt like since we were there we would be able to save him. I kept talking to him and trying to keep him awake. And thinking back now I don't think he ever really said anything. He just stared at me with these big brown sad eyes pleading with me to help him. I knew he knew that it was over for him. We finally got him loaded on a back board and into the unit and he coded. At the time being just an Emt there wasn't much I could do for him. Thinking back now even if I had my card in hand it wouldn't have changed the outcome. The medic that rode in were my boss and a coworker of mine. They shocked him, he had seizures, they started iv's and gave him drugs and we took him to a landing zone and sent him by helicopter to the hospital. After the call my boss asked me how I was doing....I said I was not doing so good and that I didn't know for sure if this was really the job for me anymore. I thought we were supposed to save people and I didn't deal well with this kind of situation. He basically told me it's not always like this and it gets easier. Looking back now after I have been a paramedic for 7 years I do think it does get easier. I think it's because you learn how to handle it. I wanted to save everyone! I wanted to play God. I hated looking in that man's eyes and watching him die and knowing nothing was going to change it. That was the first time I saw someone actually die before my eyes. I knew the very second he died and his soul left and we never got him back. About 2 weeks later I went to the hospital he was taken to to ask the outcome already knowing and was very surprised to find out that exactly 2 days after he died his best friend was also killed in a motorcycle accident. I know it's kind of strange but in a way I am thankful he wasn't alone. I learned that day that God's plan though sometimes questioned has some type of reasoning to it and that as a paramedic and a person he doesn't want us to bear anything alone.