Burn Center staff member: Um, house fire. He is Spanish-speaking only.
Matthews: House fire, Spanish-speaking only? How old is he?
Burn Center staff member: Very, very little English. He is 32. There was a house fire and he went back in for his kids.
Matthews: He is a hero. He went back in to save his children. Do you speak Spanish?
Burn Center staff member: No.
Matthews: Señor, ¿Usted tiene problema de respirar?
Patient: No.
Matthews: No. ¿No problema? ¿Sí?
PATIENT: Sí.
Matthews: No matter what you say, running back into a house fire – that is pretty heroic and that is paternal instinct. This man has what they call the right stuff, so we have to take good care of him. It is mostly smoke inhalation stuff, so what we will do is admit him and we’ll watch him overnight to make sure he does OK.

After visiting with other burn victims, it’s now 6:40 p.m., but there’s no time for dinner. It’s been a busy day, and Matthews has missed breakfast and lunch, too. He contemplates getting to the cafeteria by midnight. Matthews is talking with Dr. Josh Lewis, who was a U.S. soldier on the line at “Gitmo,” the slang term for the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
 
“He is one of the few people I ever knew that has had a gun pointed at them as a soldier and has not responded with lethal force. He is a hero,” Matthews says.
 
A voice interrupts: “Hi.”
Matthews: Hi. OK, we are going to the CT scanner to go ahead and look at our ankle film. Brianna, what is your last name?
Brianna: Boyles.
Matthews: Brianna Boyles is a shadower. And she is following me tonight to see what goes on at the county hospital, so we are giving her a bird’s-eye view. Did you win a contest or you were—
Brianna: It was a charity event.
Matthews: It was a charity event and she won a night shadowing a trauma surgeon, so she is on with me right now. So here we go. We are going over to the patch phone, which just alarmed, to see if there is a trauma coming in to help triage it. It is now 18:45 [6:45 p.m.].