When I stand over a dying child and pull her back, what I feel is not the satisfaction of achievement.

It is closer to the thing a parent feels, or the thing you feel pulling a stranger from a burning car: the overwhelming, non-negotiable recognition that a whole irreplaceable human life is in your hands, and that nothing you could possibly be doing instead could matter more.

A wedding can be rescheduled.

A party can wait.

A dress can be re-pressed.

A six-year-old girl bleeding to death internally cannot wait, and cannot be rescheduled, and there is no version of a decent human being who checks her watch and thinks about the caterers while that child’s pressure drops.