Sometimes, a night at work on the ambulance is just too interesting not to tell somebody about. That's not always a good thing: sometimes it really really sucks, and I wouldn't make a diary about one of those nights. Maybe a comment in one of the morning open threads (not a front page one), but if its a trigger for me, it probably would be for many of you. So I'll spare you that.
Other times, there are just the nights of weird or amusing, as opposed to horrifying or mundane. Of course, what is amusing is in the eye of the beholder.
Our first call of the night was a person down in the roadway call. Dispatch information sometimes is not a specific address, but an intersection, which is what we got. Lets call the location "Sherman Boulevard and Sherman Place" Lets also say that I actually live just off of "Sherman Boulevard" and have for the past 4 or so years, at the east end currently, and the west end a few years ago. I have never heard of a street called "Sherman Place" so I was immediately skeptical of the dispatch information.
My partner's cell phone's Google maps certainly was no help.
So obviously, we missed it on the first pass, but I really should have known better. As we passed the apartment complex where I currently live, I notice a familiar figure being helped up from the sidewalk by a woman. Uncertain, though, I keep on going, looking for this mysterious "Sherman Place" side street that supposedly exists. When I get to about the location of my former residence on the wrong end of Sherman Boulevard, I decide to ask dispatch what the hell they are smoking, so to speak.
"Sherman Place is the entrance to Shop Rite plaza, between Seabird Drive and Cyan Avenue"
Right. In all this time, this unlabeled driveway into the plaza that I literally live next to has never before been referred to as Sherman Place, but now it suddenly is. Great, so go back that way and look around, seeing nothing but a few police cruisers also looking around. Ah, I know now, the familiar figure I noticed earlier.
"I bet its Matt Randall." [not his real name of course]
Indeed, it was. Too drunk to do anything but sit down in the street until some nice lady from the neighborhood helped him off to the sidewalk. She had a ring on her finger. I was unhappy at that fact. The lady cop there, though... didn't cross my mind then, and I'm kicking myself a bit now!
Arriving at the hospital with the unfortunate drunk whose name and date of birth I did not have to ask, the dirty look from the charge nurse as I approached her was all I needed to know. "I'm sorry," is usually a bad way to open a conversation, but there it is.
Moments of drama are never far away in healthcare. Apparently, one of the doctors decided it would be appropriate to berate my partner for bringing "him" to their hospital, knowing full well that we had no choice. Ah well. We all know how this well end anyway. He'll be back tomorrow night.
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Proceed shortly thereafter to a scene on the north side. A domestic dispute. Someone gets pissed off enough to use their phone as a weapon against the forehead of someone else. That someone else demands to be evaluated by EMS.
Policeman: "Better get to University. We've got a trauma on our hands."
Oh boy. I was professional enough not to laugh. I like my reply better. "Why didn't you call for a helicopter?"
All joking aside, the poor victim of a brutal cell phone attack was happy enough to be left alone after we told her the non-bleeding abrasion and contusion on her forehead would be just fine with an ice pack.
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The night moves on. Pregnant woman having contractions can't understand why it hurts so much... and it hurts so much she can't stop saying "it hurts so much!"
"Stop talking, take some deep breaths, it'll hurt less!" This being her second child. I guess the first one was smaller, or something. By the way, no, you cannot get morphine in the ambulance during childbirth. I'm sympathetic, if a bit impatient. I don't ever have to worry about that kind of pain, but constantly saying "do something for me!" won't help if you won't listen. I'm not your mamma. She's up front and none to happy about it since she's already raising your first child for you.
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The moon passes further overhead, though I can't see it because its overcast. I always look for it, or even its glow through the clouds, but not tonight. Damn. Night before, we had some down time. I spent over an hour hanging out with the insects making their mating noises around the inner harbor, trying to catch a glimpse of the fish eating the ones that landed on the water. Was too overcast for a moon then too, but plenty of lightning flashing out of the north. No rain where I was, just me, the insects, the fish and the flashes of lightning. Awesome. It is a rare hour or so at work I have to just be alone with myself.
Anyway, we end up on another domestic call. No one got hurt, but according to the breathless sister, the one she called about attacked her and then threatened to cut herself with a broken mirror or something. I'm not sure. She talked too fast to actually figure out what really happened, and if she ever stopped talking, I'm not sure, because even as the cops walked into the building to check things out, she hadn't stopped.
In the background, another resident of the building three floors up sat by the window on her phone dropping F bombs every 2-3 words. In the profession, we call that 2-3 word dyspnea, if the F bombs are breaths.
Me and my partner waited outside as the cops checked things out inside. The building's maintenance guy was outside too, holding a pizza box, explaining he is also the night watch for the building (like a security guard or doorman, but not really, just someone the landlord relied on to call the cops when bad stuff went down there). He was unhappy that his late night meal was interrupted.
Another guy from the building came outside. From what I gathered from his conversation with the maintenance guy, he was from out of town and had come to visit his children. "This place eats you up, makes you a criminal. Its in the stars over the city, come here, get arrested, get divorced, lose your kids, your job. In here [pointing to the building] its One Life to Live. Over there on that hill [pointing to the hospital two blocks away] its General Hospital."
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Should I be amused or feel sorry for the guy who had to try to get through a metal detector with a prosthetic leg? He was upset about a broken nose.
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Last call of the night finally came early in the morning. Someone got tazed by the cops for, according to him, breaking out of his mother's house. Good story.
Cop: "I know you've been doing something the way you keep licking your lips like that. Don't make me get a search warrant for your mother's house to find what it is"
Kid: "No, no search warrant. I smoked some pot with my friends earlier."
Cop: "Then why do you keep licking your lips?"
Kid: "Cuz I got cotton mouth" [breaks out into giggles]
Yup, that'll do it.
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This post was a cathartic space for me, so there is that, but I also hope there might be some interest in these kinds of stories. The real life conditions on the street are often odd, sometimes frightening, sometimes just sickening and depressing, but not something most people will ever experience.
[I'm not good with tags, feel free to add any]