From Drain To Crane

There's a man made lake in my old district that is home to a million geese and ducks. The little ducklings occasionally follow their parents right across the sewer grate and drop right down. They can't fly and so they end up trapped. Inevitably someone will call us to rescue the ducks. Most of the time it is a pretty simple operation: we lift up the sewer grate, drop a small ladder in, climb down, block off the other exit with a shovel so they don't run away and scoop up the ducklings. It's a happy ending, feel-good, positive PR kind of call. Unless, that is, you're the B-shift crew that this happened to:

The lake is also home to an annual fishing derby for kids. The city pays to stock the lake with hundreds of fish and hundreds of kids come out to the park to drop their lines in and pluck the unwary suckers out of the water.

It happened to be a beautiful day and there was a big turnout. Of course, with so many people around the avian residents were on the move and one little guy, as expected, dropped into the storm drain. The call went out and Engine 52 came to the rescue. With all the kids gathered around them they descended into the storm drain and heroically re-emerged with the duckling. The mama duck had retreated to the waters edge due to all the commotion. Amidst a chorus of cheering, the duckling was brought to the water and released, quickly falling in behind its mother and swimming out into the lake.

That is when, according to the crew, the shadow appeared and time slowed down. From somewhere in the trees behind them a crane took flight and passed right over their heads. It bore down on the rescued duckling, snatched it from the water, and flew off with it in its talons into the trees above the crowd. There it proceeded to eat the duckling as the shocked and horrified children drew silent. "Hey kids, how many of you have seen The Lion King? Circle of life remember? Right kids? Kids?" Of course, the actual exclamation from the firefighter was, I believe, "Oh my god! Did you see that god-damn vulture?"

 

The next morning I was on duty and this whole story was relaid to us with much laughing and teasing. Later that day we responded to a grass fire in an open field. After extinguishing the flames we traced the fire back to its starting point and found a very dead KFC (Kentucky Fried Crane). It had apparently landed on the power pole and spread its wings out contacting the wires and electrocuting itself. It must have caught fire and fell dead into the tall dry grass by the power pole. We all agreed that this must be the crane from the fishing derby and that karma is, indeed, a bitch. Lion King.

Tennis Anyone? or People of Walmart

We were returning from picking up some equipment and happened to be in another station's district when a call came in just a few blocks from us. We radioed dispatch and told them we would take it for the other engine. The call was for an assault in the WalMart parking lot with one suspect still inside the WalMart. Police were on scene with the victim as we rolled into the parking lot.

Our victim/combatant was pacing around with some cuts and bruising to his face and neck when I introduced myself. He explained that he was in his car leaving the parking lot when another guy started hitting him (through the open window) with a tennis racquet. I looked over at the other police car and saw two tennis racquets on the hood that were completely bent up and destroyed.

 

 My patient told me that he then stopped his car and got out to fight, naturally. Since there were two destroyed tennis racquets on the hood, I like to think that he got out, reached into his coat, and pulled out his own racquet, Highlander style, and the two began to duel.

 

I believe the truth is something closer to him leaping out of the car and charging a guy wielding two tennis rackets and getting beaten down windmill style. Either way, I bet it was a site to see.

Other than being very angry and quite bruised up my patient didn't have any serious injuries and declined ambulance transport. I have a feeling, though, that tomorrow he is going to look and feel like he was in a racquet fight.  "Jesus, man, what happened to you?"  "I got in a tennis racquet fight."  "Oh. Yeah, that looks about right."

The police came out shortly with the Andy Roddick of the WalMart parking lot. Instead of some wild eyed crazy random attacker he turned out to be a guy in his early 20s who looked pretty normal. He stated that the guy in the car ran in to him in the parking lot and didn't stop, which led to the beating. He was unharmed in the melee and needed no medical attention.  What a shock - the guy with two tennis racquets and the element of surprise won the fist fight.

What never ceases to amaze me is how surprised people are when they get arrested for the most obvious things. It seems they honestly don't understand why the cops are even talking to them. This kid was getting the bracelets hooked up as the officer explained that he was being charged with assault. He looked at her, aghast, saying "But he ran into me. Why am I in trouble?"

(should say, I Served Time)

The capper to this whole fiasco, though, was all the other drivers in the vast WalMart parking lot who could not figure out for the life of them how to deal with one aisle full of emergency vehicles and still go about their day. A whole line of cars pulled out and instead of going the opposite direction, headed straight down the aisle towards a fire engine, an ambulance, and two cop cars. They proceeded to just stack up in the aisle until I finally went and moved a bunch of shopping carts and started directing traffic away from us and into the next aisle. Meanwhile, a car parked right by one of the cop cars decided to back up and leave. They began backing up and my firefighter was directing them away from the cop car but they wouldn't turn. They just kept backing up towards the cop car, where incidentally the kid was getting cuffed. One of the officers went up to the passenger window and began telling the driver to turn the wheel. They turned the wrong way. He pointed and told them louder to turn the other way. They straightened the wheel. He opened the door and pointed again and said, "Turn the wheel that way and slowly back up!" They finally got turned the right direction and proceeded to back up at about 1/8th of a mile per hour. I didn't know cars could actually go that slowly and still be moving. The cop actually looked up at all of us, threw his hands in the air and said, "I did say slowly didn't I?"

This Just Pissed Me Off

The vast majority of ambulance crews who respond to our calls are good ones. On occasion you get the burnouts and it sucks. I hate being the caring professional who treats my patient with respect and then have to hand them over to some uncaring idiots. Normally it doesn't stick with me or bother me for long but for some reason I was fuming over these dipwads all four day.

Our patient was an elderly man who just went on hospice care a few days ago. He was having some difficulty breathing and really needed supportive care. We set him up with some increased O2 and did our best to comfort his wife as well. He was pretty much ready to go when the ambulance arrived.

This ambulance crew happened to have an intern with them. Now, I was an intern once and I know what it is like so I try to let them do their thing and kind of help them out. However, the regular ambulance crew came in and didn't say a word. Not one word to me, my crew, or their intern. I usually look to the preceptor to get an idea of what he expects out of the intern and how the guy is doing. I got nothing from this guy. So, I gave the intern a complete rundown and told him we would have to carry the patient out to the gurney. The intern asked if the patient had a DNR which was an excellent question although it was most likely not going to be needed on this call. The patient's wife said yes, but was obviously not prepared for this to come up so soon and was very flustered by the thought of him needing it. I tried to reassure her that we just needed to know what kind of directives he had but would not even be going lights and sirens to the hospital. She could not seem to locate the DNR and this seemed to be hanging up the intern. The other two "medical professionals" still had not said a word and were standing shoulder to shoulder in the doorway of the bedroom blocking any access or egress.

 

I went outside to see where the gurney was and which way it was facing so I could plan how to take the patient out. When I arrived back inside the scene was unchanged. Our patient needed to get to the hospital and this crew was still standing there doing nothing. My firefighter, probably reading the expression on my face, had taken up position behind the patient ready to help lift and carry him. My way was blocked by the ambulance tools so I merely looked my firefighter in the eye and said, quite loudly, "Are you ready?" and pushed my way unceremoniously into the room between them. I took the patient's legs and my firefighter took his upper body and we took him out to the gurney and started bringing the gurney to the ambulance.

Now, my firefighter and I do a lot of lifting and carrying of patients in our district and we don't mind it at all. But, when the ambulance crew doesn't even feign assistance and behave like these bozos did it really bothers me. Normally, I am able to just shake my head, talk smack and berate them when I get back in the engine, then move on and forget about it. But, for some reason, these clowns really got to me and every time I thought about it over the next few days it made me angry all over again.