12.03.2007

...Smells like burning rubber and EtOH!


Car accidents. If you run from the cops in your car. You'll be arrested. Especially after you drunkenly wreck your car into the woods. 

If your girlfriend does a lot of heroin before the vodka shots. She gets to ride with me. She was wearing a goosedown coat. We almost had a catastrophe in the back of the ambulance when the rookie medic started cutting the jacket off of her. Fortunately we stopped him before he filled up the ambulance with a cloud of goose feathers!! 

The rest of the night was quiet for us but nobody else. The radio was hopping for everyone else in the county besides us. 

The next morning RT and I head out for coffee. We're getting waves from the employees as we pull in front of the coffee house. As I'm getting out we get called for an auto accident about 2 blocks away at a nearby high school. 

We arrive on scene and I see a couple cars pulled into a parking lot and nobody really hurt. Out of the ambulance with gear bags and gloves. I see a woman sitting in the back seat of her own car with the door open and a man standing by his van. I ask what happened. It's a good way to get a story and see if anyone's hurt. 

"She was pulling out and didn't stop..."
"He was driving too fast..."
"She didn't even look..."
"He was supposed to stop...."
"I was honking my horn..."
"He tried to kill me...."

"woah" says I. 

"He doesn't know how to drive...."

"woah!"

"She doesn't know how to drive!...."

"Woah!"

"He thinks he owns the road...."

"SHUT UP!" I finally holler. They both clamp their mouths shut. 

"I'm not the police and I don't care who's fault it is! All I care about is if someone's hurt."

They look at each other as if this is a foreign concept. 

"Is anyone hurt?" I ask again. 

"Look at my car!" Says the woman. I do. I see some scraping on the driver's side but no real damage. 

"How fast were you going?" I ask the van driver. 

"About 20, 25 miles an hour." The street is congested enough that I believe he couldn't have gotten much faster than that. 

I look at the woman. "Are you hurt?"

"My car!"

"Lady, I'm a paramedic, not a mechanic. I couldn't care less about your car. Are YOU hurt?" (keep in mind, I haven't had coffee yet. I'm a bit cranky)

She looks at her shoes. "No." She says sheepishly. 

"Good. Because I need me some coffee!"

They sign refusals and I'm out of there!

--maddog

12.01.2007

...What's that smell?


Duty tonight at the ol' Firehouse. I've got a feeling that something's going to happen!!

Stay tuned!

--maddog