A Thank You

Sometimes when everything is going poorly, and you've had a terrible night, or four in a row, the Universe takes pity on you, and puts someone truly awesome right in the middle of your path. It happened to me tonight, and I was reminded of what a great thing it is to have a friend who sees things like you do, and understands what you need.

In her honor, and at her request, a story.

This story does not star me. In fact, I don't appear at all. This happened before I was even a member of the squad, but the medic involved is famous for it, and doesn't mind retelling it. I've heard it enough times now that I feel confident in my ability to get it out on my own. That said, and without further ado: "Love Can Build A Bridge".

It's the day before Christmas Eve in Cary. All of the busy little Yuppies and Soccer Moms are out doing their last minute shopping, and the scent of stress is heavy in the air. For a little background, Cary is probably the single most pretentious town in America. It's full of young professionals who commute to their cubicles in RTP everyday, and spend the rest of their time counting their money and convincing themselves that it will fill the holes in their soul. Conventional EMS wisdom holds that it would be more efficient and effective to just go ahead and put Paxil and Zoloft in the water supply, rather than medicating everyone individually. I think that proposal comes in front of the Town Council next month...

Anyway, it's Christmas Eve-Eve and this medic, we'll call him EW, (He went down to New Orleans after Katrina, and the local paper did a piece on him that started out with "[His Name]- EMS Warrior." He's been kidded about it ever since) is paged out to an "Unconscious Person". I hope you all remember the rule about "unconscious" people.

They arrive at a large house in a well-to-do (as if there's any other kind in Cary) neighborhood, and walk inside. The FD is with the patient at the top of the stairs getting vital signs, and talking to this lady's husband. EW walks to the top of the stairs, and bends down to assess this lady. He starts off with a sternal rub.

Take the knuckle of your middle finger, and press it to your breastbone. Now, while maintaining heavy pressure, rub it up and down. Hurts like a bitch right? This lady doesn't flinch.

Still not convinced of her "unconsciousness" EW pops an ammonia capsule in front of her face. Sure enough, the lady holds her breath. She's faking. Doing a good job of it, but faking nonetheless. He touches her eyelashes, and they flutter, further confirming her bullshit.

Finally, he comes to the hand drop test. If a person is truly unconscious and you hold their hand above their face and drop it, it will hit them in the face. Every-single-time. Magically enough, if someone is faking it, their hand will slide to one side of their head or another.

EW holds this lady's hand above her head, drops it, and she HITS HERSELF IN THE FACE! EW calls his partner's attention over, and does the test again. Sure enough, she slaps herself on the other side of her face. Impressed at this lady's determination, and obvious familiarity with feigning unconsciousness, EW and his partner proceed to administer the hand-drop test 5 more times. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Compassion.

They load this woman into the truck with the help of the fire department, and get on the road to the hospital. EW is in the back, and starts an IV on the lady, and puts her on the heart monitor. After this, it's just an easy ride to the hospital, and he drops her off never to hear from her again.

Oh come on, that was just too obvious. Nothing's ever that easy.

Instead, EW goes to sit in the airway seat (front of the box, easy access to the patient's head, also where the radio is) to give his report to the hospital. As he does this, the patient starts to make these strange motions with her hands, right over her chest. She still hasn't opened her eyes, and she won't respond to him, but she's moving. He found out later that she's a teacher at a school for the deaf, and was apparently signing a song judging by the rhythmic movement of her hands. He thinks that this is a little strange, but nothing to be concerned with.

He turns to give the hospital his call-in:
EW- "Western ED, Cary Medic 1 calling on 340"
Western- "Go ahead Cary."
EW- "Western, this is Cary Medic 1. Enroute non-emergency with about a 5minute ETA with a 44 year old female, unconscious, 10-96. (crazy) IV, o2, Monitor established... No no honey-
*static*

As he'd started his call-in, the patient had gone from silently signing her song, to humming along with it. Now, this isn't exactly the perfect medium for this portion of the story, but I'll try to render the humming in print as best I can.

"Hmmmm haaa himmmm ha ha... HMMM HMMM. HMMM HMMM."

At about the time EW said "No no honey" the lady had taken the index finger of one hand, and popped the seatbelt across her chest off, without ever opening her eyes. She then proceeded to sit bolt upright, and rip the IV out of her arm, thus creating an open, and profusely bleeding hole in her arm.

EW reached forward and grabbed her shoulder, intending to pull her back and calm her down while controlling her bleeding.

Crazy lady did not like this plan, and proceeded to go about kicking EW's ass, with gusto. Somewhere between the second and third pile-driver, it occured to him that she was singing a song that seemed to be a fleshed out version of her humming.

"Love can build a bridddddge... FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU!. Love can build a bridddddge... FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU!"

EW throws himself across the crazy lady, and yells for his partner to pull over.

Remember, it's the day before Christmas Eve. Everyone is out doing their shopping, bustling about full of holiday cheer. So where does his partner decide to pull over? Yeah, The mall. Perfect.

His partner runs around to the back of the truck, and flings both doors wide open, exposing to a horrified public this scene: EW is sprawled on top of a maniacally bucking woman who is screaming at the top of her lungs "LOVE CAN BUILD A BRIDGE... FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU!" while spraying blood all over the inside of the truck, herself, and EW.

EW's partner manages to get inside the truck, and in front of a truly disturbed populace, they manage to gain control and tie her down. As soon as they finish the last knot, the PD unit EW's partner had called for finally appeared. Cary's finest...

Now that she's tied down, the rest of the trip to the hospital is fairly uneventful, and realizing that fighting the restraints is futile, Crazy Lady settled down quite a bit. Of course, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that the standing rule with all crazy patients is that the second you roll into the ER, they're the nicest, most normal person you've ever met. They have no idea why these mean EMTs and Paramedics tied them down, they certainly didn't do anything to deserve it. By the time they got this lady to the hospital, she was essentially back to the state they'd found her in. Lying on her back, eyes closed.

Here's the funny thing. Nurses and docs fall for it every time. As they're moving this lady over to the hospital gurney, the nurse proceeds to take the restraints off of the woman; leaving her free to wreak havoc at will.

EW- "Ummm, that's a bad idea. You want to leave those on."
RN- *Snidely*: "Oh really? Why's that?"
EW- "Are you looking at me? Do you see that I'm covered in her blood? Well, mostly her blood... She was kicking my ass in that truck 5 minutes ago. You should leave the restraints on."
RN- *Snidely-er* "I think we can handle it... thanks."

EW walked out to the hallway, and started to do his paperwork. He made sure to stand nearby, because when the fireworks started, he wanted to be around to see them. About 5 minutes into writing his trip ticket, he can hear ""Hmmmm haaa himmmm ha ha... HMMM HMMM. HMMM HMMM." coming from the room they'd placed this lady in. The nurse apparently thinks she's asking a question because she keeps going "Excuse me?" and "Hmmm?" everytime the lady does this. Meanwhile, EW has a huge grin on his face.

About 2 minutes later, he hears "No no honey-" followed by a literal CRASH as both the nurse, and the over-bed table come FLYING out into the hallway.

"LOVE CAN BUILD A BRIDGE... FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU!"

RN- *Officially kissing ass* "Would you help me restrain her? Please?"
EW- "Did I not just tell you she was kicking my ass? Did I not just tell you to leave the restraints on her?
RN- "Well yes, but..."
CL- "FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU!"

A doctor came running across the ER, yelling "Haldol! Haldol!"

Unwilling to let the clusterfuck continue, EW jumped up for round 2 with the Crazy Lady. A short time later, they have her restrained, both physically and chemically.

EW finished up his paperwork, and made plans to go out with the nurse, and make her buy him beer all night. Being right all the time has its perks.

A few hours later, EW brought another patient into the hospital. At the time, there was only one "room" in this particular ER that had a door, everything else was just partitioned off with curtains. When EW returned to the ER 4 hours later, they'd moved Crazy Lady into this room, but through the door you could still hear, very clearly:

"LOVE CAN BUILD A BRIDGE... FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU!"

And thus, a legend was born.