Why I am bulletproof.
This happened three months into my training down at where I work. If things would have gone differently, if that officer would have shot him in the head, splattering brain and blood all over my face and glasses, then I probably wouldn't be working where I am today. This is true. Every last blood-soaked detail.
There are these series of apartment complexes on the far east side of town, so far that they abutt the neighboring city and county. Anyway, these are the addresses that are aired repeatedly on a daily basis. And when it's your turn, when you're on the receiving end of one of these infamous addresses, you can hear a collective sigh of relief from every other ambulance in the city. "Oooh, that hurts. Better them than us," floats in the minds of every other ambulance in the city.
Tonight, it is my turn.
"Number (dramatic pause so everyone nestled up in the black, night air has to awake mildly and bend an ear to listen) 9".
Damn it. "Number 9," I respond.
"Code 10 to this address. All we have is altered mention. Everyone's going". Meaning Police and Fire.
A collective sigh floats above the city streets from every other ambulance. It's my turn. Batter up.
We scream through the night's sky. Slowing down to a comfortable 60 mph at the red lights. Dirty blues harmonica music plays in my head as the red and blue emergency lights ricochet of anything reflective. The dually tires screech around every corner as we rocket down the street. What normally would take fifteen minutes, takes us four. We shut everything off blocks early and creep stealthily to the front entrance of this elderly apartment complex. Not that we thought it was dangerous, but that was habit at night. All stealth. All the time.
In their new post 9/11 black bunker gear, a firefighter approaches the side of the ambulance. This is uncommon, especially here. His face pale, his speech stuttered, he begins talking frantically to my rolled up window. Fingers pointing and hands waving, something has freaked him out. I look at my partner and ask. "Isn't this where all the old people live?"
I exit and the firefighter rambles uncontrollably. "Crazy" and "Police" and "Dangerous" all penetrate the night sky. He is attempting to warn me about something, something that seems to have gone horribly awry. I grab my black, metal briefcase full of medical tools, and like a businessman walking to his cubicle from the water dispenser, I collect my thoughts and wonder what has happened to make this young, fit, firefighter so crazed. How could an elderly man create such a stir?
The police arrive at the same time. One officer. He is large and built like a boxer. I imagine a tattoo of a barbed wire painted on his bicep, under his perfectly starched blue shirt. He follows me along the dimly lit sidewalk to the front entrance, handcuffs clinking and mag light swaying against his hip. We both enter the complex, hop in the elevator made for two, and slowly ascend to the B floor.
As we exit we are greeted by another frightened firefighter. We round the corner and see a huddled group of black bunker gear against the wall, and standing across from them two almost fit security guards leaning against the wall, Dirty Harry revolvers hang from their lopsided utility belts. Apparently, .45 magnums are a necessity around all these old people.
"He's going crazy. We've been out here 10 minutes and all we've heard is screaming. He's tearing the apartment apart."
Still confused, I finally ask, "How old is he?"
"He must be in his twenty's," responds the one I assume is in charge.
The officer leans his head to his right, almost resting it on his shoulder. He punches the small button on the side of the radio attached to his lapel and calls for another car. "Better safe than sorry," he whispers to me.
We wait in the cramped hall listening to the crashing furniture on the other side of the paper-thin walls. An occasional scream breaks the silence and awakes all of us from the horrible daydreaming that is surely occupying everyone's brain.
"He's big, really big." a firefighter mumbles.
The other cop arrives. An identical twin to the giant in front of us, the only difference is that you can see the tattoo on his huge bicep. The two officers huddle together, discuss their plan, and one draws his taser and checks the red, laser light on the wall. He looks at me and smiles. They knock.
"DPD! Open the door!"
No response.
"DPD, open the door or we'll kick it in."
The door slowly swings open. I step forward to the right of the cop with the taser. My logic: I've never seen anyone tased and I heard it knocks them down instantly. The mother has escaped and was able to open the barricaded door. I peak around the door frame and see a monster of a human charging down the cramped hallway. Fire in his breath and emptiness in his eyes, he lurches forward angrily towards the cops.
"STOP, or I'll..."
Zap! The copper wires with small silver fishing hooks explode out the end of the taser. Three in all, and all three striking the crazed man. They penetrate through his shirt and stick to his neck and face. "Click-click-click-click-click," the taser shoots electricity from the handle, down the wire, and into the barbs. It doesn't faze him. He doesn't even flinch as he continues his lunges towards the frame of the door where we are all standing -in disbelief.
He cocks his right arm back and rockets it forward. His fist, like a shot from a canon, connects with the samller of the two incredibly large cops left eye. The taser is still making that depressing sound and has done nothing to impede this marine-cut, shell of a man's charge.
The officers begin to push him back into the apartment's hallway. My partner charges around the corner and I follow as we, the four of us, push him backwards onto a coffee table, exploding the glass like fireworks on a 4th of July picnic. The marine somehow gets to his knees and begins fighting like a caged animal. We push him backwards, again, into his mother's television. It falls off its stand and pops like a kernel of corn.
This is the part I really don't remember too well. Two cops, two paramedics, and one crazed, prison-cut muscle man wrestle on the floor of this elderly lady's small apartment. A cop gets thrown off and I hop on. I'm kicked off and land on my back, another cop dives into the mixture of arms and legs. The sap, a leather tool with a ball bearing in it, does no harm as the officers strike the crazed man on the hip. The mag light, that was ominously swaying on a hip minutes before, ascends into the fear filled room and comes down with a thundering crash. Like a melon being dropped from a three-story building, the sound reverberates off the 70's decorated room. Over, and over, and over the mag light crashes into the marine's head, splattering blood and sweat onto my face and the wall next to us.
I briefly wonder what his mom will think of all the blood on the wall, and how she plans on removing it. But, I am violently interrupted with screams from reality.
"He's got my gun. He's got my fucking gun!" The fear in the officer's voice sends chills down my spine. As I write this, my stomach turns and my arms shiver. It wasn't an order by a man in uniform; it was the shrill of a man fighting for his life.
It is at this point I begin to concentrate all my efforts on the marine's groin. Punch after punch after punch does nothing. My partner, trapped on his back by the fighting marine, grabs the felon's wrist and is able to prevent the gun from completely exiting the holster. The other officer, still fighting, reaches for his sidearm and prepares for the seemingly life-altering nightmare that is about to occur.
Luckily, my punches aren't without merit and the marine grunts as I connect one squarely. The gun is reholstered, both of them, and the marine is rolled onto his stomach.
"He' biting me, he's fucking biting me!" Those words stab my eardrums and force me to change my plan. "Ohh, shit. He's biting me," my partner moans. My field trainer of 3 months.
I quickly move from his groin to his face. My gloved hand connects squarely on his nose and bursts it like a dumpling full of red sauce. A noise I am unable to describe now, precedes the moaning and cussing of the marine as his fractured nose bleeds profusely.
He stops biting my partner and this is this opportunity that allows an officer to straddle him, tuck his large, tattooed bicep around the marine's neck, and squeeze. He squeezes with every ounce in his soul. He squeezes until his arm cramps and the marine's face turns ghostly white. He squeezes because this is the last opportunity for us to not have to fight again. He squeezes and the marine's eyes go blank, unconscious, he is eased to the floor.
We look at one another. "Are you O.K.?” we ask. Blood covers our faces, dulls the officer's badges, and trickles down my partner's arm.
The firefighters and the armed security enter the room. After asking if they can do anything, one of the officers yells at them like a child caught stealing. It isn't a stern, professional lecture on why we should help one another, it is a screaming at the top of his lungs, fighting for our lives verbal whip lashing. They, the firemen and the security, load the patient onto my bed.
We wheel him out into the ambulance. I sit, exhausted and frightened, on the bench next to the unconscious, bloody marine.
"Do you want to take off the handcuffs?” asks a fireman.
I stare at him blankly and allow him to close the door. Traditionally, you never transport someone with their arms handcuffed behind them, but I don't care. The blue hands would normally frighten me into thinking something terrible could happen because of this procedure, but I don't care. I hope his hands die.
I grab Haldol, Benedryl, and Valium and pump him blindly with all these substances. I have no idea how much I give, but I don't care. I don't want him to wake up on the way the hospital, or truth be told, ever again.
I sit in the captain's chair, knees straddling his head. He is unconscious because of all the drugs I have given him.
I am suddenly overwhelmed with this feeling of wanting to punch him as hard as I can, right in the already bloodied face. But, instead, I sit there and stew on the words the cop just said to me as we departed for the hospital.
"If he would have pulled that gun all the way out of the holster, I was going to shoot him in the head."
That sentence dances around my head as the streetlights on the sidewalk flash pass the patient compartment window.
That sentence still lurks nightmarishly inside my mind.
That’s the reason I wear a bulletproof vest.
There are these series of apartment complexes on the far east side of town, so far that they abutt the neighboring city and county. Anyway, these are the addresses that are aired repeatedly on a daily basis. And when it's your turn, when you're on the receiving end of one of these infamous addresses, you can hear a collective sigh of relief from every other ambulance in the city. "Oooh, that hurts. Better them than us," floats in the minds of every other ambulance in the city.
Tonight, it is my turn.
"Number (dramatic pause so everyone nestled up in the black, night air has to awake mildly and bend an ear to listen) 9".
Damn it. "Number 9," I respond.
"Code 10 to this address. All we have is altered mention. Everyone's going". Meaning Police and Fire.
A collective sigh floats above the city streets from every other ambulance. It's my turn. Batter up.
We scream through the night's sky. Slowing down to a comfortable 60 mph at the red lights. Dirty blues harmonica music plays in my head as the red and blue emergency lights ricochet of anything reflective. The dually tires screech around every corner as we rocket down the street. What normally would take fifteen minutes, takes us four. We shut everything off blocks early and creep stealthily to the front entrance of this elderly apartment complex. Not that we thought it was dangerous, but that was habit at night. All stealth. All the time.
In their new post 9/11 black bunker gear, a firefighter approaches the side of the ambulance. This is uncommon, especially here. His face pale, his speech stuttered, he begins talking frantically to my rolled up window. Fingers pointing and hands waving, something has freaked him out. I look at my partner and ask. "Isn't this where all the old people live?"
I exit and the firefighter rambles uncontrollably. "Crazy" and "Police" and "Dangerous" all penetrate the night sky. He is attempting to warn me about something, something that seems to have gone horribly awry. I grab my black, metal briefcase full of medical tools, and like a businessman walking to his cubicle from the water dispenser, I collect my thoughts and wonder what has happened to make this young, fit, firefighter so crazed. How could an elderly man create such a stir?
The police arrive at the same time. One officer. He is large and built like a boxer. I imagine a tattoo of a barbed wire painted on his bicep, under his perfectly starched blue shirt. He follows me along the dimly lit sidewalk to the front entrance, handcuffs clinking and mag light swaying against his hip. We both enter the complex, hop in the elevator made for two, and slowly ascend to the B floor.
As we exit we are greeted by another frightened firefighter. We round the corner and see a huddled group of black bunker gear against the wall, and standing across from them two almost fit security guards leaning against the wall, Dirty Harry revolvers hang from their lopsided utility belts. Apparently, .45 magnums are a necessity around all these old people.
"He's going crazy. We've been out here 10 minutes and all we've heard is screaming. He's tearing the apartment apart."
Still confused, I finally ask, "How old is he?"
"He must be in his twenty's," responds the one I assume is in charge.
The officer leans his head to his right, almost resting it on his shoulder. He punches the small button on the side of the radio attached to his lapel and calls for another car. "Better safe than sorry," he whispers to me.
We wait in the cramped hall listening to the crashing furniture on the other side of the paper-thin walls. An occasional scream breaks the silence and awakes all of us from the horrible daydreaming that is surely occupying everyone's brain.
"He's big, really big." a firefighter mumbles.
The other cop arrives. An identical twin to the giant in front of us, the only difference is that you can see the tattoo on his huge bicep. The two officers huddle together, discuss their plan, and one draws his taser and checks the red, laser light on the wall. He looks at me and smiles. They knock.
"DPD! Open the door!"
No response.
"DPD, open the door or we'll kick it in."
The door slowly swings open. I step forward to the right of the cop with the taser. My logic: I've never seen anyone tased and I heard it knocks them down instantly. The mother has escaped and was able to open the barricaded door. I peak around the door frame and see a monster of a human charging down the cramped hallway. Fire in his breath and emptiness in his eyes, he lurches forward angrily towards the cops.
"STOP, or I'll..."
Zap! The copper wires with small silver fishing hooks explode out the end of the taser. Three in all, and all three striking the crazed man. They penetrate through his shirt and stick to his neck and face. "Click-click-click-click-click," the taser shoots electricity from the handle, down the wire, and into the barbs. It doesn't faze him. He doesn't even flinch as he continues his lunges towards the frame of the door where we are all standing -in disbelief.
He cocks his right arm back and rockets it forward. His fist, like a shot from a canon, connects with the samller of the two incredibly large cops left eye. The taser is still making that depressing sound and has done nothing to impede this marine-cut, shell of a man's charge.
The officers begin to push him back into the apartment's hallway. My partner charges around the corner and I follow as we, the four of us, push him backwards onto a coffee table, exploding the glass like fireworks on a 4th of July picnic. The marine somehow gets to his knees and begins fighting like a caged animal. We push him backwards, again, into his mother's television. It falls off its stand and pops like a kernel of corn.
This is the part I really don't remember too well. Two cops, two paramedics, and one crazed, prison-cut muscle man wrestle on the floor of this elderly lady's small apartment. A cop gets thrown off and I hop on. I'm kicked off and land on my back, another cop dives into the mixture of arms and legs. The sap, a leather tool with a ball bearing in it, does no harm as the officers strike the crazed man on the hip. The mag light, that was ominously swaying on a hip minutes before, ascends into the fear filled room and comes down with a thundering crash. Like a melon being dropped from a three-story building, the sound reverberates off the 70's decorated room. Over, and over, and over the mag light crashes into the marine's head, splattering blood and sweat onto my face and the wall next to us.
I briefly wonder what his mom will think of all the blood on the wall, and how she plans on removing it. But, I am violently interrupted with screams from reality.
"He's got my gun. He's got my fucking gun!" The fear in the officer's voice sends chills down my spine. As I write this, my stomach turns and my arms shiver. It wasn't an order by a man in uniform; it was the shrill of a man fighting for his life.
It is at this point I begin to concentrate all my efforts on the marine's groin. Punch after punch after punch does nothing. My partner, trapped on his back by the fighting marine, grabs the felon's wrist and is able to prevent the gun from completely exiting the holster. The other officer, still fighting, reaches for his sidearm and prepares for the seemingly life-altering nightmare that is about to occur.
Luckily, my punches aren't without merit and the marine grunts as I connect one squarely. The gun is reholstered, both of them, and the marine is rolled onto his stomach.
"He' biting me, he's fucking biting me!" Those words stab my eardrums and force me to change my plan. "Ohh, shit. He's biting me," my partner moans. My field trainer of 3 months.
I quickly move from his groin to his face. My gloved hand connects squarely on his nose and bursts it like a dumpling full of red sauce. A noise I am unable to describe now, precedes the moaning and cussing of the marine as his fractured nose bleeds profusely.
He stops biting my partner and this is this opportunity that allows an officer to straddle him, tuck his large, tattooed bicep around the marine's neck, and squeeze. He squeezes with every ounce in his soul. He squeezes until his arm cramps and the marine's face turns ghostly white. He squeezes because this is the last opportunity for us to not have to fight again. He squeezes and the marine's eyes go blank, unconscious, he is eased to the floor.
We look at one another. "Are you O.K.?” we ask. Blood covers our faces, dulls the officer's badges, and trickles down my partner's arm.
The firefighters and the armed security enter the room. After asking if they can do anything, one of the officers yells at them like a child caught stealing. It isn't a stern, professional lecture on why we should help one another, it is a screaming at the top of his lungs, fighting for our lives verbal whip lashing. They, the firemen and the security, load the patient onto my bed.
We wheel him out into the ambulance. I sit, exhausted and frightened, on the bench next to the unconscious, bloody marine.
"Do you want to take off the handcuffs?” asks a fireman.
I stare at him blankly and allow him to close the door. Traditionally, you never transport someone with their arms handcuffed behind them, but I don't care. The blue hands would normally frighten me into thinking something terrible could happen because of this procedure, but I don't care. I hope his hands die.
I grab Haldol, Benedryl, and Valium and pump him blindly with all these substances. I have no idea how much I give, but I don't care. I don't want him to wake up on the way the hospital, or truth be told, ever again.
I sit in the captain's chair, knees straddling his head. He is unconscious because of all the drugs I have given him.
I am suddenly overwhelmed with this feeling of wanting to punch him as hard as I can, right in the already bloodied face. But, instead, I sit there and stew on the words the cop just said to me as we departed for the hospital.
"If he would have pulled that gun all the way out of the holster, I was going to shoot him in the head."
That sentence dances around my head as the streetlights on the sidewalk flash pass the patient compartment window.
That sentence still lurks nightmarishly inside my mind.
That’s the reason I wear a bulletproof vest.
Comments
Frogger
I can't think of any other word to describe that.
I would never, ever want to be in that position and I applaud you for being one of the many amazing people that are out there every day doing the same thing.