A funny true story
 

In my 20's i was a paramedic in Atlanta for about 8 years. For 2 and a half years I worked in what was probably the busiest 911 zone in Ga., S.E. Atlanta, Near Lakewood amphitheater for those of you familiar with our little southern burg. The 2 biggest housing projects in Atl. were both in that zone, Thomasville heights and Carver homes. Any way, one new years eve, at 10 minutes to midnight my partner and I got a call in Thomasville Heights for and old lady having chest pain. We get there, assess her and load her in the bus to take her to the Gradys. (Atl's county hospital and trauma center.) I am in the process of hooking up the monitor, starting an IV, giving her a nitro and all the other various and sundry things you would expect a paramedic to be doing if you are having a heart attack, when midnight hit....

Down in the hood they don't buy fire works to shoot off on new years eve, everybody starts shooting their guns, and frequently this is used as an excuse for some "accidental shootings."

Any way, I am focused on what I am doing when it sounds like WWIII starts all around us.

We are in a brand new ambulance that has little plastic sliding doors over the shelves. I have just finished starting the IV when one of those little doors just randomly breaks in half and land on my patient. Believe it or not the only thing that went thru my mind at that point was "that's weird".

I continued caring for my patient with out another thought on the matter.

Suddenly, about four of those little plastic doors just randomly broke and fell on my patient.

Have you ever seen the movie the Jerk, with Steve Martin, where the sniper is shooting at him and he is looking at the oil cans and says ,"these oil cans are defective"?

I actually said, out loud, to my partner, " Joe there is something wrong with these doors on the shelves!"

About that very second my partner Joe figured out WHY I was having such a hard time with the shelf doors.
While I am at this point looking intently into one of the shelves in question.
Just as Joe yells "Get on the floor and hold on!" I notice that there is a small hole at the back of the shelf that I can see light through.

It finally dawns on me, BULLETS ARE GOING THROUGH THE FRICKIN AMBULANCE!

Needless to say I flopped my butt down on the floor while Joe went almost half a mile up Mcdonna Blvd in reverse.

After it was all said & done, we delivered our patient safely to the the hospital amazingly enough. I walked out to the ramp where Joe was cleaning the bus and Joe started laughing so hard I thought he was gonna bust. I asked him what was so funny , he said " JOE there is something wrong with these shelves!, You sharp as a marble boy I tell you what."

Later back at the station I took off my jacket and a bullet fell out of it. I found another one in the heel of my boot.

We got written up for the damage to our ambulance and were told if it happened again we would be terminated.

Re: A funny true story
 

Frigg'n awesome post.........'there's something wrong with these shelves'..........hahahaha

That is one of my all time fav scene's.

Sounds like you work for a good outfit. :sarcasm:

Re: A funny true story
 

The worst part of that job was the people I worked for.

Re: A funny true story
 

That's why some Cleveland, OH fire/EMS equipment has armored crew cabs.

The paramedics wear concealed body armor while on duty.

I don't live or run medic anywhere near that beautiful city, but attended a couple street survival seminars by their asst chief of EMS.

While running medic (volunteer) for nearly 20 years south of Dayton, I wore a vest by choice (after showing up on enough "secure" scenes that were anything but).

There's nothing quite so exciting as pulling up on a scene, hearing the "BOOM" of a shotgun, and seeing drapes go flying out a window. Fun, fun, fun!:111:

Re: A funny true story
 

So,,,,, what do they expect you to do if someone starts shooting at the ambulance?

-end-

Re: A funny true story
 

Saw a great dark humor movie about that job about ten years ago; "Broken Vessels" or something like that.

Re: A funny true story
 

I wondered that myself, aloud, and was told to shut my mouth. The company I worked for was pretty screwed up. During the olympics they left us in a tin shack for 4 days without being able to leave to sleep or change my fricken underwear.

Re: A funny true story
 

Great story. Joe was right, little plastic doors just randomly falling off, LOL.

It almost invariably is in corporate environments, and most of us work in corporate environments. Everyone is constrained to produce, and pressure flows in hierarchy, so the bosses are required to be sure you produce.

They are all screwed up, and getting worse every day. And it's accelerating since the lizards pretty much took off the curtain in the last 6 or so years, and the fact that their debt system seems to found its watermark.

I'll bet you were pretty ripe by the fourth day...

Re: A funny true story
 

Re: A funny true story
 

That is a SCREAM!:111:

Yes the gangbangers shot at us and it didn't help that the Atlanta Red Dog Drug squad would occasionally run drug busts in Grady ambulances dressed up as paramedics.

Re: A funny true story
 

Reviver, yes we were.