Still catching up with the busy day of old, we now encounter a man on a bicycle. At least he used to be. He was cut off in traffic and...well...just read.
THE EMERGENCY
The way its dispatched you'd think this is a major incident like from EMT class: "You're responding to the OB case, hang gliding accident into a bus load of hemopheliacs and the chainsaw is still running...GO"
THE ACTION
But its not. On the ambulance Happy Medic uses what I call BS names. These are the names we refer to each other as if we think the other person is missing something and taking a call too far. For example, I'm told by the bike rider that he went over the handlebars and smashed into the hood of the car, then into the windshield, breaking it. So I'm taking this call as very seriously and I've shifted from my complacent mode into Trauma Mode. My partner, meanwhile, is triaging the rest of the folks around and sees the car involved as well as the bike and calls to me using my BS name "Steph."(Pronounced Steve)
I perk up. "Yeah Fred? (Fred Garvin, male prostitute from Saturday Night Live, his BS name) You may want to ask the rider again about the mechanism here" and he's pointing at the bike, kickstand out, not a scratch on it.
"Explain to me again what happened?" Which is the best way to gauge a person's intent. He goes into a long speech about how he was traveling this way, doing that, minding his business when this car pulled in front of him.
When asked to skip to the part where its an emergency, it comes out, "I want a report taken and I want to make a Citizen's arrest on this man!"
Glorious. He thinks we're going to call PD for him. I confirm the biker is uninjured and the driver of the car just smiles and shakes his head when I ask if he'd like to be evaluated. "I cut him off sure, but he never even touched my car."
"You're lying!" The biker calls out and I decide its time for us to go.
"Where's my copy of your report?" He asks. I give him the standard version of "I haven't written it yet and he can get a copy at HQ in 7-10 business days" and he is irate.
I'm never sure why people want that report. If anything he wants me not to report there was no complaint, no physical evidence of an injury and that the driver states the bike never touched the car.
He demands it so I called on the radio that we were extended at the scene writing a report for a citizen. I wrote up everything he said and that I saw, as per usual, and he signed the refusal form, generating an assessment fee, and asked for a copy. I told him it had to be filed first and that HIPPA laws allow him to ask me to make changes but it must be processed before he can have a copy. I handed him the hard copy of the HIPPA form with our HQ address on it and he quickly pulled it to his face and began to read.
Fire control called us and requested we go back in service, they were out of ambulances and had code 3 calls pending.
He may have said more as we drove away but darn it if the siren going to our next run didn't drown him out.
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