I do love how some of our clients seem to have life threatening illnesses and injuries, then seem to have the energy and nimbleness of a child avoiding bed time. Recently we had yet another client who thinks we're not paying attention.THE EMERGENCY
A man is reporting he is unconscious.
THE ACTION
No, seriously, that's what the screen says. "The problem is: Unconscious, breathing status unknown. This is a first party caller." Dispatch inefficiency aside, this always makes me smile.
Being only a few blocks away, we're on the scene and indoors faster than he expected. Just past the lobby where the only phone in the building is kept behind a desk, the clerk is pointing up an open staircase and we hear her voice trailing off "...6th floor..."
We mount the stairs and look up only to see a tiny face behind an unkept beard looking back at us. He picks up his pace, but we do this all the time. Closing the gap, he ducks down a hallway and is hobbling with impressive speed despite all our calls to stop and wait for us.
He closes the door just as we catch him. Opening the door we find him, you guessed it, on the floor, eyes closed and completely out of breath. As we assess him he spins a yarn about having been so weak he can't walk. Even after chasing him up almost 3 flights of stairs after he walked the first 3, then running down the hall, he tells us he can not walk and demands the chair.
We load him onto it and carry him down the same stairs where the girl at the desk is apologizing for letting him use the phone.
"No, never deny him the phone," I tell her, "but next time see if you can talk him into waiting downstairs."
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