Vignettes From The Bolance

“Picking up or dropping off?” the triage nurse wants to know.

By way of reply, I look pointedly at my empty ambulance stretcher, still neatly made up; straps folded just so, cardiac monitor and oxygen cylinder hanging on their respective racks.

“Picking. Up. Or. Dropping. Off?” the nurse repeats with an exaggerated air of patience, as if speaking to a particularly slow species of EMT.

“Dropping off,” I answer waving at the empty stretcher. “Picked up the Invisible Man in respiratory failure. BP’s a bit low at 90/70, but I managed to get an IV line and get him intubated.

“Huh?”

“Yeah, he’s got great veins and I could stick them by feel. It was a real bitch visualizing his vocal cords, though.”

**********

“Maaaaan, my stomach be hurtin’!” the woman slurs by way of greeting, walking straight to the back of my rig and opening the doors herself.

“So what happened to you that has your stomach hurting?” I ask politely. “Have you injured yourself? Any nausea or vomiting? Diarrhea, maybe? Vaginal discharge or difficulty urinating?”

“Fuck you, muhfucka!” she screams. “I ain’t got to answer no questions from you! Just take me to da muhfuckin’ hospital!”

I cast a surprised glance at my preceptor, who rolls her eyes and silently mouths the words frequent flier. She is not very forthcoming on how she expects me to handle this bitch, however.

Oh well, when in doubt, just rely on my superior people skills.

“If you’re in pain, perhaps we can help with that,” I explain gently. “But you need to answer some questions and let me examine you to find out what’s wrong.”

“Fuck you! Just drive tha fuckin’ amma-lance!”

“You don’t want us to examine you? You just want a ride to the hospital?”

“Is you fuckin’ deaf? Thass what I said!”

“Then you picked a very expensive fucking taxi, lady,” I growl, getting right up in her grill. “So plant your big ass right there on that stretcher, and don’t say a fucking word for the rest of this trip, or you can get right the hell out of my amma-lance, wherever we happen to pull over. You got me?”

Her mouth gapes open in surprise, but no words come out. Meekly, she settles on the stretcher and buckles in. My preceptor winks at me and slams the rear doors.

Five minutes later, she is crying and mumbling in the rambling non-sequiturs common to drunks everywhere. “I don’t see the point in living,” she moans. “Nobody loves me, ain’t got no friends…”

“Really?” I ask mildly as I wheel her through the ER doors. “I’d have thought people couldn’t get enough of your effortless charm and witty repartee…”

**********

“Goddamnit!” fumes my preceptor as she checks the address on the Mobile Data Terminal. “Why do I always get these calls?”

“What calls?” I ask. “Besides, I’m supposed to be riding all the emergencies today, so all you have to do is drive me from the scene to the ER.”

“Yeah, that’s not so bad,” she relents. “Suck for you, though. We’re going to Clotilde’s house. Probably got another ‘kidney stone’ again,” She makes little finger quotes when she says kidney stones. “Clotilde’s a major drug seeker.”

“You gonna tell me where Clotilde lives,” I ask pointedly, “so we can dash over there at a maximum of 10 mph over the posted speed limit, while simultaneously avoiding thirty and fifty percent force counts on the Black Tattletale Box, and behaving courteously to all other drivers and observing all traffic laws? Because if she doesn’t get morphine for her life-threatening renal calculi, she may die. Eventually.”

“”Sorry,” she chuckles, pointing left. “It’s at the FEMA trailer park, south of town.” She looks at me appraisingly. “Dude, you sound like you memorized the policy and procedure manual.”

“I want to get cleared and working my regular shift as soon as possible,” I explain. “Not that I don’t love you, but you are – as we’ve already established – a major shit magnet.”

“Dude, it’s not my fault! I just seem to get all the bullshit calls. Dispatch must hate me or something.”

“Two words,” I nod sagely. “Malingerer pheromones.“

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means you attract all the psych patients, drug seekers and malingerers.”

“I do not! It’s just that I always get punked by dispatch. Satan hates me.”

“Ahem,” I raise one eyebrow dubiously. “What was that you were telling me about all your past boyfriends?”

“Shit, now you sound like my mother.”

“Well, you have to admit that drug seekers, alcoholics, migraineurs, chronic back pain patients, crazies, and the chronically unemployed – on or off duty – are inexorably drawn to you like fibromyalgeur moths to a tiny little Vicodin flame…”

“God, I hope you’re wrong,” she moans hopelessly, rolling down the window to inquire of the exact address at the guard shack.

“But you know I’m not,” I point out with a wicked grin. “And for God’s sake, roll up the window. If they smell you coming, there’ll be a mob scene out here.”