For those of you familiar with Bayou Renaissance Man, it would seem that yesterday he suffered a heart attack.

No word now on how he’s doing, other than the fact that he’s stable for the moment. Please, go by his blog and give him your best wishes, and keep him in your prayers tonight. On my list of Truly Good People, Peter ranks up there close to the top.

Thanks.

… there is an EMT there who needs your help.

EMT Simeon Smith has faced some serious medical issues lately, and his friends are having a barbecue to help raise funds.

If you’re in the mood for barbecue, or if you’d just like to help out, stop by on October 11 and buy a plate or three. Spread the word around at your office, school or to your blog readers. I’m sure he and his family will appreciate it.

Seems OHP Trooper Daniel “Mad Dog” Martin just can’t seem to keep his temper in check.

HOLDENVILLE, Oklahoma — An Oklahoma Highway Patrol trooper suspended for a fight with a paramedic in May is on paid administrative leave again after being accused of using excessive force.

This is the second time in five months that Trooper Daniel Martin has been placed on paid administrative leave. Martin was suspended earlier this year after cell phone video surfaced showing the trooper chocking a paramedic.

It’s not like anyone could see this coming, but…

… anyone could see this coming.

The man thought he did absolutely nothing wrong the last time this happened.

How about it, OHP? Are you going to send Trooper Martin on to a rewarding career in the fast food service industry, or are you going to wait until the next headline reads, “OHP Trooper beats Girl Scout to death for shorting him a box of Thin Mints?”

For those of you who missed the Airway Management episode live, the full 1 hour podcast is up.

Once again, thanks to Greg Friese, Buck Feris and Rob Theriault for having me on.

RP: “Another toe amputation? Why does everybody in this town mow their lawn barefoot, and at night?”

AD: “Nah, that ain’t it. This’ll be some diabetic who had a few toes amputated a week ago, and now the surgical site is bleeding. Watch and see.”

RP: “You call this one, and I’ll kiss your ass.”

*** flash forward five minutes***

RP: “Damn.”

AD: “Put on some lip balm first, Rookie. My ass is sensitive.”

Changes are afoot here at A Day In The Life Of An Ambulance Driver.

I’ve been offered, and accepted, membership in a blog network hosted by a major EMS trade journal. They’ll provide hosting and other technical support, and will handle migrating my blog to their site.

I’ll still be free to be as irreverent, scatological, politically incorrect and generally annoying as I have always been. That means gun posts, EMS posts, KatyBeth posts… whatever I want, basically. This blog will continue to be what I have always intended it to be – a personal forum that is neither fish, nor fowl, nor good red meat.

In other words, you’re going to see the same content you enjoy now.

What will change is the addition of some small EMS ads, as well as a panel linking other EMS bloggers in the network. Whenever I shoot off my mouth wax philosophic talk out of my ass opine about EMS news of the day, you’ll be able to see what other EMS bloggers are saying about the subject as well.

Within the week, you’ll need to change my URL in your blog links and RSS feeds. For those of you who get here via my ambulancedriverfiles.com domain, you won’t need to change a thing.

Stay tuned for further details, and I’ll see you soon in my new digs!

… if our love of quilted butt wipe is causing the decimation of old growth forests…

… and spotted owls are no longer an endangered species…

… and spotted owls nest in those trees we’ll be saving…

… can I just wipe my ass with spotted owl feathers?

One of my biggest fears before Katy started school was that the other kids would pick on her for being different. She’s a sweet kid, and she doesn’t understand why people can be cruel. When someone hits her, it doesn’t occur to her to defend herself or retaliate, and I honestly think that the idea that someone would do such things wounds her more than the physical pain.

“Kids can be cruel,” people say. I’ve heard it many times. But I’ve come to understand that kids, inherently, are kind. It’s adults that teach them to be mean.

I’m profoundly thankful that Katy goes to school where she does. It’s the school near to where her mother grew up, and the parents of her schoolmates are people that her mother grew up with. It’s a small school, just a few hundred students in grades K-12, and without the thuggery and bullying you see at most of the larger schools. It’s as close as you’re going to get to the atmosphere back when I went to school thirty-odd years ago, when public education was a different – and in my opinion, altogether superior – animal than it is today.

It’s a school from which KatyBeth can graduate one day, walking the aisle with friends she’s known for fourteen years. The parents of those kids are simple people with simple values. They’re farmers, mechanics, loggers and pipeliners, with a healthy dose of teachers, cops and firemen. Most of them probably aren’t even college educated. Some may call them rednecks, but in my book that’s not such a bad thing.

And the kids they raise, for the most part, mind their parents, respect their elders, and say “Sir” and “Ma’am” a lot. The teenagers act like teenagers, yes, but rarely do their shenanigans involve anything that would attract the attention of the law. And since this town is rife with cops, more often than not the responding officer knows their folks, and knows that a word with Daddy carries more dire consequences than a night in jail.

So yeah, KatyBeth attends a decent little school, in a decent little town, with decent, well-behaved kids, raised by decent folks. When she was in pre-K, she told me she had a boyfriend, the little boy who sat next to her in class.

When I asked how a pre-schooler gets a boyfriend, she told me that Eric laid out her pallet at nap time, and made it a point to tuck her in before he laid out his own pallet and blanket. He also punched the straw in her juice box at lunch time, because she found it difficult to manipulate that tiny little straw by herself.

And I told her that was sweet of him, and that’s what a boyfriend should do for his girlfriend. I also made a mental note to keep an eye on young Eric, lest the little Lothario’s attentions take a more romantic turn in the next ten years or so.

“Tuck her in,” indeed. Not with my baby, Mister Eric the Smooth.

And when her class walks to the gym or the cafeteria, invariably there is another little girl holding KatyBeth’s hand, making sure she keeps up or making sure the rambunctious boys don’t knock her down. And on the rare days when she cries when I drop her off, there’s always another little girl or three willing to play Mother Hen and comfort her until she stops crying.

But occasionally, just once in a while, you find a person for whom kindness is a foreign concept. KatyBeth’s first grade teacher is just that sort. She’s not quite as bad as some of the mean old biddies I had as teachers, but neither could she be considered the nurturing type.

As a parent, I support corporal punishment. I can count the number of times I’ve spanked Katy on one hand, and even a stern word and a slightly raised voice from me is all that’s necessary to reduce her to a quivering, sobbing wreck. But there are actions that she knows will merit a spanking, and her knowledge that I’m willing to spank her if necessary is a useful tool indeed.

And while I’m not philosophically opposed to school administrators using that same tool, it’s the fear that people like her first grade teacher will be delivering the spanking that keeps me from allowing it for my child.

All this musing was precipitated by a conversation I had with Katy the other day. When I picked her up from school, I asked her how her day went, as I do every day. And she laughed and told me that her teacher used one of my sayings that day.

“And what saying is that, Stinkerbell?” I asked.

“Well, Kyle got knocked down and skint his elbow, and he was crying,” she answered. “And Mrs. Sutton asked him ‘what do you want me to do, call you a waaambulance?’ and the whole class laughed because it was soooo funny!”

Funny, my hairy white ass.

So then I had to explain to my daughter that, yes, I’ve said that very thing quite often, but only to her, and only when I was sure she wasn’t hurt. And how would she like it if she was crying, and everyone laughed at her?

Chastened, she answered that she wouldn’t like such a thing at all, and she asked why Mrs. Sutton would say such a mean thing.

And I had to tell my child that grownups sometimes do mean and hurtful things, even grownups like Mrs. Sutton that are supposed to look after little children. It’s not a conversation I particularly wanted to have with my daughter, but an inevitable one, I suppose. I just never thought it would involve a trusted authority figure in her life.

I also told her that if Mrs. Sutton ever said such a mean thing to her, that she tell me immediately. If that ever happens, I’m going to show one cruel and insensitive teacher just what mean really is.

And that’s just if I decide to be nice. If I want to get nasty, I’ll just tell The Ex. She’ll get medieval on her ass.