The dispatch priority is directly proportional to the time spent in the transferring hospital with the patient. Low priority responses will be transported immediately. High priority responses

Corollary 1: If a member of the transport team sticks their head into the cab and asks you to turn on the lights and siren en route to the transferring hospital, that team will spend at least two hours packaging the patient for transport.

Corollary 2: NICU transport team members must put their hands on a piece of equipment at least three times before actually using that piece of equipment.

Corollary 3: All transport teams believe that ambulance lights and siren are capable of ripping a hole in the fabric of space time and instantaneously transporting an ambulance to the receiving hospital. And smoothly, I might add.

Breda’s been bit by the Mondays, misplacing a very important piece of hardware.

Luckily, I found it:

Took me forever to wrest it away from the old guy down the street. He kept yelling, “But it’s a major award! A major award!”

I’ve long said that the MPDS dispatch card for “fall” should only require an ALS response if the dispatch information includes the phrase, “off a building.”

Tonight, I was dispatched to a “long fall,” a code of which I’ve never heard before tonight. So I asked dispatch, “Can you define what a ‘long fall’ is?”

Their reply was, “Between 9 and 29 feet. The patient fell down a flight of stairs.”

That fits the definition, I guess, but it poses an interesting philosophical question:

Is a fall down a flight of stairs really a long fall, or is it technically just 15 very short falls in succession?

Saw a familiar face at a scene just now, a cop I had worked with back in the old home town. We got to reminiscing, and he mentioned that he was headed home this weekend to visit his kin in Bienville Parish.

This brought to mind an episode back in ancient times when I was still a student Ambulance Driver, and I took a young lady I fancied on a date in rural Bienville Parish. We browsed the booths at Bonnie and Clyde Trade Days, a large flea market in the area, had ourselves a picnic lunch, and climbed Driskill Mountain, the highest point in Louisiana.

On the way home, I took her through Gibsland, and we posed for a few snapshots at the Bonnie and Clyde ambush site.

Now, let’s just say I wasn’t dating the girl for her smarts or for her voluminous knowledge of history. She barely understood that Clyde Barrow didn’t turn from a life of crime and become a famous movie star.

So I told her the story of legendary Texas Ranger Frank Hamer, the man who led the manhunt for Bonnie and Clyde, and who orchestrated the ambush that happened on that very spot. Told her how, in colorful detail, Hamer’s posse opened up on them with BARs, riddling the bodies with so many bullet holes that the undertaker had a difficult time embalming them because their bodies wouldn’t hold embalming fluid.

My date listened with rapt attention, no doubt smitten not only with my rakish charm and rugged good looks, but also my knowledge of local history.

And then, she walked over to the granite monument, ran her fingers over its bullet-pocked surface, and breathed wonderingly, “Whoooaaaa, it’s still got bullet holes in it!”

*blink, blink*

“Uh, honey, the monument wasn’t here when the ambush happened.”

“It wasn’t? But it’s got bullet holes in it! Besides, how did Bonnie and Clyde know to pull over if the marker wasn’t here?”

“Sweetie, I wasn’t there, but I think that if, on May 22, 1934,  Clyde had pulled over next to a granite marker bearing the inscription, ‘On this site, May 22, 1934, Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker were killed by law enforcement officers,’ he’d have been damned suspicious something was up.”

I’ll give you one guess as to my date’s hair color.*

* The clue’s right there in the title, for you blondes reading this.

ER Doc: “Whatcha got, AD?”

Ambulance Driver: “Chemically enhanced 54-year-old male, got in a disagreement during a jam session, and one of his bestest buddies whomped him upside the head with some musical instrument. He’s got a head lac, and a globe injury to his right eye. Looks pretty bad.”

ER Doc  (amused): “One of his bandmates belted him with a banjo or something?”

AD: “I don’t think so. As far as I know, you use a banjo on the knee.”

ER Doc (sighing): “Walked right into that one, didn’t I?”

AD: “I slay me sometimes, I really do.”

Nurse (to the room in general): “Hey, anyone seen Room Seven?”

Room in general: ” … ”

Nurse (louder this time): “Hey, has anyone seen my patient from Room Seven?”

Ambulance Driver: “Hot chick, maybe 25, nice tan, big boobs, wearing a johnny?”

Nurse: “Yeah, that’s her. Wait a minute, how did you see her boobs?”

AD: “Because she’s outside smoking, and she’s got the johnny on backwards. She’s apparently not much for modesty.”

Nurse: “Thank goodness. I thought she had eloped.”

AD: “Well, maybe she has. Want us to go tackle her and carry her back in here?”

Nurse: “That won’t be necessary.”

AD: “We’d be happy to go fetch the hot, half-naked girl, seriously. Anything to be of service.”

Nurse (snorting): “I’ll bet you would! Would you be so helpful if she were fat and ugly?”

AD: “Sure! But that sort of thing, I delegate to my partner.”

… is a fayul-yuh tew com-yoon-ee-cate.

Barriers to communication are not uncommon in EMS. Whether it be disparities in education, or difference in culture, or good old-fashioned language barriers, quite often the caregiver and the patient are speaking two different languages, literally and figuratively.

Over the years, I’ve learned how to overcome most obstacles to communicate. My mother-in-law was an advanced ASL instructor, and I learned some rudimentary sign language from her and the ex-wife.

I speak fluent Drunkese, and I’m conversant in Benzo and Narco dialects.

I speak jive better than Barbara Billingsley did in Airplane!

Heck, the main reason I still carry an EMS pocket guide is because its rudimentary medical Spanish phrasebook keeps me from saying things like, “Hola, Senor. Does my chest hurt when you breathe?”

Plus, I’ve faithfully watched every Cheech and Chong movie ever made, so my pronunciations are quite as gringo as you might expect from someone like myself, who resides way down there at the honky end of the ethnic spectrum.

But my greatest challenges always seem to occur with my fellow English-speakers. Ever try to understand a denture-wearer who was speaking without their upper plate, for example?

Or speak to a bipolar patient deep in their manic phase? They make auctioneers sound like Forrest Gump.

Or someone with a thick Cajun accent?

Or try to get a patient tweaking on methamphetamine and coke to slow down and focus long enough to tell you why they called 911?

Now imagine talking to a manic, coke-fueled Cajun missing his upper plate. That’s the guy I had tonight.

I’m reasonably sure he was speaking English, but without playback at 33 1/3 rpm, I can’t be sure.

He forgot to remind us that George Bush hates black people.

Rookie Partner: “I’ve got enough homemade chili for both of us, but I’m afraid to give you any. I have to share a truck cab with you all night.”

Ambulance Driver: “It’s either share your chili, or I’m eating gas station burritos tonight.”

Rookie Partner: “Soooo… you want saltines with your chili, or tortilla chips?”