Zombies, Rug Burns, and Discolored Dead Guys...

Slightly Overstated...Possible Cardiac Arrest
7:50 One ladder truck, one paramedic squad, one EMS supervisor, and one ambulance...all for ONE twisted ankle. The call came in as a possible cardiac arrest at an industrial factory. We arrived to find a 52 y/o BM guy on the ground with a twisted ankle. So...we went ahead and did CPR on his twisted ankle. When we revived his ankle, we transported the dude to the hospital with heavy, overkilled spinal immobilization precautions for a guy who fell from standing with a twisted ankle. I guess you can't really over-dramaticize a worker's comp claim.

Slightly Understated...Possible Cardiac Arrest
10:21 Another possible cardiac arrest...yeah, whatever, right? Well this dude was a little beyond cardiac arrest. The dude's (46 y/o WM) real estate agent was coming by the house to check out some damaged caused by the sellers when they were moving out. She thought it was odd that the dog was still in the house, so she decided to be a little nosey, which she would soon regret. She went up to the third floor, calling the dude's name, entered his bedroom, and saw him in his bed. She approached the bed, calling his name, and gave him a little shake to wake him up. He didn't wake up, she freaked out, bolted out of the room, and called 911.

We found him totally dead, with rigor mortis and heavy levidity. The levidity had actually created a very impressive, well-defined line on his face, just behind his cheeks that extended all the way around the top of his head. The real estate agent was freaking out. At one point, I had to tell her that she didn't have to personally take care of the body; the police would do that. Later, when she was on the phone with one of her friends, she said, "What am I going to do with his body?" (thinking she had to personally dispose of it), and I had to remind her again that the police would take care of the giant mound of dead, discolored flesh.

Chest Pains Gone Bad
12:11 Responded to the home of a 62 y/o HM CO chest pains on his front porch. While the paramedics were talking to him, he fell down, unconscious, and started having something like a seizure. He had been working outside all morning in heavy heat. It's possible he had some sort of heat stroke, heat related seizure, heat induced heart problem, or a combination of all of those. Anyway, the dude was unconscious, and he was in really bad shape. The paramedics started IV's, and we hauled @$$ to the hospital. The guy looked like he was going to be OK.

Blood-Drenched Zombie
13:36 We got called to an apartment complex for an unknown problem (which remained that way...unknown). At the apt. complex, we were greeted by the guy who called 911...a concerned citizen who saw some dude on his porch having an apparent seizure (or something)...generally acting crazy...and bleeding everywhere. We arrived with a police officer, and the police officer went and knocked on the door...we were right behind the police officer. Suddenly, some naked guy, with blood everywhere, abruptly opened his front door and came running out of the house. He jogged in place for a couple of seconds, and then ran back into the house and fell on the floor, on a pile of furniture parts and blood.

The guy looked like a creature from a Robert Rodriguez zombie movie. He had blood all over his face, on his chest, dried spots of blood on his arms, dried crustations of blood in his nose, and blood stains on his zombie teeth...he even had the classic streamers of blood from the top teeth to the bottom teeth, when he opened his mouth. He looked like he was just eating live humans. His eyes were WIDE-open, and his pupils were super dilated. He never really focused on anyone; he just looked around with crazy zombie eyes.

My partner went to take his blood pressure, which the zombie allowed for a little while, but then some sort of switch just tripped in his zombie head, and he started going berzerk. He started flopping all over the floor, performing some scissor-kicking, full-body-seizure-like maneuvers, tearing everything up in his path, and causing furniture parts to clang together and be flung all over the floor. When he was finished going Category 5 on the front room, he got up and started coming after us. The zombie grabbed at one of my partners, but only got his name tag, so my two partners headed for the door (which locked behind them). Then the zombie came after me, with classic outstretched zombie arms, but I was trapped, with the zombie between me and door, and I couldn't escape. So I just took cover behind the cop, who pulled out his tazer and threatened to taze the zombie. The zombie backed off, but proceeded to go 'bull in a china shop' on the whole front room. He even kicked out the window next to the door and sustained a massive laceration on his ankle...doubling the amount of blood on the already blood-soaked floor.

Then the zombie headed straight for a railing, behind which was a 8 to 9 foot drop, down to the first floor. When he headed for the railing, I thought, "YES, this is going to be exciting...this naked zombie is about to fall over the railing and land on the first floor...I wish I was video-taping this." But then, the police officer bravely stepped in and tried to stop him from going over the railing, which I realized was probably the right thing to do. The cop was losing the battle, and the zombie was about to fall, so I jumped in and helped restrain the zombie and put him on the ground. At this point, my two partners were locked outside, so I opened the front door to let my partners in, so they could help hold him down until a few other cops showed up. The police heavily restrained him, and we transported the zombie to the county hospital (also a psych facility). The patient told us, at one point, that he had taken acid and shrooms, but he also told us he was God and that we WOULD respect him. I really hope it wasn't God, because I don't want to hang-out with a blood-drenched zombie in heaven.

A Bad Case of the Shakes
15:59 We were called to another fire station for a 48 y/o WF who had walked into the fire station and complained of being "shakey." The fire fighters called an ambulance for her. When we got there, the ff's met us at the ambulance and told us to just bring our computer (to write up the call), because the lady said she didn't want to go to the hospital. That might have been a vital bit of information to receive BEFORE we arrived. The lady said, "I don't want to go to the hospital; I've been several times for this problem, and they've never done anything to help me." That makes sense to me...if a hospital can't help you, go to a local fire station. We wrote up the record and took off, denying the lady a ride to the local bus stop, which she requested as we were leaving (the last thing we want is for people to start coming to the fire station to get a ride to nearest bus stop).

Rug Rash
17:13 Responded to the apartment complex of a 14 y/o BM, in the back of a police car, for a minor abrasion on the kid's right elbow. The kid was a habitual run-away, and he was attempting a jail-break today. His mom caught him, and while wrestling him to the ground, the kid got a MINOR rug burn on his arm. It was not even bleeding. The police showed up and took the kid into custody, and the officer decided he should call an ambulance for the abrasion. We drove with lights and sirens for 15 minutes to arrive to find a kid with a non-bleeding abrasion. I asked the cop who called for an ambulance, and he said, "Ah deed...ah knew he dint nee no ambolanz o no hospal, buh I jus ca ya'll ta cov ma tracks, ya know wha'm sayin...ge'em checked out." The mom told me she WOULD take him to the hospital, which was a quarter mile away, but she "dint have nough gas in da ca'." I talked the mom into letting us take the kid to the hospital so that we wouldn't have to do a "pediatric no-load," which is about a 45-minute process. So...we drove the kid one quarter mile to the hospital, in the emergency 911 ambulance, for a small, non-bleeding rug burn.

Cardiac Arrest...er...uh...Drunk Guy
18:20 A local guy who gets off on calling 911 (he wants to be a firefighter) called 911 for a guy on the street who was possibly having a cardiac arrest. 4 different units got dispatched. The paramedics arrived and found a drunk guy sleeping. They miracously cured the drunk guy of his sleep and disregarded us.

Sleeping Guy, Maybe
23:17 A concerned citizen named Richard called 911 for a guy who he thought was sleeping in his car on the side of the freeway. Two fire trucks, one paramedic unit, and an ambulance searched all over the freeway and found nothing. They need to make 911 a 1-900 number that charges you $5.99 a minute...that way, the only people that would call us would be lonely, horny, fat dudes, looking to meet 'hot young college girls in YOUR town.'