Bad Patients, Bad Patients, Whatcha Gonna Do, Whatcha Gonna Do When They Come For You...

This may not be funny to most people, but this is how I amuse myself... Hot pursuit of a patient!

It was around 9 p.m., and we were called to a local soccer field for a seizure patient.  When we arrived, we were greeted by a giant mob of frantically concerned hispanic males, wearing soccer gear.  They were all yelling (in at least two languages) and pointing down the street.  I cornered one person, and I asked him what happened.  He told me our patient was playing soccer, and he had a seizure.  He said our patient was unconscious for several minutes, and he needs to go to the hospital because 'his head is still not right.'  He also told me that our patient often has seizures while playing soccer and hardly ever goes to the hospital.  I asked him where our patient was, and he told me our patient had just fled the scene, and he was headed north.  As this guy was telling me which direction our patient was heading, he was already beginning to run in that direction, pointing & yelling, and the mob followed him, also pointing and yelling.

Normally, when a patient is running from the ambulance, I don't give pursuit.  There's something about a running patient that makes me think he may not need an ambulance for his "emergency medical condition."  The ability to RUN is often one of the best indicators that a patient is not about to die.  It also leads me to believe the patient is not interested in our help.

However, due to a general lack of stimulation in my life, and for the sole purpose of self-gratification, we decided it would be appropriate to give chase to the fleeing patient.  So, I backed up my ambulance, turned my ambulance in the direction of the mob, which was now waving me in their direction and pointing in the direction they were running, and I began driving alongside the frantic mob, with lights and sirens blaring, in pursuit of a fleeing patient.  My partner and I looked at eachother and started laughing at how delightfully stupid this scene was...10 MPH hot pursuit of a seizure patient by a giant mob and an ambulance!

After a few seconds of following the mob of 15-20 hispanic soccer players, we noticed that one guy was a little faster than the rest of the mob, and he had sort of made his way to the front of the pack, leading the pack by about 20 yards, so we decided we would pull behind this lone leader of the mob.  So, now we're following the leader of the mob, with lights and sirens blaring, and the mob is still pursuing, 20 yards behind us, pointing in the direction we're driving & yelling.  The leader of the mob is apparently running as fast as he can.

We were impressed with the leader of mob's tenacity and speed, and we wondered out loud, "How does this guy know where to go...I don't see a patient anywhere up ahead of us?"  We figured he must know where our patient lives, and he's taking us to his house.  He kept running, and we kept pursuing.  We must have been pursuing for a few minutes now, and the mob was still running about 20-30 yards behind us, pointing in the direction we were headed, and yelling incomprehensible directions and cheers.  We had to be gaining ground on the patient, by the sound of the escalating cheers of the mob.

At one point I thought, 'our patient must not be in too bad of shape to be out-running this speed-demon and the giant mob of hispanic soccer players behind him.'

Finally, one of us geniuses (probably my partner), submitted the question, "What if this lone leader of the mob is actually our patient, and the mob is actually chasing HIM?  If so, we've been following our fleeing patient for the past 8-10 blocks, thinking he's leading us to our patient."  It seemed absurb that a guy would run this far and this fast, in a straight line, with an ambulance driving right behind him, as if he was helping us, showing us where to go, when HE was really the guy we were chasing.

We both quickly put the clues together and solved the mystery in our respective heads.  We looked at eachother at about the same time and said, "He, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha...THIS GUY'S OUR PATIENT...WE'RE CHASING OUR PATIENT, AND HE'S RUNNING FOR HIS LIFE!...ha, ha, ha, he, he, he...WHY IS HE RUNNING?...he, he, he, ha, ha, ha...HA, HA, HA, HA." 

Now the scene looks like this:
--there is one post-ictal patient sprinting down the road;
--there is one ambulance driving behind a terrified patient, with lights and sirens blaring;
--there is an animated mob of concerned hispanic soccer players, approximately 1/2 block behind us, yelling, pointing, and cheering;
--and there are two highly sympathetic EMT's in the front seat of the ambulance laughing their asses off while pointing at the patient, running in front of the ambulance, pointing at the mob, and pointing at eachother. 

If I was an on-looker, this scene would definitely be perplexing, but highly amusing.  I would wonder, "why is that guy running from an ambulance and a bunch of soccer players?... ... ...Oh and, better yet, why is an AMBULANCE chasing someone?"

I had seen this move on an episode of Cops, so I decided I would give it a try.  I pulled ahead our patient, and I pulled into a driveway, with my ambulance blocking the path of the fleeing patient.  It was sure to make him give up, since he was caught between an ambulance and giant mob.  I also started to get out of the cab, as if I was going to go Troy Polamalu on his ass.  The fleeing patient juked me, easily ran around the ambulance, and continued running down the road. 

This botched attempt to trap the patient caused us to laugh even more.  This was beginning to look more and more like something you would see a couple of stoner EMT's doing on an in a stoner movie.

The mob caught up to the ambulance as we were having trouble backing up and re-grouping, since we were drunk with laughter.  They confirmed that the lone leader was actually our fleeing patient.  We were laughing harder than ever now, and we were even more determined to catch our fleeing patient, who obviously did not want to be medically apprehended.  Nothing makes me want to treat a patient more than a patient who is this determined to NOT be treated (hard to get!).

A couple of blocks down the road, before we caught up to him again, our patient made a really good move.  He took a hard left turn into a parking lot and vanished amongst a bunch of cars, stores and people.  He must have seen a few episodes of Cops also, because that was a pretty good move.  I wished the Fire Department had a helicopter to pursue fleeing patients, because at that point he had used his manueverability, being on foot, to lose us.  I manuevered our cumbersome ambulance around the corner, we turned off our sirens to be more stealthy, and we stalkingly started heading in the direction we had last seen our patient fleeing.  We were searching among the cars and stores to see if we saw any signs of movement. We figured he had lost us.

Then! out of the corner of my eye! I caught a glimpse of a man running into a Kentucky Fried Chicken!  We scrambled to the KFC, our engine was winding out, and the tires were screeching.  We noticed our patient trying to blend in with the crowd standing in line (another good move, but not good enough).  We pulled into the parking lot, abruptly stopped (tires chirping again), and I ran into the KFC and confronted our patient.  I wondered if I should tackle his ass and rough him up a bit, like they always do at the end of a chase.  I wished I had a tazer.

Taking on the persona of a cop who had just apprehended his suspect, I asked, "Why are you running from us?"  He said, "I'n not."  We argued about whether or not he was running from us, and I pointed out that he had grass all over his hair & clothes and blood all over his mouth.  I interrogated him as to why he had grass all over his clothes, and I accused him of having a seizure.  He denied everything.

This is where the story takes a turn and becomes very UNdramatic.  At some point I had to drop the cop persona and go back to being just an EMT, trying to help a patient, who was not under arrest.  He eventually conceded, "Jes...I hed a seechure, but I'n fine now."  I said, "Oh ok, so do you feel like you need an ambulance?"  He said, "No, I done nee no amblinz."  I asked, "Are you sure...do you want us to take your vitals or look at you?"  He said, "No, I done wan notting; I'n fine."  I asked him the AAOx3 questions, he responded appropriately, and so, we had no choice but to leave him alone.

We laughed about our hot pursuit of our super-non-compliant patient for the rest of night.  Our job doesn't get any better than that.  It made me wish more patients would run from us.  If we could get more patients to run, we could start a TV show.  Bad patients, bad patients, whatcha gonna do...?

This post was written for "The Handover, Blog Carnival." This month's theme was, "Funniest. Call. Ever." All the submissions for this month's edition, from various bloggers, can be found at: http://proems.blogspot.com/2009/09/handover-blog-carnival-funniest-call.html