We pay another visit to Church and Flatbush avenues in Brooklyn, this time on a call for an “unknown.”

“The 911 caller hung up,” my partner, Bronson, says.

“It’s probably nothing,” I say. Often, by the time we get there, the situation has dissipated and everyone has gone.

We pull up and see nothing out of the ordinary: people waiting at the bus stop; elderly ladies with shopping carts milling around the 99-cents stores; students from Erasmus Hall High School loitering in front of the old Dutch Reformed church and whistling at women dressed in skintight clothing.

In an instance like this, we usually hang around for a few minutes with our lights spinning until someone comes to us. If there’s still no action, we mark it 10-90, unfounded.

It’s a warm day, and I could use a cold bottle of apple juice. “I’m going into the -” I read the storefront lettering, “…disco grocery store?” I picture a mirrored globe hanging over the deli counter and Donna Summer blasting from the corned beef.

Bronson stares at it. “That’s discount. The unt fell off.” I’m about to get out of the ambulance when a woman in a parked car unrolls her window and waves us over. She keeps her doors locked. She has a bruised and swollen lip.

“He’s drunk,” she lisps. “And he’s after me.”

“Who?” we ask.

“That guy.” She points to a man slumped against the stone wall of the church where the high school kids are now looking at us with cool disinterest.

The drunk man stumbles over and leans against the hood of the woman’s car. He tries to speak, but it comes out in mangled drunk talk. He bangs on the hood with his fist.

Bronson and I try to bring the guy to the ambulance. No luck. He moves to the opened car window and yells at the woman, spluttering saliva. She lets him continue for a little while – “She has more patience than I do,” I tell Bronson – but then closes the window in his face. This enrages him, and he starts pounding on the hood even harder.

Bronson tries to subdue him by speaking gently. “Come on, why don’t you come to the ambulance, let us check you out” and “Hey buddy, you’ve had a lot to drink. Why not come to the ambulance and…”

The man grows even more belligerent. Possibly, he knows we’ll take him to the hospital. What I’d actually like is for the police to come and take him to an old-fashioned drunk tank, the back entrance ward of city psych hospitals where drunks used to get dumped to dry out. Like where Ray Milland went through his DTs in “The Lost Weekend.” Even better, I’d like the guy to spend a couple of days in a prison cell – after all, he did assault this woman.

But drunks, even violent ones, are no longer automatically placed solely in police custody. Since violent drunks often display the same combative behavior as diabetics suffering altered mental status from insulin shock, and since the smell of alcohol is no guarantee of drunkenness – maybe the diabetic had just one drink – different measures are necessary.

If a seemingly drunk patient is a threat to himself or a danger to those around him (including us EMS workers), we call the police, jointly take him to the ER, and let the nurses run a blood-sugar check on him while he’s securely cuffed to a hospital gurney. If his sugar is low, he’s given glucose, uncuffed, and the police go back out on patrol. If his sugar is normal, the ER turns him over fully to the police, who then take him to the station house and book him on a drunk-and-disorderly charge. He’s kept in a cell until he’s sobered up, then released.

The truth is, it’s relatively easy to discern who’s a drunk and who’s in insulin shock. But a number of years ago, due to gross negligence, a combative diabetic whose blood sugar was falling rapidly was mistaken for a drunk and placed in police custody. He later died in his cell. For this reason, all drunks are now routinely brought to the hospital first.

If they’re not violent, sometimes we just let them walk away and mark the case 10-90. I’ve done my share of telling pickled yet docile drunks, in clear baby-English, “Now I’m going to turn away while I do my paperwork. If you’re not here when I turn back, I’ll just have to drive away.” They almost always recognize their exit cue and stumble off.

But this man assaulted a woman. Her lip is so swollen, she can’t talk right. We can’t just let him go. But he won’t get into the ambulance.

Bronson, in a last bout at cajoling him, places a hand on his shoulder. The man swings at Bronson.

“That’s it,” I say, and call for police assistance. We’ve been trying to deal rationally with him for the last 15 minutes. He’s had his chance.

The police are there immediately. They try their hand at verbal persuasion, and the guy swings at them. They secure him in about two seconds, cuffing his hands behind his back.

“Chivalry is not dead,” I whisper to Bronson. “Thanks guys,” I tell the cops.

I’m about five-foot-two, and cops love protecting me.

“No problem,” they say, leading the drunk to the ambulance.

The high school students all boo and hiss at the police.

“I guess they don’t care about the woman with the fat lip,” I say.

“I guess they edited that part out,” Bronson says.

We’re taking the drunk to Kings County Hospital, where the ER nurses hate us because of this. And there’s no way I’m riding in back, even with police backup. Same-sex situations are better. Plus, I’m not in the mood to be vomited on.

“Have fun,” I tell Bronson, and get behind the wheel. But now I have to get us to Kings County. And I’m famous for having no sense of direction.

I check the map and try my hardest, but after a series of wrong turns and a lot of negative feedback from Bronson and the cop in back, the drunk guy finally shouts out, loud and clear, “Make a right on Linden!”

It’s the first coherent thing I’ve heard him say.

Ms. Klopsis is an emergency medical technician for the FDNY.This column details her observations and experiences on the job.Some names and identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of patients.