It’s getting toward the end of our shift, and Bronson, my partner, is dozing in the driver’s seat. He has to work for his father’s contracting company tonight, installing some electrical wiring, and welcomes the nap. All day he’s been annoyed that we didn’t get a chance to bring anyone to the emergency room at Maimonides so that he could see Rachel, the triage nurse he’s in love with.

Half an hour before the end of our shift, the call comes over for an “injury minor.” It’s a low-priority job – probably nothing – but Bronson flies to the house in Bay Ridge with lights and sirens flashing, eager to get the patient on board and en route to Maimonides. He often kidnaps patients near the end of a shift, but now he’s especially itchy to hand the patient over, have a few minutes with Rachel, and still get to his father’s on time.

The front door opens and a 60-year-old woman sticks her head out. Before she has a chance to speak, Bronson says, “C’mon honey. Let’s go.”

The woman gets snippy. “I ain’t your honey! And I gotta get my sweater!”

It’s sweltering outside, but hospitals are as over-air-conditioned as anyplace else these days, and I understand her concern. She may be sitting in the ER for hours.

Bronson whispers to me, “I’ve had her before – she’s loony tunes.” He tells me about the call, which he handled with a different partner – something about a broken shoulder that wasn’t really broken.

When the woman returns with the sweater, he tells her, “I was here a few months ago. Don’t you remember me?”

“Yeah,” she says, not batting an eye. “And I didn’t like you then either.”

I tell Bronson he should take lessons in diplomacy from Rachel. “If you had one-sixth of her tact, you might be considered human.”

The patient’s hands are red, raw, and inflamed, and aside from wrapping them, mitten like, in gauze and taking her to the ER, there’s really not much we can do. I don latex gloves and bandage her like a mummy while Bronson writes up her medications and personal information on our chart. He scrawls so fast, his handwriting is practically illegible.

When he gets to the narrative section he asks her, “Okay, so what happened?”

She says she’s had this infection for seven weeks. She went to the ER three weeks ago, but now it’s flared up again. “I don’t wanna go back to that Coney Island hospital,” she says.

Bronson assures her, “Don’t worry, we’ll go to Maimonides.” He and the patient stare at each other, a blank moment of placid blinking. “Come on,” he says, clapping his hands. “Chop chop.”

She returns to herself. “Don’t rush me! I gotta get my purse!”

But Bronson’s antsy. He hands me the crumpled paperwork and tells me to fill out the narrative section at the ER. This will give him a few extra minutes with Rachel.

I say, “I didn’t know that you being in love would mean me doing all the work.” But he doesn’t care what I have to say. I dangle the keys at him. “You drive.”

The ambulance is running and ready to go by the time I get the patient outside, and Bronson takes off, tires squealing, even before I have the chance to properly secure the patient with the stretcher straps. I hang onto the grab-bars in the rear compartment for dear life.

“Land sakes!” the patient cries. “He certainly drives poopy!”

We make it to Maimo in record time. If we showed numbers like this every day, our lieutenant would love us.

“Whoa there, Buck Rogers,” I say, as he pulls into the ambulance bay and hits the brakes with a screech. But he’s already inside the ER and talking to Rachel by the time I get the patient unbuckled and into the ward.

“He certainly is a poopy-head,” she says.

Bronson’s writing something down on a piece of paper and handing it to Rachel, who smiles, takes it from him, and slips it into the pocket of her white scrubs.

I check my watch, radio dispatch, and put us out of service for the end of our shift.

“I’m putting us out,” I tell Bronson. “You don’t want to be late for your dad.”

He grins sheepishly and explains to Rachel, “I moonlight for my dad’s electrical company.”

Rachel smiles and says that’s interesting, and Bronson gives me a look that I understand to mean “go away.” I take my exit cue and wait outside in the ambulance.

Ten minutes later he climbs into the driver’s seat. “Boy, you’re some operator,” I tell him. Despite his awkward lankiness and boyish face, he’s known as a flirt around the battalion, a womanizer wannabe, if only his looks could keep up with him.

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.