We get a call for an “injury minor,” and arrive at Martense Street in the East Flatbush section of Brooklyn to find a 35-year-old man sitting on his stoop in a tank top and shorts, cupping his ear. He says he was “maybe shot with a BB gun.”

“You’re not sure?” my partner Bronson asks, swinging down off the ambulance.

“Well,” he stammers, “it happened so fast.”

I’m already annoyed. “Maybe it’s a mosquito bite,” I say, sarcastically.

He thinks, the cogs of his mind turning slowly. “Not mosquito season yet.”

Bronson laughs. “And a good thing. Pesky critters.” He removes the man’s cupped hand and inspects his ear.

I peer in. No blood, no broken skin, no redness. “Not even a welt,” I say.

“She shot me,” he says.

“Who?”

“My wife.”

Bronson is still looking at the ear like he’s a master surgeon.

“Excuse me, Mr. Brain Cell,” I say to Bronson, pushing him aside. I check inside the ear for signs of trauma. I see only an ordinary ear canal.

“I want to go to the hospital,” the man says.

He knows the deal. Patients think if they go in via ambulance they’ll get seen faster.

I set him straight: “They’re going to see all the critical cases first.” Every cardiac, asthma, gunshot, or broken leg that comes in will get seen before him. In a small town, he’d be out in an hour or two. At Kings County Hospital, the largest city run health facility in Brooklyn, he’ll keep getting pushed to the end of the triage line with each new bloody arrival, and not be seen for at least 8 hours. If that. “Why don’t you just go to the local clinic,” I say. “You’ll be done a lot faster.”

He folds his arms. “She shot me, and I want to go to the hospital.”

Now I understand. He wants a hospital report to show the judge.

A police car shows up. An officer takes the report and looks at the man’s ear. “I don’t see anything,” he says.

“Join the club!” I shout, throwing up my hands in exasperation.

But the man is adamant. “She shot me.”

The police finish their report and we bring him to our ambulance. He’s cupping his ear again, limping now like he’s mortally wounded.

I remember the time I got hit with a BB gun when I was a kid. My sister had found it buried in the leaves behind the local carnival one summer on Long Island. She was plinking away at tin cans. “Straighten out the Rheingold,” she ordered me. Then there was a burning sting, and her voice dropped in register. “Oops.” The pellet left a medium-sized crater on the side of my nose. It’s inconceivable that a BB would do no damage to this man’s soft ear. Unless it was fired from a long range.

“Got you good, did she?” I say as we’re under way.

The man nods. “Popped me point blank.”

Ha. “You must have really tough skin,” I say. “What were you doing?”

“Fighting.”

“About what?”

“Pancakes.”

I let it go. I don’t want to know.

“That’s nothing to shoot a person over,” Bronson shouts from up front. The windows are all open and a warm breeze fills the ambulance. “Take yesterday,” he adds. “My girlfriend spilled fabric softener all inside my car. Now my Jeep smells like Downy.”

“Pop her one,” the man says. He shakes his head. “No man’s truck should smell like Downy.”

“Where is your wife now?” I ask.

“Eating, probably.”

But the police checked his apartment. There was no one there.

“Pancakes?”

The man snarls. “With syrup and blueberries.”

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.