It’s a sweltering day when we get a call for a 30-year-old male “injury” on the fifth floor of a low-income apartment building in Canarsie. Not a project exactly, but close.

“Smells like one,” my partner Bronson says, sniffing the close humid air.

“At least the elevators work,” I say, relieved.

“Big whoop,” he says. I hit the button with my elbow. “At least we won’t have to carry him down five flights of stairs.”

“We’re not carrying him at all. Period. This guy walks. “Bronson is sick of young men demanding to be carried. Last week, we had a 22-year-old muscle man complaining of pain to his ribs after getting into a fight at a club in Manhattan. “Now, granted, he could have had a fractured rib,” Bronson says. “But if he was tough enough to go to a club and do ecstasy until daybreak, he should be tough enough to hobble over to the ER.” He shakes his head. “Be a man.”

He’s right. Around EMTs, macho men turn into wusses the minute they stub their toes. Usually they just want a free ride in the ambulance instead of having to pay cab fare. Though it sounds hard to believe, many make no bones about telling us this.

“Now, which stupid apartment is it?” Bronson says, stepping out of the elevator. We’re both cranky from the heat.

I look around. “The one with the open door, I guess.” I knock on it. “EMS,” I announce, lethargically.

The apartment is filthy and damp, with garbage strewn everywhere. A man comes shuffling out of the back bedroom in filthy jeans, plastic slippers, and a dirty white T-shirt with yellow matter crusted on it. His full afro is matted and unkempt, and a hair pick with a single fist embossed on it hangs off to the side.

“Sir? What’s going on?” I ask.

“I had hernia surgery and it’s leaking,” he mumbles, reaching into the refrigerator for a cold beer.

“Please don’t drink anything,” I say.

He stands before the open refrigerator, which releases a cool rotten smell. “Why the hell not?” he says.

I sigh. “Because the doctor won’t want you with a full stomach.” We always instruct all our patients not to eat or drink anything; if they need to be anesthetized at the hospital, the nurses don’t want them aspirating the contents of their full stomachs into their lungs.

The man looks like I’m being bossy, and puts the beer back.

“What’s it leaking?” I ask, meaning his hernia. He shuffles into the linoleum-floored living room. “Yellow stuff.” He collapses onto a sagging couch covered with a dirty sheet.

“Like, pus?”

He rubs his face. “Yeah.”

“When did you have the surgery?” Bronson asks.

“Two weeks ago.”

“When did they discharge you from the hospital?”

“Yesterday.”

This doesn’t make sense. “You had hernia surgery two weeks ago,” I say, “and they kept you for a full two weeks?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you have your discharge papers?” He grabs a crumpled yellow sheet from off the table and hands it to me. “Sir, this says you were released a week ago.”

He says nothing. “Do you know what the date is today?”

He mumbles that he used to have a calendar somewhere, but that he lost it.

I sigh again. “Show me the injury.”

He lifts up his shirt. There’s an open stomach wound right below his belly button. Yellow pus is oozing from it, and it smells putrescent. It hasn’t been cleaned, I’d say, for many days. “They did not release you like this,” I say.

He stares at his belly. “Yes, they did.”

“Didn’t they pack it with gauze?”

“Yeah. But I took it out.”

“Why?”

“Because it was dripping.”

I glove up and wipe the wound with saline and a gauze pad. Now that it’s clean, I can see muscle fascia inside. I’m about to place gauze over it and tape it down when he takes his filthy hand and puts his fingers inside the wound.

“Stop it!” I shout. “How much have you been touching it?”

He wipes his hand on his filthy T-shirt. “Since I left the hospital.”

He’s infected himself locally and is lucky the infection hasn’t spread internally. Sepsis, or widespread internal infection, can result in a quick death.

“Sir,” Bronson says, “let’s go.”

The patient gets up and starts hobbling, bent over double and now clutching at his side. “I can’t walk.”

“Yes, you can. One foot in front of the other. Now march.”

He stares at Bronson. “Carry me. That’s what you’re supposed to do.”

Bronson explains. “Sir, you live two doors away from the elevator, and our bus is parked right out front. You had no trouble walking to the refrigerator for a beer. So on your feet.”

The man looks at Bronson angrily. On the ride down, he takes the hair pick out of his hair and, glaring at us, picks his hair until it stands up neatly. Then he replaces the pick so that the fist is prominently displayed.

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.