Everyone Needs To Vent

It’s a hot Sunday and busy – the typical asthma attacks, heart attacks, sports injuries, and violent crimes. We’re sitting near Prospect Park with the air-conditioner on, blasting diesel fumes straight to the hole in the ozone, when a jogger yells at us to shut our engine.We tell him our vehicle would be an oven — not good for asthma or heatstroke patients, both of which we’ve had this morning.The guy gives us the finger and shouts, “F— you!”“I guess sick people are less important than a smidge of air pollution,” I shout back, but Bronson rolls up my window and tells me to shut up or the guy might report us. I vent to him about a recent time I was in Park Slope to visit a friend. “I found a parking spot and dialed my friend to tell her I was coming up. A woman walking by with a yoga mat said, ‘You can’t keep your engine running, it’s against the law, ya know.'”“I told her that I had my infant daughter in the car seat, it was about 100 degrees out, and I’d be turning off my engine shortly. ‘I thought yoga was supposed to make you Park Slope snobs less obnoxious,’ I added, then rolled up my window quick and waited till she turned the corner before getting out.”My tirade is interrupted by a job for a “cardiac” — the KDT display indicating a 22-year-old male with chest pain but no medical history. Usually young people don’t have heart attacks unless there’s a congenital heart problem, so I doubt it’s genuine — but you never know. We drive to a narrow street in Flatbush. The address is halfway down the block, but there are two double-parked SUVs clogging the street.A man is opening the rear door of the first one. I guess our swirling lights and blaring sirens haven’t quite made their point, so Bronson hits the siren again. The guy looks at us and points to some TV equipment he’s unloading. Bronson gets on the PA and shouts, “Move!”The guy gives us a dirty look, slams the tailgate, and very slowly gets into his truck. Bronson hits the siren again and the guy flips us the bird. That’s twice today.“What is it with people giving us the finger?” I say.“One down, one to go,” Bronson says, jaw muscles working. The truck double-parked ahead of the TV guy has a woman in the passenger seat. She climbs out, shrugs her shoulders, and looks toward a building, apparently searching for the driver. Then she slowly gets into the driver’s seat, pulls away, and parks next to a hydrant.“Brilliant,” I say.“Nice move,” Bronson adds. The first driver drives past her and flips us the bird again, in case we missed it the first time.“We’re here for you guys,” Bronson says quietly, to no one. “Why do you hate us so much?”We park and are taking out our medical bags when we hear a crunch. The woman who got into the driver’s seat has crashed into the parked car in front of her. She’s inspecting her bumper.“Call 911,” I say as we walk past her. “Maybe they’ll take half an hour to get to you because of all the double parked cars.”“I probably shouldn’t have said that,” I tell Bronson inside the lobby as he’s searching for the right buzzer. “She looks like she could kick my a—”The guy buzzes us in. We go up and enter the apartment to find a 22-year-old male hiccupping repeatedly. Apparently he’s had the hiccups, off and on, for a week. When they were real bad, he says, he went to the hospital. They gave him something, but the hiccups returned today.“Why’d you say chest pains?” Bronson says, jaw muscles working.The young man rubs his sternum and hiccups. “Hurts here.”Bronson shouts, “Not chest pain! Hiccups!”The guy knows if he says “hiccups” to the 911 operator, an ambulance won’t come and he’ll have to haul himself to the ER and pay his own carfare. Saying “chest pain” is fast, free, and he jumps ahead of everyone else. It doesn’t matter that the clinics accept Medicaid and will take you even if you have no insurance at all, and that, his way, the ER gets congested with minor cases. It doesn’t matter that he’s going to have to wait anyway; anyone with a more serious condition will be bumped ahead of him.Bronson looks like he’s going to have a stroke.“Step into my office,” I say, pulling him aside and looking him squarely in the eye. “Relax. You can vent to me later.”Ms. Klopsis is an emergency medical technician on an ambulance in Brooklyn. This column details her observations and experiences. Some names and identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of patients.

Everyone Needs To Vent

Everyone Needs To Vent

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