We’re licking ice creams in front of a grocery store on Cortelyou Road, in Ditmas Park, when the call comes in for an “unconscious.”

“I hope it’s one of the big old Victorian homes,” I tell Bronson, as I read the additional information on the KDT mounted on our dashboard, which indicates that a 35-year-old man has passed out on the second floor of a private house. As Bronson speeds down the quiet, leafy streets, I comment on the stately wooden mansions passing by, envisioning ladies lounging on wicker furniture and men playing croquet on the lawn.

Bronson shrugs. “Give me a modern house any day.”

Leave it to Bronson to douse all charm with a bucket of water. “But look,” I say. “Stained glass.”

He doesn’t miss a beat. “Dark interiors, mice, and dry rot.” He and his wife, Rachel, just bought a crisp new condo in Bay Ridge. Their infant son plays on the varnished floors in the sunlight.

I think Bronson may be on to something when we pull up to the address. This house is spooky in the twilight, the lights out except for one dim third-floor window, all somber stained glass. It looks vacant, with construction materials — lumber, sheetrock, joint compound buckets — strewn across the front yard.

We step onto the dilapidated wooden porch, and Bronson tries the tarnished doorknob. “EMS,” he calls out, as we peer into darkness. Judging from our echo, there’s no furniture. The downstairs feels cavernous, cool in the blackness. I don’t like this.

“Boo,” Bronson says, and I jump. I whack him hard with my flashlight and hope I leave a bruise.

“Let Rachel wonder where you got that,” I say, as we stumble toward the center staircase. I’m afraid of bodies behind every corner and stick close behind Bronson.

“You go first,” I prod him. It’s apparent from the tools that pass under my flashlight’s circle of illumination that the place has recently been bought and is being renovated.

A female voice calls out, “Help! On the third floor!” and we rush upstairs, through labyrinthine hallways and the disconcerting reflection of my flashlight in beveled mirrors in trapezoidal shapes under sloped ceilings. “‘Creature Feature,'” I mutter.

“Channel 9,” Bronson agrees. We stumble into a back room and find a young woman backlit by a single old-fashioned oil lamp. Her face is a mask of terror as I shine my flashlight on her. She’s shouldering her cell phone to her ear and kneeling over a young man lying face up on the floor.

Bronson asks, ” What happened?” as I check for a pulse.

She says, “He grabbed his chest and collapsed after we finished for the night.” She’s panic-stricken, having been on the phone with 911 doing CPR. I can’t find a carotid pulse. I find his Adam’s apple again, move my fingers slightly over, and feel around. Nothing. Cardiac arrest is unusual in a man so young.

Bronson tells the dispatcher that the medics should bring up a floodlight. I hand the woman my flashlight and continue CPR while Bronson attaches the defibrillator pads to the man’s chest. He shocks him and, incredibly, there’s a return of spontaneous circulation. I have never circled ROSC on my chart before, that’s how rare it is, but this man is young, and apparently his heart, once shocked back, knows how to behave.

Medics come with a scoop stretcher, and we rush him down to the ambulance. His pulse remains strong, and en route to the hospital he’s conscious, telling us that he and his wife just bought the house. “We relocated from Park Slope,” he says, and adds that they hope to fill the rooms with books and children. “We’re writers.”

He appears to be making sense, which means his brain hasn’t been deprived of oxygen, another miracle. Crying, his wife holds his hand and kisses his face.

“Never trust a couple of writers to complete a renovation,” Bronson quips, and gets away with it, too. I think about how we get to put in paperwork for a “pre-hospital save,” a dopey certificate issued in the far future embossed with our names in fake calligraphy, as we leave the happy couple.

Two hours later, we return to the same hospital with another patient and find the wife crying in the ER. “What happened?” we ask a nurse. She tells us that the husband coded in the ER, and they couldn’t revive him.

Bronson looks at me, then says the only thing he can to fill the void. “Guess we won’t be getting those certificates.”

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.