I’m telling Bronson about the cherry blossom festival at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, which I finally visited for the first time in my life, when a call comes in for a 25-year-old male with chest pains. Bronson is annoyed because it’s in Brownsville. “That’s not even our area,” he says. This happens when the regular units that cover an area are either busy or transporting a patient to a special hospital and then getting hit with a job out of their area. Other units are called in, sometimes from far away.

Bronson gets on the radio and snaps at the dispatcher, “We’re extended.”

After a 15-minute drive, we arrive and see – about six houses from the address – a fire engine blocking the narrow street, flanked by a police car. Bronson is irritated that he has to park behind them, so far from the job.

“Afraid to walk?” I say.

“It’s just rude,” he says.

The police officers and firefighters are standing at the entrance to a tiny, gated concrete front yard. They shout something to a woman standing in the open doorway. Through it all, I hear frantic yipping. Drawing closer, I see four Chihuahuas in the front yard, barking and springing up and down like little firecrackers. We walk up to the officers and firefighters.

“What’s up?” Bronson asks. The firefighters ignore us. “Rude again,” Bronson mutters to me. Cops and fire fighters tend to look down on EMTs, perhaps because our job is not as dangerous as theirs. The cops tell the woman to call off her dogs.

“They’re Chihuahuas,” Bronson says. He makes a measurement with his hands about 7 inches long, to demonstrate their size.

“They’re sweethearts,” the woman in the doorway says.

All emergency personnel are told not to enter a scene if there are unleashed dogs present. Some people – drug dealers, especially – train their dogs, often pit bulls, to attack cops. But smaller dogs have been known to be just as anti-establishment.

“Ma’am, please leash your dogs,” one cop says.

“You afraid of little barking dogs?” Bronson asks. He goes into the yard and pats the doggies on the head. They stop barking. I put one foot into the yard and they start barking again. I take a step back and latch the gate.

“Maybe we should go on strike,” I say, sarcastically. Cops, firefighters, and EMTs are not allowed to strike, for obvious reasons.

One fireman says, “Unlike the transit workers, if we strike, people die.”

“At least we all agree on something,” the cop chimes in.

The screen door opens and the patient comes out, apparently the woman’s son. He’s thin and excessively neat in appearance. “Step into our ambulance,” I say.

He looks around. “Where?”

Bronson looks up from the dogs. “Way down the block,” he says, loudly, for the benefit of the cops and firefighters, “behind the fire truck and the police car.” He must have missed out on our little moment of unity. “You guys can go now,” he tells them. “Oh darn, you’re blocked in. I guess you’ll have to wait till we move our ambulance. Annoying, isn’t it?”

The patient suddenly goes wide-eyed and brings both hands to his chest. As I escort him to the ambulance, he tells me he’s been having sharp pains in his chest for about two months.

“Two months?” I say.

“Give or take,” he says.

His heart rate is fast, about 128. I settle him onto the stretcher and give him a little oxygen. Bronson jumps into the driver’s seat and hits the gas. En route to the hospital, I ask him if he’s allergic to any medications. “Haldol,” he says. That’s an anti-schizophrenic drug. He blinks at me. “I’m schizophrenic.”

I think he’s having an anxiety attack, not a heart attack. I note the allergy and, without looking up from my chart, mention the dogs, to distract him. I tell him the cops and fire fighters were afraid of them.

He looks confused. “Groucho, Chico, Harpo, and Zeppo?” Then he says, “They’re schizophrenic, too.”

“Really?”

He nods. “They’re in group therapy with me. Once a week.”

I can swing with this. “You should take them to the cherry blossom festival,” I suggest.

The patient ponders this briefly. “Do they have group rates?”

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.