Points of View Vary

A week or two ago, my partner and I were assigned to a “down party” at a bus stop. We arrived to find an intoxicated gentleman lying on the bus stop bench, with four unintoxicated firefighters standing around him. He didn’t necessarily look homeless, per se, but he did look like he had been on a bender. He smelled strongly of alcohol, had slurred speech, and an affect that swung between uncooperative and jovial. My partner checked his vitals and ran through a quick secondary exam. There was no apparent injury and no other apparent medical problem outside of the profound alcohol intoxication. 

I called the detox van* and we were all standing around waiting for it to arrive. Police weren’t around, by the way. After waiting and chatting for a few minutes, the intoxicated gent suddenly decided that he didn’t like one of the firefighters. As a matter of fact, the patient decided that the world would be a better place if the firefighter were punched as hard as possible, right in his firefighter nose. He loudly announced this plan and began to try to stand up. I wasn’t worried about it, being that standing up off of the bench seemed to be a nearly insurmountable challenge, let alone swinging an accurate punch at a pre-alerted sober fireman.  Just resting a gentle hand on dude’s shoulder made standing impossible. After a minute he relaxed again. We all continued to wait on the van. 

To my mind, there was no need to get aggressive in restraining the patient for two main reasons. First, if we restrained him and escalated the call in that way, the patient would end up as an ambulance transport to an ED rather than a detox van transport to the detox facility. Second, there was no real threat. Some intoxicated patients retain the wherewithal to be physically dangerous, but not this dude. It wasn’t the kind of call that I went to paramedic school to learn to run, but it was an easy call and we were doing a good thing by getting the patient a safe place to sleep it off. Nothing that was happening was a big deal.

About at this time, another gentleman walked into the scene and stood there. When I mean that he “walked into the scene,” I mean that he walked into the scene. He stood himself between several of the firefighters and the patient. He was just standing there, watching what was going on. I thought a better plan than the detox van had just presented itself.

“You know this guy?” I asked the man, flashing a hopeful smile.

His reply crushed my better-than-detox plan (him taking the intoxicated patient): “Nope.” 

“I need you to step back, then,” I told the man. His reply completely confused me: “Fuck you, whitey.  I’m here to witness. You fuckers ain’t going to kill him today. This is a public sidewalk, I have a right to be here, and you can’t make me move.”

“Seriously, I need you to move back.” The man seemed to be on edge, so escalation would be easy. But I also thought intensifying the situation would be unproductive. He was looking for an overreaction, and I decided not to give it to him. And, like I said, I was confused by the sudden hostility. In my mind, this was a misunderstanding. 

I explained that we had nothing to hide, but the patient was having a medical problem and deserved a little privacy. Anyone in a doctor’s office would have a little privacy, right? It was just a respect thing. As a matter of fact, I suggested that the best plan to document the situation was to step back and film it all with a phone. That way he could get the whole view, but the patient could have a little space.

The man cursed me a little more, describing how he wasn’t going to allow us white people to kill or maim another black man, but he stepped back so that he wasn’t in the way. The detox van arrived a short time later and my partner and the firefighters loaded the patient. During that evolution, the “witness” was bellowing a play-by-play to the neighborhood about how we were kidnapping the man, we were hurting him, and so on. I was quietly offering suggestions for him to document the scene better. Like I pointed out that filming the van’s side number and license plate would be a good piece of documentation for court. As the intoxicated patient was loaded, I asked the “witness” to wait a second.

I went to the ambulance and got a business card out of my jacket. I went to the back of the ambulance to give it to the man, explaining that the supervisor’s number was on the card. If he had any concerns, he should call the number. 

He crumpled up the card, threw it back at me, and charged me with his fists clenched.

He never actually touched me, and I was so surprised that I didn’t react. He did get nose to nose with me, though, and shouted threats and racial slurs. If he wanted to blast me, I would have had to take the first one. But he didn’t. It was just a lot of aggressive noise. I took a step back and called for police cover. As I said, I was flabbergasted that this call went in this direction. I am not a writer with enough skill to describe how gobsmacked I was: This is a simple call. I'm here to help. Help is good. How did I get into this situation?!?

As soon as he heard my request for the cops, the man ran away tossing some final racial curses over his shoulder. I cancelled the backup (sounding like a fool for calling for them and then canceling them). That was the worst part of the call – sounding like a jackass on the police channel. 

Thinking about this call later, I was still surprised by the completely opposite points of view the bystander and I had concerning a simple situation. From my perspective, there was a drunk guy that was too intoxicated to realistically keep himself safe. I couldn’t leave him on the streets because (a) he wasn’t able to keep himself safe; and (b) people complain about that by calling 911. Detox is a safe place that is relatively inexpensive, so to detox he went. There was no animosity, anger, or nefarious plans about the call.

To the “witness,” it was a completely different situation. Here is the important part: I don’t know what his perspective is. I’m not in his head and I haven’t walked in his shoes. I grew up white and middle class. I don’t know his background, but I’d be willing to bet that we have probably had different experiences with authority figures. My friends and family may have different relationships with police than his. Maybe, in the past, a medic couldn’t save a family member. Maybe police have treated him unfairly. Maybe a firefighter insulted him last time. There is no way for me to know.

He isn’t in my head (where I want to help), and I am not in his (with whatever his past interactions with public safety have been). It is frustrating. I wish there was a Vulcan mind meld so we could exchange perspectives.  

*My system uses a modified ambulance staffed by EMTs to transport people who are inebriated in public to a non-medical detoxification facility.  The technical name for the vehicle is the Emergency Service Patrol (ESP), but we just call it the van.   An ambulance is a bus and the detox vehicle is the van.  Make sense?