Smacking People

     EMS Reruns addresses dilemmas in EMS. If you think of an example like the one that follows, send it to us. If we choose to publish your dilemma, we'll pay you $50. E-mail ideas to Nancy.Perry@cygnusb2b.com.

     Lashana was a hooker, that's all. You'd seen her a dozen times, panhandling or soliciting. In fact, you'd met her personally at least twice—on the street and in an ED after somebody beat the hell out of her. Now the PD has called you in to confirm a death, and you find yourself crouching over her cold, lifeless form. There's what looks like a bullet wound in the middle of her chest, and her lower extremities are mangled. You're in a residential neighborhood called Dictionary Hill, where you're glad you don't reside. Somebody heard people yelling, then several gunshots about three hours ago. But that's so common here, nobody wondered. Nobody cared, and nobody called.

     Nobody even discovered her remains here in the darkness until the bars closed and some guy on his way home ran over her body in the middle of this street. He freaked and his car hit a power pole. Now he's giving a pair of cops a bad time, and you shift your position so you can keep an eye on things. He's upset with them for checking his alcohol level, and he's blaming his troubles on Lashana.

     Your partner, Mary Ann, gets suckered into the argument, and you have to physically drag her back to the business at hand. She's really upset, and she aggravates things to the point where the cops require backup. You really need to get out of there. Suddenly, the driver grabs one of the cops' Glocks, so you both jump in to help them. He gets the thing unholstered and he means business, but he only has one hand free and the gun's not cocked. In the course of a struggle, you lose your temper and smack him in the face. He's not looking at you when you do that. His nose is obviously broken.

     Q. I regret hitting the guy; normally I would never do anything like that. It happened in the heat of the moment, and I was angry and scared. But what's done is done. Where do I go from here? If I contact a supervisor, that will be taken as an admission of guilt on my part for something he might never have heard about. From there, it'll just grow legs. Knowing my chief, I'd say I'll probably lose my job.

     A. I'd let your supervisor know exactly what happened. If you don't normally have issues with your temper, that'll serve as your best testimonial to the fact that you still deserve to carry those certs. If your chief is a reasonable guy, he'll appreciate the heads-up more than you think. If not, it may be good for you to hit the road anyway. (You'll probably get a commendation from the police department.) Our certs belong to the public, and we're all accountable for what we say and do. But if you keep this all to yourself, one witness could make you look pretty bad.

     Q. It's not like this guy was a patient. He was threatening us all with a weapon that could have discharged and killed more than one of us.

     A. You're right about him not being a patient—until you busted his nose anyway. There's a huge difference between defensive acts and aggressive ones. You have every right to protect yourself. Is that what you were doing? You're the only one who really knows. If you were, you can justify what you did. But if you were punishing an outnumbered assailant instead, I think you were out of line. And, you threw away your best defense.

     Q. If Mary Ann had just kept her mouth shut, this would never have gotten out of control.

     A. Maybe. But now you sound a little like the guy who blamed a dead hooker for the fact that he was driving impaired when his car accidentally ran over her. It's true that Mary Ann made a mistake (we all make those). But all she did was shoot off her mouth. You did this whole other thing.

     Q. It's easy to talk about keeping your cool in the midst of a struggle, but it's not so easy to pull that off. When somebody has a gun and the consequences can include somebody's death, anything goes.

     A. Well, you asked. There's a reason why we call this work; not just any old body can do it. As I said earlier, you were there. You're the only one who can really say.

     Thom Dick has been involved in EMS for 38 years, 23 of them as a full-time EMT and paramedic in San Diego County. He is the quality care coordinator for Platte Valley Ambulance Service, a community-owned, hospital-based 9-1-1 provider in Brighton, CO. Thom is also a member of EMS Magazine's editorial advisory board. Reach him at boxcar_414@yahoo.com.