Thursday, July 09, 2009

One Cardiac Arrest to go, please. Hold the Vascular Embolism.

What's the last thing you want to see in front of your house when you get home from a barbeque at a friends place? Writer was driving me home from a friends house* and as we rounded the corner, 2 blocks down from my house, I saw flashing lights up near it. As we got closer I realized that it was right in front of my house, and when she pulled over right behind the fire truck, I also noticed a bunch of
uniformed people standing in my driveway at the sidewalk and an ambulance in front of the fire truck. There were no hoses out, no flames coming out of my house, no smoke from a recently extinguished fire. So, I was more confused than worried about the house, but as you can imagine, that initial shock was a bit of an adrenaline rush. I walked up to one of the uniformed guys, said that I lived right here and asked what was happening. Seems a bicyclist turfed it right in my driveway. I walked back to tell Writer what was up, and that she didn't need to hang out waiting to make sure everything was alright, wondering if I was going to get sued or not. Before I got to her car, I heard one of the firemen telling the kid (20 yrs old) that he had two choices, willingly get into the ambulance or they would call the police and have them handcuff him and put him in the ambulance. This is when I first started to suspect that he may have been drinking, which makes the homeowner (me) less liable.** When I came back from saying goodbye to Writer, my neighbors were out on their lawn so I went over to see what they knew. They were actually the ones that found the kid, went to check if he was OK and called the ambulance. They also told me that he was 20, drunk as a skunk and that he had fallen before hitting the hose I had left across the sidewalk. Whew!
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*Good thing because I gave a 55 year old English teacher lessons on doing Tequilla shots. We did one each, then she'd had enough. Said "Now I can say I've done a shot, don't need to do any more.", and this wasn't a drinking party so I stopped too.
** The paramedics didn't seem to be in too big a hurry, and the kid was talking to them, so he seemed to be Ok. Maybe a concussion, which is probably why they wanted to take him to the hospital.

5 comments:

A Paperback Writer said...

But, Max, I was the one driving, and you weren't DRUNK, so you were unlikely to have a run-in with the law for one tequila shot....

And, I agree, it was definitely a weird moment to approach the house with the flashing lights and all in front while we both said things like, "Okay, there's no smoke, and only one truck...." in slightly nervous tones.

Jannx said...

Wow, that is enough to get anyone's blood pumping. I'm glad everything worked out okay.

Anonymous said...

That would have been a shock. Glad to hear all is ok.
-FT

jmpnmark said...

I couldn't imagine how I'd react, totally freaky!!

Max Sartin said...

You know, every now and again you drive home and get this little twinge at the back of the mind saying "something's wrong with the house". It was not funny, until I realized the house and the kid were fine.