Editor’s note: We got so many great story submissions during our EMS week contest, we’ve decided to run a few of our favorite entries. Here is one of our staff’s favorites View all entries here, and check out our grand-prize winner.
By Mac Kemp
Leon County EMS (Fla.)
It was a bright, sunny 4th of July many years ago, early in my career. My partner and I received a call for an assault early in the afternoon. We responded to a residence and were greeted by a gentleman.
As he walked us to the patient, he told us that he and his wife were taking a nap when they woke up to find a man in their bedroom babbling about being injured and he was obviously drunk. The man said he got up and threw the drunk out of his house.
We followed the man into the back yard and there was someone lying on the ground under a large tree. Upon getting closer, my partner and I immediately recognized Gene. It was Gene, Gene, the drinking machine.
Gene was a regular and we picked him up several times a week. He was always drunk and his most prominent feature was an incredibly large nose. There was many a shift that I entered the emergency room and looked down the hallway and recognized Gene by that bulbous nose.
At this point looked down at Gene and said, “Gene, what is wrong with you?” The man that had led us out to the back yard suddenly asked incredulously, “Do you know this man?” I told him we did. Gene said that he had been at his apartment about a block away and was enjoying his afternoon with a couple of beers when his neighbor came over and asked him to watch her daughter until the father came to pick her up.
It was hard to believe. Then Gene said a while later a man with a ball-peen hammer crawled though his back window and beat him on the head and stole the girl. Then he stumbled out of his apartment and went door to door until he found an open front door so he could get help. At this point I said “Okay Gene, whatever you say” and I began to treat him. Gene was very stable and his mental state seemed normal ... for him.
It was a busy night so we got our truck together after the call and we went on several other calls. In my report I wrote down what Gene had told me, but my partner and I did not believe a word of it. Most likely Gene had gotten drunk and maybe fallen down, but that was what we thought was the end of it.
Later that evening as we were taking yet another patient to the emergency room, I saw the police officer that was working Gene’s call. I asked him if he knew anything about what had happened.
“Funny thing”, he said, and began to tell me and my partner the story. He told us that the next door neighbor wanted to go to a 4th of July function and that her ex-husband was supposed to pick up their child, but he was late. So she went next door to see if Gene would watch the child until the ex got there. Gene said he would and sat down with the child to watch some television.
Next the ex arrived and found out from another neighbor that his child was with Gene inside his apartment. The man went to his truck and got a ball-peen hammer and crawled through Gene’s back window, hit Gene in the head and took off with his daughter.
Gene had a linear skull fracture. It was that exact moment that I decided to never discount what a patient told me, no matter who they are.