by Tom Kranz

Copyright 2024 by Tom Kranz. All rights reserved.

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

A property of TK Books LLC.

ISBN-979-8877863989

Cover design by: Tom Kranz

Being a volunteer EMT was the privilege of a lifetime. Respect to all the EMTs, paramedics, firefighters and police officers serving the public daily.

As for the news business, after getting fired three times by the same company, I stopped the madness.

This book is a work of fiction.

TK

February 2024

Prologue

A pair of steely blue eyes cut through the fog. The double yellow line was there, but visibility was barely thirty feet. The eyes shifted left and right then peered ahead into the gray void, peeking out from under black hair that stuck to a sweaty forehead and hung into the eye sockets. The flashing red and blue lights made visibility better, then worse, in cycles.

"Fucking skank-fest," growled the driver, whose craggy face matched his voice. "Bitches."

"Shh," cautioned his passenger. "They'll hear you."

"Where are we?" chimed a female voice from behind them.

"About a mile to go," answered the passenger, looking back into the patient compartment. "How are they doing?"

"They're asleep," replied the female, an EMT named Justine. "I think they're done puking."

The passenger, probationary EMT Griffin Ambrose, turned to stare at the foggy road, glancing with concern at his driver. "We are almost there, right?"

"I know where I'm going," snapped Emmett Long. His blue eyes flashed Griffin's way for a moment, then back to the road. "Just sit there, shut up and be glad those cunts didn't do worse shit."

Griffin almost protested, then thought better of it. It was obvious Emmett Long was none too keen on 1.) his patients, 2.) his passenger and 3.) the current driving conditions made more treacherous by the squishy suspension of ambulance 520.

"I heard that," said Justine in a raised voice. "Pick your knuckles up off the ground, Emmett."

Griffin saw a small grin form on Emmett's face.

Fifteen minutes earlier, the three EMTs left a bachelorette party at the Star Tavern with their patients hunkered down in the rear of the rig. Both were too drunk to stand, sit or even keep their heads up. It was the non-stop vomiting that prompted the bartender to call 911. He then resumed serving the rest of the party heavily fortified Long Island ice teas.

It was Griffin's first EMS call for what the dispatcher called ETOH--drunks. He noted that neither Justine nor Emmett asked either woman whether she was diabetic or bothered to get medical histories. On the other hand, neither woman was able to speak three consecutive words and their friends kept a discrete distance. Write it down, he muttered under his breath, noting that Justine was scribbling something in the patient report on her clipboard--patients unable to respond, Griffin reckoned.

"The Star Tavern is a nigger bar," stated Emmett. "Surprising that all these white girls decided to party there."

"I guess the price was right," offered Griffin, noting that Emmett's nasty mouth seemed to come easily and without inhibition.

"Back in Philly, we used to pretend to pick them off if they were walking on the street, 20-bucks each as a reward," Emmett said.

Griffin concluded who he meant by "them".

"All it would take is a quick turn of the wheel," Emmet continued, "knock them out of their shoes and into the bushes."

Griffin sat in silent horror.

"Then we'd stop, do CPR the Philly way."

"What's the Philly way?"

Emmett took his right foot off the gas and feigned using it to pound on a chest. His smile revealed a crooked front tooth and gaps elsewhere. The mouth, the sweaty black hair and the creepy smile offset the haunting blue eyes that seemed to belong to someone else.

"I doubt they do that in Philadelphia," said Griffin. "I hear their EMS is very professional."

"You heard wrong, probie. When I was there, it was The Badlands--Kensington, North Philly, chunks of West Philly. Overdoses, stabbings, assaults day and night. We did our own triage right on the street, ya follow?"

Emmett was fond of reliving his Philly EMS exploits. He always omitted the part where he was suspended for assaulting a patient, then fired for assaulting another patient. Thus, Griffin took nothing that came out of his mouth seriously.

"You're a little old to be a probie," Emmett said. "What are you, forty-something?"

"Forty-two," replied Griffin. He was relieved to see the lit red and white EMERGENCY ROOM sign. Emmett navigated off the foggy road, onto the ramp and into the ER sally port. The ambulance came to a stop and Emmett turned off the ignition. He opened his window and lit up a cigarette. A NO SMOKING sign was posted just a few feet away.

"Don't hurt your backs," Emmett muttered, looking straight ahead while sitting motionless in the driver's seat.

Griffin walked around to the back of the ambulance and opened the double doors. Inside, Justine was rousing her patients. The two women awoke but made no move to sit or stand.

"We'll have to take them in one at a time," Justine said. "Emmett, you need to babysit while we get the first patient into the emergency room."

No response.

"Did you hear me?"

"Yeah, I'm coming." He rose from the driver's seat and climbed onto the pavement, dropping his cigarette and letting it smolder on the asphalt. He walked to the rear of the ambulance and appeared at the double doors. Griffin noticed Emmet's steel-toed duty boots had no laces and made a clop-clop sound as he walked.

The process of moving each patient into the ER separately, getting them beds and briefing the nurses took an agonizing 58 minutes. It was a banner night for drunks and assaults at Mitchell Hospital.

During the ride back to headquarters, Griffin sat in the back with Justine. They sat opposite each other in seats across from the empty stretcher.

"He's quite a specimen," whispered Griffin, nodding his head towards the driver.

"He's an objectionable fuck. Did he tell you about how great things were in Philadelphia before he got shit-canned?"

Griffin nodded, then sat back without further conversation. He felt every bump in the road during the ride home.

It was an early lesson that would stay with him for 20 more years: What you learn in EMT school bears little resemblance to what happens on the street.

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