Just Take a Shower

Apparently, this isn't just advice given to horny teenagers who have watched too many episodes in a row of "Dollhouse" on Hulu. Now, paramedics are giving the advice, to mothers of sick children, and people are dying.

On February 10th, paramedics responded to a home in Washington, D.C. The 5 a.m. call came in as a report of a child having difficulty breathing. The paramedic advised the child's mother to "run a hot shower" and have the child stand in it, to "clear out her lungs." Then, the ambulance left.

Eight hours later, another call went out from the same house. Difficulty breathing. Medics showed up again, and this time they transported the child, who died.

The female paramedic, who responded to the first call and gave her fatal advice to the family never filled out any paperwork concerning the first response, and she did not transport the child. Not only that, she did not have the adults present even fill out and sign a Refusal of Transport form, which is standard operating procedure in all emergency responses. Don't want to go to the hospital? If you're of sound mind and body, that's fine, but the law states that you have to be clearly informed of the risks of not seeking hospital care, and you must obtain a signature on that form, which will absolve you of responsibility when the patient up and dies ten minutes later.

Maybe it's because I'm gearing up for a return to the streets as an EMT, maybe it's because I'm working towards becoming a father, but I have nothing in my heart but disdain, disgust, and outright hatred for the behavior of this supposedly veteran paramedic who, to my unpleasant understanding also serves as a preceptor-- an instructor and mentor for newly-minted paramedics. Not only should she be stripped of her credentials-- she should be stabbed repeatedly with the badge pin. Here's a newsflash:

Everybody. Goes. To. The. Hospital.

Always. Transport.

Always.

It's not just a suggestion-- it's policy. When someone calls 911, and you show up, they go. If they don't want to go, and they're not whackier than an opium-laced Ritz cracker, they must sign the form-- otherwise, it's transport time. This EMS disaster happened for one reason and one reason only: laziness. This bitch didn't feel like schlepping this kid to the hospital. She was cocky and arrogant and, above all else, goddamn lazy. She just didn't feel like transporting, which, by the way, is just about the sum total of her fucking job that she shouldn't even be allowed to have anymore.

It's your job, sister. Don't like it? There's probably a UPS truck somewhere out there with your name on it. And you'll never have to worry about the boxes dying on you.

I understand apathy. I understand sometimes not giving a shit. I understand being overworked and being underpaid and incompetent supervisors riding your ass about bullshit-- poorly maintained equipment and trucks are all scratched and dented up and smell like old mustard. I understand stupid partners, and irrational dispatchers, and working outside in the goddamn wind and the rain and the blazing heat-- lifting Big Ass Bertha up three goddamn flights of stairs, or down. I know. It's a pain. But, if you wake up one morning and find that you just don't care enough to do even the bare minimum of your job-- throw the kid in the back of the truck and put two liters of oxygen on her and drive her to a fucking hospital that's probably less than ten minutes away, and then fill out some paperwork after you hand her over to the nurses-- well, then you're just nothing but a stinky old piece of shit.

EMS is a little too important to be left to the dregs of society, the people who can look into the eyes of the parents of a two-year-old little girl and tell them to run a hot shower because you'd rather go out and get coffee or talk on the cellphone inside your truck. It's a little too important. And maybe that's the savior in me talking-- maybe that's part of the reason I'm going back. Because I may not take the most accurate blood pressures in the world, and I'm not totally up-to-date on all my medical abbreviations, but I'm pretty sure that my ethics and my logic are still largely intact.

Everybody goes to the hospital.

Everybody.

I Want to Like Matt Lauer

Seriously, I do.

But sometimes he makes it difficult.

This morning on "TODAY" he was interviewing Adrian Fenty, the mayor of Washington, D.C. following the aftermath of the horrific crash between two commuter subway Red Line trains. The interview was proceeding normally and responsibly until Lauer let out this stinker,

"I understand that [name redacted], the operator of the second train that crashed into the back of the stopped train had very little experience. Do you think this was a contributing factor in the crash?"

Um, yeah-- so... this happened.... yesterday? Calm down, fuzz-head. I was livid. Here's the subtext of what he was saying,

"So, can we please prematurely jump to conclusions and irresponsibly heap blame upon this poor, dead individual and tear their family's hearts out even more than it already is? Pleeeease?"

Fenty, for his part, fortunately was having none of it, and he stoically refused to even entertain that idea until the NTSB is through with their investigation. He also stated, quite intelligently, that "there are lots of drivers with the experience level of this driver who perform excellently-- so that may have been a factor, and it may not have been."

Again... this happened..... yesterday? Chillax, media motherfuckers. The NTSB investigation may very well reveal that the driver of the second train was at fault. If that's the case, then we can tar and feather the driver's corpse through the streets of downtown Washington and burn it in effigy from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. But, Jesus Christ, Lauer-- they're still pulling bodies from the goddamn wreckage this morning, and you're already gunning for the driver's reputation?

Who the fuck do you think you are anyway? How would you like it if, tomorrow, Natalie Morales turned up pregnant and Diane Sawyer was reporting about it on "Good Morning America" asking her co-host if he thought "Matt Lauer did it?"

Nothing good comes from premature speculation-- that's the true hallmark of a muckraking, scandal-mongering amateur. Admittedly, it's still easier to like you than Ice Queen Viera, but don't keep giving the American viewing public a reason to think you're a shitlick.

Respect Your Elders, Or You Will Get Tased

Two very interesting things have happened recently involving crime and the elderly. One happened a month ago, one is unfolding even as I type.

In May, a 72-year-old woman was pulled over by a police officer alongside a very busy road. She was going sixtysomething in a fortysomething. She refused to sign the ticket. She yelled and screamed and carried on. Then, after being ordered out of the car, she kicked it up a notch, moving erratically and and cursing up a storm. The officer pushed her towards the berm to keep her from getting hit by a car, and she renewed the fit, "You gonna push an old lady!?" He warned her six times to comply with his instructions, or she would be tased.

She didn't comply, and she was tased.

Granniekins was up-in-arms about the incident, calling the police officer a "liar" for claiming in his incident report that she was combative and that she resisted arrest. Interestingly enough, after the dashboard camera video was released to the news media, she shut the hell up and hired a lawyer-- which is a smart move, seeing as she's being charged with resisting arrest. The officer's superior went on ABC News and stated that his "mom is 76" and that, if she behaved the way this suspect did, he'd tase her, too.

And now, today, an 89-year-old white supremacist bastard is undergoing emergency surgery at George Washington University Hospital after he shot up the National Holocaust Memorial Museum. He was felled by bullets from two security guards after he shot another security officer in the head. In all likelihood, they're both going to die.

What should the security guards at the Holocaust Museum have done with this guy? Respect their elders? Maybe they should have turned on an episode of "Matlock" in the hopes that it would distract him long enough to be disarmed and subdued.

The images of a young, physically fit and imposing police officer lighting up an old lady are admittedly disturbing and irregular-- the general public is conditioned to thinking that all dangerous lawbreakers and miscreants look like Jean Claude Van Damme, or, unfortunately, Chris Rock. Here's the thing: they don't. Violent and unstable people come in all sorts of packaging, and this is precisely the reason why profiling doesn't always work-- because life is always pitching, and there are always curveballs just waiting for you to take a swing.

Was the tasering of a 72-year-old woman justified, the media asks? You bet your ass it was, Gram-Gram. There are penalties for non-compliance when dealing with a police officer, especially a lone officer on the side of a busy highway. We all make decisions in our lives, and our decisions and actions precipitate reactions from others.

The most regrettable incident at the Holocaust Museum is a chilling reminder that old people don't just shuffle around in their bedroom slippers with their mouths and zippers agape-- they're capable of committing crimes as well, and it is patently ridiculous to imply that somehow they should be treated with kid gloves, or that law enforcement personnel should approach them in a benign way as if they were all innocuous and incapable of criminal acts.

Guess what? Some of them are crazy and armed to the teeth, too, even if the teeth are false.