Thoughts Out Of Season

Me and Steve are working EMS unit 18 Young one night. We get a call for an unconscious on 148st and 8th Avenue. NYFD gets there first. We get our equipment and start up the stairs. On the way up we run into the firemen coming down. NYFD lieutenant: " Yeah. He had a seizure. He's post-coitus" I turn my head and look at Steve and he's laughing so I bust out laughing" FD lieutenant: "What's so funny?" his voice defensive Me: " Lou. The patient is post-ictal. Post coitus is the cigarette you smoke after going to bed with you wife" Red as Hell he pushes past me " I signed up as a firefighter not a fucking nurse"

  An  NYPD  officer assigned to the 32nd precinct in Harlem were shot and killed tonight while responding to a domestic violence call on 135 street and Lenox Ave, across the street from Harlem Hospital. His partner was also shot and is fighting for his life. The suspect was shot and killed by a third officer

An autopsy has found that Sacramento American citizen Stephen Clark was shot eight times in the back after police ordered him to " show us your hands". The residents of this community are up in arms and I think rightly so. 8 times in the back would contradisct officers claims that he was advancing toward them with something in his hands when they opened fire. First, "show me your hands" means lift your hands and show them to the officers.  Now if you indeed have something in your hands could that be misconstrued as "gun! gun!"? Then the fire works start. Next, if the cops were so sure they were in the right why would they mute their body cameras after the shootings? This reeks of two cops, one black, who probably didn't give this kid a damned chance to comply with their orders. Policing comes with the risk of being injured or killed in the line of duty. They know that. That doesn't mean you randomly shoot the shit out of people, a shoot first an...

Did the grand jury in the Eric Garner case base their decision partly on the fact that Garner was able to speak when he said "I CAN"T BREATHE?". If so than they must have had a jury of fucking imbeciles weighing whether to indict or not. I was a medic for 20 years in Harlem and treated thousands of asthmatics, for example. To a person each one had just about the same complaint, "I can't breathe". Eric Garner did not literally mean he could not, was incapable of taking a breath. It meant that he was having difficulty breathing. What should I have done when a very serious asthmatic patient looked at me and said, "Help me, I Can't breathe"?. Should I have stopped what I was doing and explain to him that since he was able to speak he was able to breathe and that I'm supposed to go home in 20 minutes so fuck off and leave me alone? Of course not! I knew he was capable of getting a breath in if he could speak, but I also knew getting that breath...