Working with Cops

The police officers in my city have always been absolutely wonderful towards me. I love working nights on weekends because at least half of my calls involve the cops, they add some more excitement to the job. All three emergency services work so well together, I love being part of that team.

We got called to an assault around midnight on shift in a rather sketchy apartment building, it turned out the one guy was barricaded in his apartment which meant the Tac Team showed up. Those guys take awesome to a whole new level, watching them work is amazing.  My patient was relatively harmless, just very drunk, although more crude and vicious than I had ever experienced before. He came out of his apartment somewhat willingly, and was standing at the doorway cussing at me while I attempted to do an assessment. He had  some head and facial injuries and was quite intoxicated, and was unable (or unwilling) to answer level of awareness questions (who, what, where, when etc), so we decided that he needed to go to the hospital for assessment.
I was playing the role of "friendly medic" while the tac cops on either side of me were playing the role of the enforcers. I wasn't getting anywhere with him, as he was well past the point of reasoning. Even though this guy was swearing and threatening non-stop, I have never felt so safe in my life, with these two ginormous bears flanking me. At one point, he clenched his fists, stepped towards me and declared, "Imma gonna f*** you up!". I made myself as small as possible as the two officers flew from my side onto this guy, taking him down faster than I knew mountains that big could move.  I love having that kind of backup!

A couple days later my partner and I were on standby at a hostage situation while the negotiator talked the suspect out of the house. He eventually surrendered peacefully, and we were given the clear to leave. Before we did, the negotiator came over to our ambulance and thanked us for being there. Never met the guy before, but when he made eye contact and spoke, my first thought was, "Wow, this guy must be a great negotiator.". He had a very interesting  aura about him, I trusted him completely in about 10 seconds flat. Talk about amazing inter-personal skills.

I would never want to be a police officer, it is an extremely challenging, thankless job, even more so than being a paramedic. I have the utmost respect for them, however. The officers in my city are amazing to work with, knowing they have my back and that we truly are a team is a great feeling.