We got bagged with a late shift ambulance call today. For routine calls we respond to the scene with no lights or sirens and the flow of traffic. The transport to the hospital is the same. If it is a critical emergency or one that involves a paramedic response then it is lights and sirens to the scene, and then with the patient to the paramedic intercept point. Once the paramedic has done their on board evaluation, they determine whether they stay on board or downgrade the call to BLS (Basic Life Support). If they ride in with us ALS (Advanced Life Support) they make the call for lights and sirens or flow of traffic.
Today's call required lights and sirens to the scene. Kommiecticut state law is very clear when it comes to when and how to yield to emergency vehicles. We actually have the same power as a school bus driver. If we get your plate number for failing to pull over and stop, you WILL get a ticket on my say so... no ifs, ands, or buts about it.
I pulled the ambulance out of the bay onto the ramp and hit the lights and sirens, and started proceeding down the ramp to the road. There was no traffic from my right, but a couple of cars approaching from the left. The lead car did not yield to the lights and siren, but obviously romped on the accelerator to get by the firehouse and the ambulance. The cars behind him stopped to let us out. A short distance up the road, I caught up to that jackass because he got stuck behind someone doing the speed limit with no place to pass. Both cars pulled over and stopped as well as a pickup truck coming the other way. As I went by I glanced in my mirror to see the idiot pull out and go around that lead car while it had not yet started moving again, Here he comes up my six.
About a half mile up the road was the address we were going to. Oncoming traffic, seeing my lights stopped well up the road out of the way to wait. The guy coming up behind me was not up my ass. Since the house was on the left and I needed to back into the driveway, I pulled over to the left to swing my nose out across the road to line up on the driveway. That impatient fucknut, ignoring my brilliant emergency lights operating, did not stop and almost took the nose of the ambulance off as he made sure he got by. Unfortunately he got away with it. But it didn't stop there.
After we picked up the paramedics we transported to the hospital ALS non-emergency. As I was passing the entrance to the shopping mall, a white Ford Explorer wanted to execute a right turn on red to come out in front of me... without the legally required stop first. They jammed on their brakes at the last second when they saw I was coming and not slowing down so they could squeak out. At that point the road is 2 lanes in both directions but just past where we turn right to go to the hospital, it is left turn only to get on the highway. As usual, an impatient ass-clown passes me on the left, then cuts across in front of me to turn right ahead of me. At least today, the driver had room and time to do this without the usual having to slam on the brakes on the ambulance. Patients and techs in the back LOVE THAT sudden stop!
Three traffic lights later, I was at a busy intersection that includes a highway exit ramp. That intersection gives simultaneous green lights to crossing traffic in both directions, but then gives a solitary green to the exit ramp, and then to the frontage road I was on. While the light was green for the exit ramp, red for me and crossing traffic, this idiot coming from my right simply ran the light in his piece of shit beater car. He slowed slightly and then stepped on it to get through. The traffic coming down the ramp had to stop to let this dickhead go. Luckily, traffic was light. The rest of the transport was uneventful.
I don't know who was there and why, but there was just about every hospital security guard and two local cops in the ER outside a closed room. There was a lot of loud talking and yelling going on in there. Usually the nut jobs end up in a padded room down "Crazy Corridor" so it was probably a criminal.
Leaving the hospital is a four-way stop sign at the entrance/exit. In Kommiecticut, the law says whoever gets there first has the right of way. In the case of a tie, the person to the right has the right of way. There were other cars going through the intersection and then I pulled up to my stop sign the same time as a woman in a sedan on my right. A lot of times people wave us through, `cause hey... we're the boo-boo bus. I looked at her for several seconds to see if she would go or give me the wave. Nothing, she just sat there, so I start to go... then she starts to go. I stop. She stops. Since I am much larger so I just go through and never even look at her. Fuckin' dummy.
So that's today's driving adventure. I am off tomorrow and if the rain ends early enough and the roads dry up enough, tomorrow afternoon I plan on taking a ride on "The Beast." I haven't been out since before Thanksgiving, and it is supposed to be almost 70 degrees before turning cold again.
