Pegging The Needle

So we've got a guy left to us by the PD, who were summoned because Skinny Dude, all 90 pounds of him, was acting the fool in public, and left to us because he also managed to acquire an open tib/fib fracture of the right leg in cavorting around on the roofs of cars butt naked before he was arrested.

He claims he must've gotten some bad pot. Doc Hearditall isn't buying that explanation. Either way, his leg's box-splinted, so we're just waiting for a bed on the ortho floor. Which we get, but unfortunately, about 2 minutes after the paramedics radio in to say they're 3 minutes out with a full arrest.

So the CNA someone gifted us with for the night, and I, get elected to pull Skinny Dude's gurney out and get him out of the center ring in the circus, and up to the Ortho floor where he needs to be, and please, before the main event gets here.

CNA, unfortunately, is of the "I'll get around to it when I get around to it" school of union hospital employees. So naturally, we're just pulling Skinny Dude, who only used pot, out of the circus at the exact moment that a dozen firefighters and paramedics are coming in, with a guy they're doing full CPR on.

All Skinny Dude sees is a lot of guys in really dark blue uniforms, and so he figures the PD has had a change of heart, and they're coming back to get him.

And with that brilliant misappraisal of his situation, who can blame him, as I'm trying to tell Miss Pokey to get a move on, for reaching out and grabbing anything he can get his hands on to stop us from taking him to those police-looking guys and all the ruckus, headed right at us?

Which, in this case, is the blood bank refrigerator with about 20 units of O negative blood for those traumas with no time to wait for a type and crossmatch. Skinny grabs ahold of the refrigerator and pulls it open.

Trying to duck around 8 paramedics swarmed around the incoming dead guy they're trying to save, I lean on the door, before Skinny can start grabbing units of blood, and turning this into a Hazmat disaster worthy of a B-grade horror flick.

So of course, Skinny grabs the blood bank Batphone. It's there because opening the refrigerator makes their phone ring when you open the door (which Skinny just did) so that you can let the blood bank know "John Doe GSW, we're spiking units K and L on him" and they'll know they've got a stat Type and Crossmatch coming as soon as we get a blood tube drawn.

So doubtless the nice little old lady hematology clerk on the other end of the phone was expecting a terse but calm professional report, when instead, she got the ear-shattering screech of Skinny Dude screaming into the phone "BITCH TRY TO KILL ME!!! BITCH TRY TO KILL ME!!!"

So now, keeping one hand on the fridge door panel, I reach the other hand over to hang up the phone, knowing that it's probably too late, and the clerk downstairs likely already has a blown eardrum and is possibly twitching into a stroke from the shock. As soon as I try to pry the handset out of Skinny Dude's hands before he decides to start hitting someone with it, like a mongoose he lets go and darts a hand to the now vulnerable blood refrigerator door, again.

This time, I lean my not inconsiderable bulk back against the door, thinking I've outsmarted him at last, and we can soon be on our way. Best laid plans.

Skinny Dude instead yanks 10 pounds of metal handle right off and out of the door. And now has a heavy metal weapon, complete with half a dozen screws sticking out. Deciding I'm not getting clocked with that, it's ON.

Worthless CNA is nowhere to be seen, most of the department extra hands are helping out trying to save Full Arrest Guy, and I'm going 5 rounds with Skinny Dude and his Spiked Mace Of Death.

I pry that too out of his hand just as the first hospital police officer arrives. We'll call him Officer Kong. He's a whipsmart black officer, roughly the size of a walk-in freezer, with a huge smile most times, and the moves of a college all-star linebacker, which he was until a knee injury forced him into other career choices.

Kong and I get along great, and we work as a team without a word. But just as I get the door handle out of Skinny's grasp, he pushes off the gurney, stands up to his full 5'5" height on the unbroken leg, and with Officer Kong holding his other arm, he proceeds to try to kick us with the broken leg, still in the cardboard box splint. I watch blood splatter, as he swings his leg, complete with today's extra knee joint in the middle of his calf, and watch it swing and bend like you expect a double broken leg to flex. Which is both fascinating and sickening to behold, if only I had the time to take to appreciate the sight.

You might have expected the excruciating pain from this to slow a guy down who'd only smoked some pot, but he was just getting warmed up. Kong and I finally get tired of dodging his foot as it makes the extra flopping pivot and flings blood everywhere except us - so far - and we each manage to grab a shoulder and vault Skinny Dude up and backwards onto the gurney. Then the two of us, waiting for more help and hard restraints, throw our bodies onto Skinny's chest to keep him from getting any crazier or grabbing anything else.

And all 90 pounds of him starts throwing 300 pound Kong and 200+ pound yours truly around like we were Barbie dolls in a bowling alley lane. We're being tossed 2-3 feet upward, and each time we come back down on him, he throws us up in the air again.

I should mention that this entire time, Skinny's been yelling "BITCH TRY TO KILL ME!!!" repeatedly and at the top of his lungs. While the full arrest is getting worked on by a dozen people 10 feet away.

Being face to face with Officer Kong, in between bounces I casually ask him, "Say, how do you think that new plan to cut back on security officers to only 2 people at night is going to work out?" (Which really is somebody's genius idea.)

So now I have to deal with Officer Kong laughing out loud to the point of shaking as we're both riding this tiny rodeo bull long past the obligatory 8 seconds.

Finally, several other officers arrive, hard leather restraints in hand, and we strap three of Skinny's four extremities to the gurney. For the broken leg, which he's flung every which way, we settle for wrapping his legs with a sheet and knotting it under the gurney to prevent its movement without binding it directly.

So as the CNA prairie dogs her head out from wherever she went and hid, and finally takes Skinny to Ortho, Officer Kong asks me what Skinny was on.

"Well, he swears it was just marijuana, but after the needle on my BS Detector buried itself past the red zone, I'm going with PCP. Ya think?"