Signal 14

Fortunately, it does not happen often, but in our system we have a radio code known as a “Signal 14”.  For those of you more familiar with the Police side of things, this is our version of “Signal 13”, or 10-13 code.  Where Signal 13 is the call for Officer in Distress, Signal 14 means that Fire or Rescue personnel are in trouble.  And like an Officer in Distress call, a Signal 14 brings absolutely everyone.  It is reassuring to see, but it is not something you want to use lightly, and if you can, you want to avoid seeing it displayed.  I’ve only said those words once over the air, and we were deep in it when I did.

The call was several years ago, and I was running as a BLS preceptor at the time.  The crew I was with that night consisted of my preceptee Nancy, a then-new EMT, Rob W also an EMT and Rob L a firefighter who was driving so I could precept Nancy.  Now, Nancy is a nice girl, and decent EMT who stands about 5 foot nothing and has a slight build.  She was pretty close to turned over, but was having some confidence issues, and was getting some more street time to work that out.  Rob W is an all around good guy, and family man.  He had more angst over doing the right thing all the time than anyone I’ve ever known.  While of medium stature, he was also a Marine Corps reservist, where he held the rank of Major.  (He later became a Lt. Col, a statement of his character.)  That’s the thing about interacting with a volunteer organization; you never know what the person you are talking to does in “real life”.  Rob L is a career fireman as well as a volunteer, and in pretty good shape himself.  All of these come into play, and in retrospect, we had a pretty good combination that night.  Ironic, since we did not usually run as a crew.

Early in the night, we get a call to assist a career medic in the area south of us for a possible overdose.  En route we hear that the patient has taken PCP, and the family is worried.  At that point, I had never run a PCP patient, but had heard plenty of stories about the amped-up, super strong, raging wild patent tearing up houses, and taking on teams of Police.  My dad was a cop for over 20 years and one of his best stories is of a guy on PCP.  So, this is what is running through my head as we head down for the call.  

The career unit was there well ahead of us, and we grab our bags and head into the house.  Inside, we see the medic crew talking to the patient, who is seated on the sofa and is clearly high.  Like I said, this was the first time I’d seen this before, and for those who haven’t seen it, it is really not like you might expect from the stories.  The PCP patients that I have seen seem to be running in super slow motion, and they like sparkly things.  For example, I once saw a guy who had wrecked his van while on PCP come out to face the three or four police cars that had arrived when we did.  He came out, and slowly stared from one car’s lights to the next with this look of wonder on his face.  (He then SLOWLY took this silly martial arts stance out of a movie and was sacked by about four cops who, unfortunately for this guy, moved at full speed.)  This guy was behaving exactly like that.  He was answering simple questions, but only after you were sure he didn’t hear you.  I also noticed that he liked to look towards movement.  The family was very concerned, and knew it was PCP because “this is how he acted last time he was on PCP.”  Now, I’m trying not to chuckle, and I’m trying REALLY hard not to mess with the guy by rolling a new quarter on the floor or something, but in the back of my mind I know we should be glad he’s calm and try not to stir him up.  
The medic that day was running with a crew of two, one of whom I know had been a cop before becoming a career medic.  We had good rapport and the assessment went smoothly.  As I recall, the guy was basically okay, or at least had vitals that you’d expect for PCP.  We decide to walk him to the medic unit, and the guys ask us if we can spare someone for manpower, just in case.  I was all for that, and while Nancy was precepting, and could have used the experience, I sent Rob W, the Marine.  They weren’t planning to do much but get to the hospital as I recall, so things were pretty low key.  The patient’s family was going to follow the unit to the hospital, and everyone was going without lights and sirens…no need to get the patient fired up over something.  

Now because of the way we approached the house, we had to go down a street to turn around, while the medic unit had a straight shot out to towards the hospital.  As a result, while we were following them to the hospital, they got a considerable jump on us, and were out of sight ahead of us on the way.  Rob L, Nancy and I were joking in the unit about the reaction of the patient, and comparing notes on other calls when we hear the medic unit call out over the radio.  They are calling dispatch asking them to send a Police officer to assist.  They have pulled over at an intersection a couple miles up the road, and the patient is unruly in the back.  Now, I’m sitting in the back of the unit, letting Nancy lead from the front, but that was enough for me to assert control.  “Rob, get there, light them up!”  Rob did not need to be told twice, and in all truth was already moving when I said it.  The lights come on, the siren wails and feel the unit accelerating hard.  Our guy is in the back there, and it’s only him and the one medic.  It didn’t take long to get there at all.  

Pulling up I see the medic unit pulled to the side of the road, the back doors are open and there is another car pulled in behind it.  Inside, there are a lot of people, none of whom are the Police.  Running to the unit, I see that the family had been following right behind, and the patient’s mother and two brother’s had hopped out to ‘help’.  Mom was outside behind the unit wailing.  Inside, Rob W, the medic, the patient and the two brothers were all in ball trying to restrain the patient to the cot.  It looked like the family was helping the medic, and as we entered, I saw that was the case.  I told Nancy to go up front.  She was pretty small, and I didn’t want to have to keep track of her in any melee.  Frankly, there wasn’t much she could do but get bounced from wall to wall in the back, so, I wanted her safe.  

Now, the struggle in the back was pretty unusual.  There wasn’t any swinging or punching exactly, but there was this slow motion wrestling.  Apparently the patient had tried to get up and exit the unit while they were headed up the road.  This would have been bad for the patient, and we lose points for letting a patient wander in traffic at all, never mind doing the 40 mph exit from the back of a moving unit.  The goal here was to get the patient secured back in the cot.  Well, he was fighting this with persistent, but slow resistance.  So, while we were moving much faster than him, he was exhibiting the incredible strength that I’d heard of before.  At one point I had myself and another guy losing a battle against a single arm on him and we had both position and leverage in our favor.  The guy just slowly pushed us back and off the cot.  Of course we just let go, repositioned and started over because he was in PCP slow-mo.  
So, now that both crews, minus Nancy are in the back, and a PD unit is coming, we start telling the family, “we got it, please go back to your car. Thanks for the help” etc.  We don’t want one of them getting hurt accidentally and adding patients to the situation.  This is all well and good, but then the family members decide that things are going badly.  Specifically, mom starts up with “Don’t let them hurt him.”  I hear this and can already see where this is headed.  At this point, I have to paint in one more fact that was not relevant from my point of view until exactly this moment.  The patient and family all happened to be black, and of course, as fate would have it, both my crew and the medic crew were all white.  That fact didn’t even occur to me until one of the brothers made a comment to that effect.  I don’t recall exactly what he said, but it was not helpful or complimentary.

I call back to mom that we are NOT hurting the patient, just trying to keep him in the cot so he won’t walk into traffic.  Well, that didn’t seem to be a convincing argument, because now the brothers start trying to pull us back off the patient.  So, when the Police Officer arrives, he has mom outside inciting things from outside the back of the unit, and one patient, two brothers, two medics, two EMTs and a firefighter wrestling inside.  It was Real Cozy in the back there for a bit.  Amazingly, it STILL had not come to blows, just pulling and pushing trying to gain control.  There was plenty of yelling going on too.  

The officer quickly gets involved, and gets the two brothers out of the unit by explaining that they can stay and go to jail, or get out.  He closes the doors behind him and it’s just us and the patient.  The patient has managed to get from the cot to the bench seat and the cop and the medics are trying to gain control of him there.  The good thing is that since he is against the wall of the unit, and the bench, things are a bit more controlled.  I’m actually standing away from the action, but inside the unit on the opposite side of the cot towards the back.  Frankly, the patient was covered and there was little I could do to help outside occasionally helping with an arm here or there.  I’m a bit worried about the family outside though.  I can’t see them well now that the doors are close, and through the back window, I see them moving around in their car.  That could be bad, so I’m trying to keep watch in that direction too.  When the car door opens, the interior light comes on, and I see someone getting out of the passenger seat and headed for the unit.  I call out a warning and try to see who is coming and where they are headed, but I can’t tell.  I don’t think anyone heard me over the struggle, or if they did, there was little they could do.  They are getting the upper hand on the patient finally, the cop and the Police trained medic getting him into some holds to keep control, but aren’t quite there yet.  

The side door to the unit flies open suddenly.  Standing in the doorway is one of the brothers and he’s clearly pissed.  I start moving in that direction as he reaches in, and around the cop, who is bent over the patient.  To this day I clearly remember what happened next.  The brother’s hand comes in and around the cop’s hip…right to his gun.  He latches on and starts to pull.  The cop pushes down once on the patient, grabs a hold on the brother’s hand, spins and basically dives out the door into the dark down the ditch on the side of the road.  Now things have slowed down for me. I spin around and reach for the radio.  I don’t know who got that gun, but if it is not the cop, we are in a world of hurt.  There are six people in an ambulance and SOMEONE outside the open door has a gun.  Fish in a barrel does not quite summarize how screwed we may be at that moment.  

Grabbing the radio, I say those magic words. “Medic 52, Ambulance 12-8 are Signal 14, repeat Signal 14, gun involved.”  As I’m talking, Rob W has converted from EMT to Marine and thrown himself out the back door and to the aid of the police officer.  I hear the medics saying they can at least contain the patient finally and are yelling to help the cop.  The other brother comes from the car, and I believe is being met by Rob L outside.  Now I’m desperate to know that the call has been heard and that the cavalry is coming.  I know that ultimately the arrival (or not) of the rest of the police is going to be the difference here.  I can’t hear the radio at all over all the yelling and I go out the side of the unit and up to the cab.  I’m pretty focused on making sure help is coming, and only peripherally notice the wrestling that is going on in the ditch.  

I try to open the passenger door and it won’t budge.  Nancy has locked herself in, and is now so freaked that she can’t work the lock.  I yell to the window, “Did they HEAR me?” “What?” is her response.  Okay, when this is over, I’m going to kill her.   “Did the call get out, did they say they are coming?”  She looks sheet-white and says, “I don’t know, they said, ‘All units hold your traffic.’.”  Excellent!  By protocol, when someone calls Signal 14, they seize the channel, and everyone else is ordered to maintain radio silence until the signal is lifted.  If they issued that order, they got the call.  We are only about 2 miles from the Police Station, and I already hear sirens.  

Looking to the ditch, I see the first brother on the ground, holding his face and being held by someone (I can remember who was who now.)  The cop was in the process of Pepper Spraying the other as I recall.  Inside, the medics have the patient pinned.  As I see the blue lights of the first unit coming from the next hill, I rush over to cut off mom, who is racing around the car to jump on the back of the police officer.  “Ma’am, go BACK to your car.”  I yell as I square in her way.  She’s yelling about hurting her sons and at that point I get angry for the first time in the call.  I tell her that her son’s are in trouble only because she didn’t shut up and go to her car when she was told to before.  Now, that may not have been the textbook answer, but at this point the text was out the window.  The first unit comes on scene and the cops quickly secure the brothers in the ditch.  Other units follow quickly, on the order of ten or so and the situation resolves as fast as it escalated.  At some point Nancy figures out how to work a door and gets out to help.  

In the end, the brother’s we treat the brothers on the scene for Pepper Spray and release them to the cops who bestow them with chrome bracelets, room, board and a court date for assaulting a police officer.  The patient is secured to the cot and taken by the medic to the hospital with police on board.  Mom barely escapes getting locked up herself when she starts yelling at the cops.  I’m mildly amused when I hear the officer explaining that it was most likely her stirring things up that got her son’s arrested.  After that call, we go out of service, and fill out individual police reports back at the station.  We all carefully write what we know, and don’t compare notes while we do it.  

A couple months later we all get the news we knew was coming.  We get our subpoenas for the court date.  It seems the brother who grabbed for the gun had been under house arrest (you know, tracking anklet etc) at the time of this call.  It seems that a few months prior to our little party he had assaulted a Police Officer.  So, he was fighting the second conviction saying he was “Acting in defense of another” namely the patient.  It was a short court date.  I did have to testify, and the defense attorney asked something like, “Isn’t it possible that the defendant intended just to get the officer off of his brother and just happened to grab the gun?”  Now, I paused, thinking the prosecutor would object to my being asked what the guy was thinking, but he was taking a note and didn’t jump in.   So I thought briefly about offering that he might have intended to get a ham sandwich out of the cop’s pocket for all I knew, but answered along the lines of, “I don’t know what he intended, I’m not Ms. Cleo, but I know he grabbed the handle of the officer’s weapon, held on, and pulled him from the ambulance with it.”  At which point he winced and basically gave up on that line.  The others there were not all called in and things closed up quickly.  It did not go well for the brother.  

Months later I learned that things had been pretty close outside the unit.  According to the story, later verified by a bashful Rob W, when Rob left out the back of the unit, he found the officer and the brother locked arm in arm in the ditch.  They were struggling over the gun, still in the holster and the final possession of the weapon was not clear.  Rob, reverting to Marine, dove into the fray from the top of the ditch and landed between the cop and the brother.  On his way down, he brought his forearm across the bridge of the brother’s nose breaking it rather cleanly according to reports.  This seemed to have been the decisive act, as he let go of the gun handle and covered his face, allowing the officer to gain the upper hand and move to secure him and the other brother, then arriving from the car.  By all accounts, up until that moment, the fish in the barrel outcome was still very much a possibility.  Needless to say, Rob is always welcome on my unit, and his first beer is on me any time he wants to get out socially.  That’s the thing about a volunteer organization, you never know what that EMT does in “real” life.