MAE JULIAN
I was recently asked why I don’t talk more about the “saves” we made. Well, we had “saves” frequently, but they are not as much fun to tell about as the crazy people I worked with, and the ones we encountered. Night shift brought everything. However, I will tell you of one rather remarkable “save” that lingers in my mind for less than obvious reasons.
It was nearing morning, and we had had a hectic night. I was working the 5th district with Janner. Tick knocked us out on a 10-39 to a bakery on 3rd street.‑ Not a likely place for a shooting. Tick advised us that assailants were possibly on the scene and LPD was enroute. We got there in record time. Janner looked at the run sheet later, and noted that we hit the bakery where the shooting was in less than two minutes. We pulled up and shone both spotlights on the bakery and the surrounding area. We saw several black males running, and dragging something, or someone. LPD came screaming on the scene, shortly, and just as soon as they arrived, I grabbed my jump kit and Janner and I headed in to the bakery. There on the floor lay the baker. He was the perfect prototype of a baker. He was rotund, weighing about 350 pounds. He had on a white apron and flour covered him, mixed with blood, a large amount of which was oozing from the middle of his apron. He had been shot point blank in the abdomen. He was conscious, but losing ground.‑ He yelled to the LPD officers to get the SOB who shot him, advising that he had gotten off a few rounds, himself, before they escaped. Even in his emergent state he was proud that he had shot at least one of them. Janner went out to the ambulance to get the full board and stretcher.‑
Flashing lights, yelling, and orders were cutting through the night. In the meantime, I was getting two IV’s of RL in the baker. I opened the IV’s wide, giving him as much fluid as quickly as possible to help compensate for his blood loss. We had assistance loading him up, as LPD had plenty of cops on the scene. Just as we put the baker in the back of our ambulance, a guy came running up and said that his buddy was shot and laying in the bushes about a block away. Sometimes you just make a decision and go with it. The baker in the ambulance would bleed to death if we didn’t get him to the hospital quickly, and the bird in the bush would have to wait for the next responding unit.
I radioed Mick to dispatch a second unit for another 10-39, and advised that there might be more, as the baker didn’t know if he hit more than one. Janner maneuvered around the cop cars and headed code 3 to University Hospital. When we got there, we had to unload him without the assistance of the LPD officers. We had one guard there who assisted but, with a 70-pound stretcher and a guy of at least 350 pounds, it was not an easy task to get the stretcher out and down. We didn’t have the kind of stretchers they have now, where the whole underneath carriage and the wheels drop down. We had to manually bring the stretcher out and pull a lever to drop the wheels. Well, when we brought him out, we whacked his head on the bumper grate of the ambulance. Gave him a nice lump. I’m sure he didn’t appreciate it, and must have thought that he first gets shot and then he gets whacked on his head by his rescuers.‑ Anyway, we got him in to Room 9 at University and cleared for another run.
The guy in the bushes was dead. I never spent one second regretting leaving him for the next responding unit. I guess there would be some who would question my attitude, but that’s life on the street.‑ Not a lot of sympathy is wasted on the perpetrators of crimes.
Janner and I got a thank you note from the baker’s wife a few weeks later, but never heard anything from the baker. The next time I went in to‑my dentist, the receptionist told me that she was the baker’s wife. She had called EMS to get our names so she could write a note to us, and recognized me as a patient of theirs.
Okay…on with the story…about three months later, Janner and I decided to stop in the bakery and see the baker whose life we had saved. We were sure of a hearty welcome and a grateful baker. We went in and identified ourselves as the crew who made the run on him when he was shot. We also each ordered a doughnut. Now, wouldn’t you think that if you saved a guy’s life he would give you a free doughnut?‑Nope. Not only did he charge us for the doughnuts, he scowled at us, never said thank you, and turned his back on us. There was a lot of speculation on his behavior at shift change where, as you know, everything is discussed and reviewed.‑ Some speculated that he didn’t like women, and would have preferred a male crew to save his life. Some thought that he was a tight ass who wouldn’t part with a doughnut, but my opinion is he still has a big knot on the back of his head. What an ingrate.
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