Know When To Fold 'Em

The tones awoke me from a deep sleep. I groggily put on my socks, grabbed my watch and headed for the truck. We were responding for an assault victim. The AMR crew must have been posting nearby because they were bearing down on the station as we were pulling our. We let them have the lead.

About a block out the dispatcher let us know that there were multiple victims of a domestic dispute. He asked if we wanted another engine. We declined and said we'd ask for one if we needed it.

The AMR unit pulled up to the sea of police vehicles first. They jumped out and were ushered to a man laying on the ground and in handcuffs. We were told that there was another patient up the street that wanted to be signed out AMA.

As we made our way up to the second knot of people we found out there was more than just one other victim. We checked on 4 people, all of whom had been in some sort of physical altercation. They all had some minor scrapes and bruises but were ok.

Once everyone in our little group had signed the appropriate paperwork we made our way back to the AMR crew. They were just getting their patient settled onto the gurney.

Since they didn't need our help I asked one of the officers what had transpired. I was told that the guy AMR was treating had presumably ("all suspects are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law") had a domestic altercation with his girlfriend. He then continued to assault several other family members until they realized it was 5 on 1. At this point the suspect was chased down the block and was "detained" (the officers verbiage, not mine) by the family. While they were "detaining" him (hehehe) a passerby called 911. PD arrived to assume custody of the detainee and called us for an EMS check on all parties involved.

Even when drunk, you should remember that 5 on 1 is almost always bad odds.