It was nice to help people, occasionally exciting to respond to the scene of an accident or (rarely) a shooting. But the truth of the matter is that just driving the ambulance with lights and sirens going was cooler than anything else I could imagine. I liked driving through the center of town in the middle of the day and hearing the siren echo off the buildings in the town square. I liked driving at night with the red and white lights flashing like a pinball machine. One night we had to respond in a thick, close fog, the lights bouncing off the mist three feet away, surrounding us in a light show.

It was the custom for patients who needed to be transferred from the small local hospital to downtown Washington, to be transported by a spare volunteer crew. I got tapped, one day, to drive a patient up to George Washington University Hospital in D.C. The patient was going for routine surgery, but it was getting late in the afternoon, so the referring doctor told us to drive him up "hot", i.e.: with lights and sirens. It was a trip of approximately 60 miles and we headed out.

This was a routine drive as we headed north through Loveville and Mechanicsville, took a right in Waldorf, and headed toward DC. Traffic got heavier and we hit the siren a little more often. By the time we got to Landover we were in rush hour. This was not a route I'd taken before and the medic beside me, Neal, was helping to navigate. We passed over the Anacostia bridge, came up South Capitol Street which leads straight to the House end of the Capitol, and proceeded down Pennsylvania Avenue. At 4:30 in the afternoon.

I was starting to get a little nervous at this point because traffic was coming thick and fast and nobody seemed very impressed with our emergency. I also didn't really know where I was going. Neal suddenly urged me to take the next street to the right. I was in the outside lane, so I whipped it around and discovered it was a one-way street and not in the direction I was headed. At this point, I figured, what the hell and hit the siren. I don't think I've ever seen a more impressive sight: our nation's capitol in five in the afternoon, two lines of cars peeling away from the center and making way for the crazies in the ambulance. We made it there and back again safely. But I wish I'd have had time to look at the faces of the drivers when they saw us coming.
8:26:14 AM    Comments?()