jumper.
I was the Chief of Police in a small suburb of Memphis. My little town bore the distinction of being one of the poorest cities in the Great State of Tennessee. The town hobby is drinking heavily and swimming in one's own genetic pool. It was a normal day to have people take a ride in an ambulance because of blood alcohol levels in excess of .40.
I would spend my days in the office trying to get paper work done and then would work the street at night with my old partner. During the day I had an Officer on the street, two if a Reserve wanted to work, to handle all the "he said she said, then woke up with a farm animal" stuff. We were very loaded with drug crime and serious assaults at night and on the weekends, but the days were usually fairly peaceful.
With this in mind I sent my day shift Officer into Memphis on an errand thinking I could stay out of trouble for at least a couple of hours. About thirty minutes after he left my phone rang. Seems the grant I was working on would have to wait, 'cause the dispatcher was telling me that I had a guy threatening suicide on a road out of town. This genius had decided to jump off a bridge.
After getting in my car I checked back in with the dispatcher to verify the location, as I was somewhat confused. The dispatcher re-verified the location and I was soon there. As I pulled up, I was becoming annoyed by the entire scene, there were about 12 of the local drunks standing on the roadside just cuttin' up and having a big ole time. The wife of the guy on the bridge came running up to me crying and carrying on and just plain acting silly. The kids of this woman, all over 16, were all hollerin' and crying and being just as foolish. The principle of this whole scene was standing just about to the edge of the bridge and whining about how nobody loved him. There was alcohol involved.
A lot of alcohol.
The dispatcher had started an ambulance, and I could hear the siren approaching from across the bottoms. By now I'm rather annoyed by the whole thing so I just kinda brushed by the wife and approached this idiot on the bridge. He, in typical fashion, said, "Don't come any closer or I'll jump!!" My reply, (some would say in typical fashion as well) was, "If you don't jump, I'm gonna push you off!"
Well this really seemed to have a bad effect on the wife and kids, I was referred to as all sorts of things I won't print here and was accused of things that are just physically impossible. My little cadre of drunken spectators was quite amused though, they began chanting for this guy to go on and jump.
As the Paramedic and EMT showed up, they came up to me and asked me what was going on. After explaining the situation and all of us deciding that this guy needed to go on and jump, they chimed in with a few choice phrases of their own. See you gotta understand that ambulance guys work really funny hours and rarely get to sleep so they get quite annoyed when some idiot gets them out of bed for something stupid.
Our little friend on the bridge was starting to realize that his little stunt for attention was not working out like he planned so he got up on the railing and again threatened to jump. I, having had enough of this, started towards him and informed him that he was either going to jump or get a serious ass-whooping. Well this seemed to convince him and a silence fell over the crowd as he lept into the air off the bridge.
Now began the squalling. The wife was screaming, the kids were crying and rolling around on the ground, the drunks were doubled over laughing. I was rather annoyed as were the bone toters.
You see, this bridge is over a dry creek, and no more than 6 feet high. This genius stood there, feet buried in the ground, eyes level with the bottom of the bridge, kinda looking around and wondering why the afterlife didn't seem any different. Being the caring, compassionate professional I am, I said, "Get your drunk ass up here."
Our little friend did get to ride in the ambulance though, 'cause as his drunk ass clambered up the bank of this creek, he fell backwards, got his arm stuck between two rocks and broke it with a loud "SNAP!!!" that made me go OWWWW, made the paramedic go UGHHHHHH, and made the EMT laugh. (Hey, these guys are twisted ok?).
I would spend my days in the office trying to get paper work done and then would work the street at night with my old partner. During the day I had an Officer on the street, two if a Reserve wanted to work, to handle all the "he said she said, then woke up with a farm animal" stuff. We were very loaded with drug crime and serious assaults at night and on the weekends, but the days were usually fairly peaceful.
With this in mind I sent my day shift Officer into Memphis on an errand thinking I could stay out of trouble for at least a couple of hours. About thirty minutes after he left my phone rang. Seems the grant I was working on would have to wait, 'cause the dispatcher was telling me that I had a guy threatening suicide on a road out of town. This genius had decided to jump off a bridge.
After getting in my car I checked back in with the dispatcher to verify the location, as I was somewhat confused. The dispatcher re-verified the location and I was soon there. As I pulled up, I was becoming annoyed by the entire scene, there were about 12 of the local drunks standing on the roadside just cuttin' up and having a big ole time. The wife of the guy on the bridge came running up to me crying and carrying on and just plain acting silly. The kids of this woman, all over 16, were all hollerin' and crying and being just as foolish. The principle of this whole scene was standing just about to the edge of the bridge and whining about how nobody loved him. There was alcohol involved.
A lot of alcohol.
The dispatcher had started an ambulance, and I could hear the siren approaching from across the bottoms. By now I'm rather annoyed by the whole thing so I just kinda brushed by the wife and approached this idiot on the bridge. He, in typical fashion, said, "Don't come any closer or I'll jump!!" My reply, (some would say in typical fashion as well) was, "If you don't jump, I'm gonna push you off!"
Well this really seemed to have a bad effect on the wife and kids, I was referred to as all sorts of things I won't print here and was accused of things that are just physically impossible. My little cadre of drunken spectators was quite amused though, they began chanting for this guy to go on and jump.
As the Paramedic and EMT showed up, they came up to me and asked me what was going on. After explaining the situation and all of us deciding that this guy needed to go on and jump, they chimed in with a few choice phrases of their own. See you gotta understand that ambulance guys work really funny hours and rarely get to sleep so they get quite annoyed when some idiot gets them out of bed for something stupid.
Our little friend on the bridge was starting to realize that his little stunt for attention was not working out like he planned so he got up on the railing and again threatened to jump. I, having had enough of this, started towards him and informed him that he was either going to jump or get a serious ass-whooping. Well this seemed to convince him and a silence fell over the crowd as he lept into the air off the bridge.
Now began the squalling. The wife was screaming, the kids were crying and rolling around on the ground, the drunks were doubled over laughing. I was rather annoyed as were the bone toters.
You see, this bridge is over a dry creek, and no more than 6 feet high. This genius stood there, feet buried in the ground, eyes level with the bottom of the bridge, kinda looking around and wondering why the afterlife didn't seem any different. Being the caring, compassionate professional I am, I said, "Get your drunk ass up here."
Our little friend did get to ride in the ambulance though, 'cause as his drunk ass clambered up the bank of this creek, he fell backwards, got his arm stuck between two rocks and broke it with a loud "SNAP!!!" that made me go OWWWW, made the paramedic go UGHHHHHH, and made the EMT laugh. (Hey, these guys are twisted ok?).
posted by PK at 10:57 PM
4 Comments:
You made me laugh out loud at 4:30 in the morning when I'm jet-lagged. Yes, I like this one. And that's all the commenting I'll be doing this a.m. :p
It's the lovely Malaysian Manx. Thank you kind lady.
ROFL
More! More!
Great story and excellent writing. Nice to start my morning with a chuckle.
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