One of the first things EMS is taught is “Scene Safety.” It’s part of the mantra. In every practical training session and exam, if the first words out of your mouth aren’t “Scene safety, and wearing my PPE,” you fail. It’s important.
As a paramedic, I was often called to scenes in the dark parts of town. It didn’t matter why we were there or who did what to whom, it was always an unstable scene. A few that I remember:
- A black man trying to evade a felony arrest on a bicycle fell off the bike and was run over by the police car pursuing him
- One black dude shot another black dude
- A drive by shooting
- A black man was high on some sort of drug and pounding on doors. One upstairs resident open his door, stabbed him in the forehead with a BBQ fork and pushed him down the stairs
- A white guy driving a UHaul wound up in the ‘hood by mistake and tried turning around. He hit a black kid that was behind the truck trying to open it to steal some of the contents.
At each and every one of them, we were surrounded by a mob just like the one below. We had to endure screams of “What’s taking so long? If he was white, you woulda had him to the hospital by now.” Threats of violence, thrown rocks, etc.
The odd part is, they were right. If the victim was white, we would have been much faster, but not for racism reasons. If the crowd weren’t there making us concerned for our own safety, we would have been faster. Watch now and see the scene that gives me flashbacks to the days of trying to save hoodrats.
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