Officer down

For pure sphincter pucker, this call probably runs neck and neck with the infant cardiac arrest. Of course, because I've suddenly developed into a black cloud, I wake up to this dispatch at 0300. I'm on a long-term swap for one shift a week working with ZM, so no Asian with me tonight. I'd already been up for a minute or two and walk back into the bunk room to get my vest and make sure my partner is moving just as the dispatcher gets to the "officer down" part. "That's not good." "Did she just say 'officer down'?" "Yup." "Shit." "Yup."

As we come around the corner and head the last couple blocks to the dispatched intersection, all I can see are cops. I had no idea there were this many cops on duty in the city at 0300 on a weekday. Cops at every corner waving their flashlights down the street. Bicycle cops, patrol cars, unmarked cars, I think the only thing we were missing was the horses. I hope they left someone at the jail with the prisoners. Update from the FD as we're pulling on scene was for a shoulder injury. One FF pulled opened the passenger door to the ambulance to get me outside and begins rattling off information. Before he can even finish, I turn around with the first in bag and get nearly run over by the push of people herding the injured officer into the truck.

Just seeing the officer in question walking, talking, and joking was a massive anxiety-reducer. It turned out that there was a foot pursuit of a suspect and when the officer tackled him, he strained his shoulder. I rode with him up to the hospital and was able to sing the stripper song for him when he got in the hospital room and started removing more uniform pieces. He laughed and played along. Not too bad for a guy who has been on the force about half his life.

ADDED: Yes, I know this is the sixth anniversary of a relatively huge event in American life which directly involves fields that K and I work in, but I struggle with the inappropriateness of a lot of the memorials and I'm not going to add to that clutter. Maybe sometime I'll write about where I was and how I experience that event, but not today.