Spending a Night with Drunks and Prostitutes

Every few years, it behooves a fellow to remind himself how he came to prefer working in sunshine over spending his nights under the full moon with drunks and prostitutes.

This vessel of enlightenment is known as working the night shift.

I partook of such a welcome reminder on Sunday. Three partners -- including my own beautiful bride -- and one paramedic intern shared this 36 hour search for understanding. When it was over, I'd slept a total of two and a half hours, ran 18 calls and saved no lives as far as I can tell (though a couple of customers were in much better straits once transported to the emergency department).

Being a search for the truth of why I switched from running with the vampires to working the EMS equivalent of banker's hours, here are a few observations I made on my first night shift outside of FEMA hurricane duty (which is so unique as not to really count in night shift circles):

1. It's hard to find an open restroom at two in the morning near a rural street corner five miles from the closest town (before the guys point out the obvious, let me remind all that I was working with ladies).


2. Sleeping in the front seat of an ambulance is not difficult -- moving afterwards is.


3. Shade is much easier to find.


4. Day drunks and night drunks are different. Day drunks are professionals, maintaining a therapeutic blood alcohol level that just kind of ebbs and flows throughout the day. Day drunks only get ambulances when people with cell phones see them. Night drunks are amateurs, binging on celebratory tequila in honor of such accomplishments as procreation and, well, more procreation. Night drunks get ambulances when their slightly less intoxicated -- but no less dramatic -- companions become overwhelmed by the depth of the vomit puddle.


5. It's dark (see #3). There is a distinct lack of light in the sky (there were pretty little sparkly things up there, however, kind of nice to look at).


6. I complain more at night.

I confess that at times I miss the nocturnal fauna that populate our empty city streets. For the time being, however, I will continue to eat dinner with the family, sleep in my own bed and relegate my hours on the bus to those that generally fall between sunrise and sunset.

In a few years, when I've forgotten the beauty of emergency lights flooding everything at the scene in alternating strobes of red and yellow, I will again stow my sunglasses, ready my flashlight and settle in for a visit to the dark side of EMS.