When I was really young, my dad used to volunteer at the local ambulance corps. That is not what this story is about, but it helps explain something about him. Before he became a physician assistant, he had been an EMT, and he always loved the excitement of being out in the field. He loved the show MASH. More on that another time, unless I already wrote about it. He loved that whole world of organised chaos. But as he got older and settled into his work in the emergency room, he did not really go out into the field anymore. He just got his daily adrenaline fix from being inside the trauma room.
Except for one time.
This was in the late nineteen eighties or very early nineties. There was an accident right outside the hospital where he worked. A man had been hit by a bus. Literally right in front of the building. When that happens, you do not wait for an ambulance to arrive. The emergency room staff goes outside. They are already there, so they just run out and start helping.
My dad was part of the group that went outside that day. They found the man pinned underneath the bus, stuck with his little shopping cart beside him. My dad ended up crawling under the bus with him and staying there until they could free him and get him into the emergency room.
There was a news clipping about it. I am pretty sure I still have it somewhere, or at least a photo of it. I want to find it before I actually post this publicly. But yes, that really happened: my dad was literally under a bus helping rescue someone.
The part he always remembered most was what happened afterward. The man was an older guy on his way back from the market. His groceries had spilled everywhere. Milk had burst open, but somehow the cookies survived. So after all the chaos, my dad said the man kept offering cookies to everyone. Just sitting there, grateful to be alive, handing out cookies.
From what I remember, the man survived and did fine. And for my dad, it was one of those rare moments where he got to go back into the field.
Not everyone can say their dad once crawled under a bus and then celebrated with cookies, but apparently that was just a normal Tuesday in his world.