[iranfromthezoo]

Many of you know I work for a fire dept here in MS about to go to SC. Today was my last day for 8 weeks...so earlier this morning I was toned out for lifting assistance, no big deal. The address was 567 something road, well I get there, see a mailbox that said 567. I get to the house, dispatch tells me shes fallen, can't get up, and tells me to call them so they can tell me where the key is. Well I can't find the key, I look everywhere twice. Well the person's son shows up and he can't find the key either. Dispatch advises breaking the door down, we I get the halligan, break the door down, go in, find the mail, it says 561 something road....my hear stops! We were at the wrong house! so now I broke down the door to the wrong house, we finally find the right house which was 200 yards down the road but the mailbox was not in the correct place.

The family was very understanding and actually thankful I did what I did because they have an elderly female on a wheelchair in the other house. They were extremely thankful and said do not worry. I worded my report very well just in case but we all had a good laugh and everyone was in good spirits.

I just thought ya'll would like to know how big of an idiot I really am.

[Dakar²]

Well the person's son shows up and he can't find the key either.

He didn't know he was at the wrong house?

[mdc]

Yeah, that's what I thought when I read it.

Apparently the son doesn't visit his parents very often.

[iranfromthezoo]

well the son wasnt't responding...he just happened to pass by while we were there, and his mother was elderly and in a wheelchair so the call made sense to him.

[voiceofra]

Originally Posted by mdc 

Yeah, that's what I thought when I read it.

Apparently the son doesn't visit his parents very often.

Who's to say it wasn't the son of the person that the OP broke in to and just happened to be stopping by to pay mom a visit?
I'm sure there are several elderly folks on the block that have sons (and probably daughters, too!).

[marden]

Reading the thread title made me think of a joke.

A vacuum salesman knocks on a door and a guy answers.

Salesman: I'm Mr. Jones with Acme Vacuums. Is the lady of the house in?

Husband: No, she's not. She's a prostitute and won't be home until after midnite.

Salesman: Well, I'm a sonovabitch!

Husband: To be honest with you, so am I. But I don't think it's a very good idea to go door to door telling people.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by marden 

Reading the thread title made me think of a joke.

…what?

[Dakar²]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

…what?

I don't know, but I think you fell for the trap.

[bstone]

I work on an ambulance as an EMT. Dispatch once sent us to a place code 3 (lights and siren). We get to the door with full gear, ready to go and the people are like "wtf?". They gave us the wrong address. We use alpha-numeric pagers so it's not as if we heard it wrong. We broke no doors, however.

[iranfromthezoo]

thanks bstone....your really making me feel like a champ!

we broke a door cause it was a diabetic patient who couldn't move and was feeling numb....so you would be able to understand the sense of urgency. The patient had a BSL of 65....not good.

[Teronzhul]

Maybe this will provide incentive for the families to get their mailboxes fixed.

[Mark Larr]

iran, when I got shot back in November, if it wasn't for their sense of urgency I would have bled out before I made it to the hospital.

All emergency workers are heroes in my book.

I salute you all.

[bstone]

Originally Posted by iranfromthezoo 

thanks bstone....your really making me feel like a champ!

we broke a door cause it was a diabetic patient who couldn't move and was feeling numb....so you would be able to understand the sense of urgency. The patient had a BSL of 65....not good.

Eh, a BGL of 65 is very doable. I've seen people walking around and feeling fine with a count of 50. Then again, others crash out when they fall below 70. I've learned it's a very person-specific thing.

I was in the back of the bus with a patient when my partner crashed into a city bus. Good thing we weren't emergent. The paperwork was annoying but no one got in trouble. Mistakes happen. Hopefully your dept realizes that. How long you been with them?

[Madrag]

Originally Posted by Mark Larr 

I salute you all.

I second this!

I think iranfromthezoo wasn't an idiot, in an emergency we make mistakes, this one isn't that bad.

[RobOnTheCape]

in the 80s I worked at a moving outfit. One job was at the Harvard Business School dorms. Duplex units in a multistory building. I met the customer and did a walkthrough, and then went down to grab the crew. We were to pack the apartment for him then stow/move then unpack at the destination. 7 guys all toll. Went in and directed a few to start in the livingroom, a few to start packing dishes, and then a few to follow me upstairs to start packing the bedroom/bath. We are just about up to the top of the stairs when a guy with just a towel wrapped around him with a startled look on his face appears in front of me and asks "what are you guys doing in my apartment?" I immediately holler down the stairs "stop packing!"

Obviously we were in the wrong apartment. Man did the guys ever laugh that one up.

[iranfromthezoo]

Originally Posted by bstone 

Eh, a BGL of 65 is very doable. I've seen people walking around and feeling fine with a count of 50. Then again, others crash out when they fall below 70. I've learned it's a very person-specific thing.

I was in the back of the bus with a patient when my partner crashed into a city bus. Good thing we weren't emergent. The paperwork was annoying but no one got in trouble. Mistakes happen. Hopefully your dept realizes that. How long you been with them?

Been with them for 5 years...this was actually my last call with them....great way to go out.

[bstone]

Originally Posted by iranfromthezoo 

Been with them for 5 years...this was actually my last call with them....great way to go out.

You went out with a bang. Or a crunch. Whatever. Something they'll remember you by.

[IceEnclosure]

that was a good story, glad nothing bad happened as a result of the mix-up. I too am extremely thankful for emergency workers, I've needed 'em a couple of times.

Originally Posted by Mark Larr 

iran, when I got shot back in November, if it wasn't for their sense of urgency I would have bled out before I made it to the hospital.

oo what happened if you don't mind sharing?

[Mark Larr]

Hunting accident in Richland, GA. (middle of nowhere)

45 caliber bullet went in behind my knee and exited my ankle.

Passed inbetween the tibia and fibula blowing the muscle, barely missing the arteries, but got the feeder veins of the bones and run down the achilles tendon, deflected and exited.
As you can tell from the pix, the muscle had to be repaierd and the internal bleeding had to be stopped.

[IceEnclosure]

wowze®s.

[iranfromthezoo]

mark, that looks like it felt pretty good....

[SSharon]

I remember getting a call in Haifa concerning an old man that hadn't been heard from in a while. The neighbors got worried, thought there was a smell coming from his apartment, and called us over. I remember the fire department asking me (I was on the ambulance) if they could break down the door since we couldn't see through any windows to find out what happened.
We managed to get in through a screen door without breaking it and of course nobody was home.

The guys from the FD just sat on the couch and asked if there was anything good in the fridge.

[marden]

Originally Posted by Teronzhul 

Maybe this will provide incentive for the families to get their mailboxes fixed.

I had a friend who was a letter carrier and he would second and third that emotion!

[marden]

Originally Posted by Mark Larr 

Hunting accident in Richland, GA. (middle of nowhere)

45 caliber bullet went in behind my knee and exited my ankle.

Passed inbetween the tibia and fibula blowing the muscle, barely missing the arteries, but got the feeder veins of the bones and run down the achilles tendon, deflected and exited.
As you can tell from the pix, the muscle had to be repaierd and the internal bleeding had to be stopped.

Hunting with a .45?

Tommy Gun, muzzle loader, carbine, Hi-Point or 1911?

[Monique]

I ran from the zoo you are not stupid you saved 2 lives not just one.

Mark do you go often hunting with Dick Cheney?

[Gossamer]

Originally Posted by Monique 

I ran from the zoo you are not stupid you saved 2 lives not just one.

Mark do you go often hunting with Dick Cheney?

Monique made a joke that I'm actually laughing at!

[kick52]

damn thats bad.

[Mark Larr]

It was a 45 long colt pistol, I was hog hunting.

The drop sear was worn and I didn't know it and when I was re-holstering the gun, it caught my beltloop, pulled the hammer back and discharged.

[marden]

Originally Posted by Mark Larr 

It was a 45 long colt pistol, I was hog hunting.

The drop sear was worn and I didn't know it and when I was re-holstering the gun, it caught my beltloop, pulled the hammer back and discharged.

WOW! Nice gun to own.

http://www.stevostoys.com/sixguns.jpg

Get any hogs? I'm almost kidding. The unspoken truth is that you really could have died. Middle of nowhere and were you walking or in your car, truck ATV or motorcycle or horse? Tell the story, please?

And hey man, which was worse, the injury or the insult of knowing it was partially your own doing?

[andi*pandi]

ouch ouch ouch ouch!

[Mark Larr]

Originally Posted by marden 

WOW! Nice gun to own.

Get any hogs? I'm almost kidding. The unspoken truth is that you really could have died. Middle of nowhere and were you walking or in your car, truck ATV or motorcycle or horse? Tell the story, please?

And hey man, which was worse, the injury or the insult of knowing it was partially your own doing?

It was an old Hy Hunter Colt SAA clone from the 50's. My grandad's gun. It had improvements over the original Colt design, but they didn't go far enough like Ruger and Beretta did. It has a firing pin instead of a spur on the hammer, and a reinforced chamber (which made it impossible to tell where the position of live rounds were), however it made it suitable for hotter loads for hunting humanely.

The drop safety sear had excessive wear that I didn't know about at the time, making the gun an accident waiting to happen. I usually keep only 5 chambered in any revolver I use, but this day for some stupid reason I put 6 in the gun. 5 in the chamber keeps the hammer on a dead cylinder in case you drop the gun.

No sooner did I get into the woods and loaded the gun, I went to holster it, when the hammer caught my beltloop (another no-no) and pulled it back to the loading position, which should have just locked the gun up, the sear slipped and the hammer fell onto a live cylinder and it went off.

I looked down and saw where the bullet blasted into the ground and thought I missed and was glad no-one was there to see it as my brother in law was at the firing range, hundreds of yards away.

I thought I better make sure I wasn't hit and looked a little closer and noticed my pant's leg had a hole blown out in it. OH CARP! I pulled up the blown out material and saw the hole in my ankle and dropped the pistol.
I then decided it wasn't time to panic, but to check to see if I had blown the bone because I had quite a walk back to the car. I felt up my leg and it wasn't shattered and my ankle was good, however my hiking boot was overflowing with blood at this point. I reached up behind my knee and found the entrance wound.

I dropped the gunbelt and removed my belt and tied a tournaket around my leg at the femural artery for my walk back to my brother in law. I got to him and told him I was hurt badly and need to get to a hospital NOW.

There was an EMT at the range who cut the material from my pant's leg to have a look and he told me I was in serious trouble from the wound. By now I am going into shock. I call my soon to be ex wife to say goodbye and she says I'm lying and hangs up on me. I try to call her back, but my brother in law takes the phone as it's ringing and she sits and listens to the commotion and is finally convinced. She had wanted me dead the day before because I exposed her affair and ruined her fun.

My brother in law gets me to a "hospital" in Richland in what seemed like seconds, but I had gone into shock from the blood loss. The back seat of his brand new, not even 24 hours old, Cadillac looked like a slaughterhouse from all the blood.

There they give me 4 pints of blood and put compression bandages on the wounds to get me stable. The surgeon who did my Brown Recluse bite last year was on call at the hospital in my town so I ask to be taken there. The helicopter was n another run so I asked if the EMT could take me in the ambulance, so they took me. The EMT had done nearly the same thing when he was 16 with a 44 mag, but his was a flesh wound only and not nearly the trajectory mine was.

My surgeon was waiting at the ER and looked everything over and said I would probably lose the leg as the trajectory went right through where the artery bundle and nerves were. He was assembling a vascular team to try to reconstruct the arteries.

The anesthesiaologist asked if I had any conditions I needed to declare and I said yes. I have an acute condition. I have a case of high velocity lead poisioning. He wrote it down, then realized what I said.
The OR team was still laughing about it when I was in recovery.


Anyways 2 surgeries and months later I am almost back to normal.

[marden]

Originally Posted by Mark Larr 

It was an old Hy Hunter Colt SAA clone from the 50's. My grandad's gun. It had improvements over the original Colt design, but they didn't go far enough like Ruger and Beretta did. It has a firing pin instead of a spur on the hammer, and a reinforced chamber (which made it impossible to tell where the position of live rounds were), however it made it suitable for hotter loads for hunting humanely.

The drop safety sear had excessive wear that I didn't know about at the time, making the gun an accident waiting to happen. I usually keep only 5 chambered in any revolver I use, but this day for some stupid reason I put 6 in the gun. 5 in the chamber keeps the hammer on a dead cylinder in case you drop the gun.

No sooner did I get into the woods and loaded the gun, I went to holster it, when the hammer caught my beltloop (another no-no) and pulled it back to the loading position, which should have just locked the gun up, the sear slipped and the hammer fell onto a live cylinder and it went off.

I looked down and saw where the bullet blasted into the ground and thought I missed and was glad no-one was there to see it as my brother in law was at the firing range, hundreds of yards away.

I thought I better make sure I wasn't hit and looked a little closer and noticed my pant's leg had a hole blown out in it. OH CARP! I pulled up the blown out material and saw the hole in my ankle and dropped the pistol.
I then decided it wasn't time to panic, but to check to see if I had blown the bone because I had quite a walk back to the car. I felt up my leg and it wasn't shattered and my ankle was good, however my hiking boot was overflowing with blood at this point. I reached up behind my knee and found the entrance wound.

I dropped the gunbelt and removed my belt and tied a tournaket around my leg at the femural artery for my walk back to my brother in law. I got to him and told him I was hurt badly and need to get to a hospital NOW.

There was an EMT at the range who cut the material from my pant's leg to have a look and he told me I was in serious trouble from the wound. By now I am going into shock. I call my soon to be ex wife to say goodbye and she says I'm lying and hangs up on me. I try to call her back, but my brother in law takes the phone as it's ringing and she sits and listens to the commotion and is finally convinced. She had wanted me dead the day before because I exposed her affair and ruined her fun.

My brother in law gets me to a "hospital" in Richland in what seemed like seconds, but I had gone into shock from the blood loss. The back seat of his brand new, not even 24 hours old, Cadillac looked like a slaughterhouse from all the blood.

There they give me 4 pints of blood and put compression bandages on the wounds to get me stable. The surgeon who did my Brown Recluse bite last year was on call at the hospital in my town so I ask to be taken there. The helicopter was n another run so I asked if the EMT could take me in the ambulance, so they took me. The EMT had done nearly the same thing when he was 16 with a 44 mag, but his was a flesh wound only and not nearly the trajectory mine was.

My surgeon was waiting at the ER and looked everything over and said I would probably lose the leg as the trajectory went right through where the artery bundle and nerves were. He was assembling a vascular team to try to reconstruct the arteries.

The anesthesiaologist asked if I had any conditions I needed to declare and I said yes. I have an acute condition. I have a case of high velocity lead poisioning. He wrote it down, then realized what I said.
The OR team was still laughing about it when I was in recovery.


Anyways 2 surgeries and months later I am almost back to normal.

Great, awful, awesome, remarkable, creepy, funny, cringe-inducing, infuriating, insightful and revealing story very well told!

You have a movie plot right there. I am very glad you are alright and thanks for sharing that great story!

[Gossamer]

Originally Posted by Mark Larr 

The anesthesiaologist asked if I had any conditions I needed to declare and I said yes. I have an acute condition. I have a case of high velocity lead poisioning. He wrote it down, then realized what I said.
The OR team was still laughing about it when I was in recovery.

It's always good when you can keep your sense of humor about these things!

[Sky Captain]

Mark_Larr wanted me to swap places with him in his hospital room.(We're identical twins)
And wrap up my right leg.
So when the Dr. came in I'd tell him it's healed!
The little silver glowing men that float in through the window fixed it!

[marden]

Originally Posted by Sky Captain 

Mark_Larr wanted me to swap places with him in his hospital room.(We're identical twins)
And wrap up my right leg.
So when the Dr. came in I'd tell him it's healed!
The little silver glowing men that float in through the window fixed it!

Pretty damn funny!

That would be a great 'wrinkle' for the story. Mark Twain might advise you to just go ahead and include that 'yarn' as a real life 'fact' in any future tellings of the story just for the color. After all what big fish story worth telling doesn't have just the right embellishments?

Don't get me wrong though. There is already quite enough 'color' in the story to last one lifetime!

[Mark Larr]

I have my wife recorded saying she wanted me dead the day before too!

http://wltison.home.comcast.net/MOVIES/112406.wav

transcript (he could get run over by a mack truck and it would be thrilling to me)

Boy was she surprized when I played this for the marriage counselor when she called me a liar about having it.

[James L]

Speed can definitely be a hinderance to though, when it defeats common sense:

My partner and I arrived at an MVI around 0-dark-30 one rainy night, to find a young lady "trapped" in her vehicle who had swerved to avoid a cat, hopped the curb, and drove into a concrete wall at reasonably high speeds.

As we arrived on scene, a pumper truck full of firefighters arrived just ahead of us. I know the captain quite well, and knew he was with a very enthusiastic group of rookies. One of them came over, gave us a report detailing the vehicle damage to the driver's side of the car, and told us they were setting up to "get her out". While they were running equipment frantically, getting the "jaws" set up, etc my partner walked around to the passenger side of the vehicle and opened the door with ease!

We thought for a second that a race would be fun....to see if the paramedics could get the patient out of the open passenger side door faster than the fire department could cut up the driver's side! Professionalism prevailed of course, and we did the quick extrication via the passenger side.

My partner and I bugged that crew for a while about that call, right up until the night we all squatted down to lift a 350+ pound gentleman from the floor, and my partner's pants split up the seam!

To the original poster, we have all been there. I am in my 10th year as a paramedic, and there will always be incidents like the one you described. Thanks for sharing the story. Good luck in the new job! I am assuming it is still with a department?

[swarmofkillermonkeys]

Well, as an ordinary citizen I can say that unless I was in the middle of... well, something personal and embarrassing, an EMT or fireman breaking down my door on mistaken address would bother me not at all! Police, well that's a different obviously different and abusable. That reminds me...

This is not as good a story but it does prove that I am a certified member of the idiot's club. In college I started working 2 jobs to try to keep up with increasing tuition, and one of them was cooking then closing down a steak joint by myself (first time in food service). This was the local cop hangout and one afternoon an officer arrive concurrently and politely pointed out that my license plate was missing! I said something like, "Oh crap, how did that happen?! Should I drive around looking for it now, because I'm already late...?" The guy laughed and said no worries he'd take care of it for me. As I was closing up at 3am I remembered back to that one pleasant spot in my otherwise completely crappy week of that cop helping me out. I hopped in the car and thought, "Gosh, better drive carefully since I don't have plates!" A few minutes later, I was driving by my sortof girlfriends place and slowed down slightly to see if the lights were on in her basement (never know, it IS college) for a visit. All of the sudden HALF of the cop cars in town appear! Some were parked in the oncoming ahead of me, some flew in from behind, others drove in to block the lane... I pulled over and stopped immediately. Then I notice two officers with guns trained on my forehead and two more crouch-running up from the left rear of the vehicle, guns drawn. I don't think I crapped my pants, but honestly I was too much in shock to notice one way or another. After a stammering and brief conversation with the officer, hands vice-gripped on the top of my steering wheel, he asks me to get out of the vehicle escorts me to the rear and points at the empty frame. I stammer "I...I.." He holds up one finger, escorts me to the front of the vehicle and points. There, shining in a blue and red supernova is the FRONT plate (new to me, my home state only needed a rear back then). "Aaa. AAAH! Oh ****!" I say eloquently. The cop claps me on the back and starts laughing like you wouldn't believe. The guys that have been tracking me with weapons shrug, holster and wander off. I don't think (at the time) that this is one damn bit funny, but manage to shiver out a few faint token laughs, nod and assure the officer that I'll get things fixed up ASAP, yes, it is all very funny can I please go home and change my drawers now.

Now, of course, it IS hilarious because honestly -- what a bone-headed way do die! I'd like to think I'd at least have been mentioned for a Darwin! An old, beat up bomber college car, at 3am, with stolen plate, blasting Nine Inch Nails slowly cruising by an apartment right next to businesses and church; who could blame 'em. I think they'd even had an unsolved bank robbery or two fairly recently (a smallish town, middle of nowhere really).

And, uh, thanks for staying steady on the trigger there, boys!