Monday, July 02, 2007

I've got blood in the back of my cab

The other day while I was shadowing paramedics, we had just dropped off a patient and were sitting by the emergency department entrance, waiting for one other paramedic to finish up on a phone call before we left the hospital.

A cabbie pulled up and rolled down his window, and shouted at us through a thick accent, “I’ve got blood in the back.”

“Huh?” one of the paramedics replied.

“Blood – I’ve got blood in the back of my cab,” he said again, using his thumb to point at the back seat.

We looked at each other, not sure what to do, until one paramedic turned to the cabbie and said, “Here’s what you do – get some water, and some hydrogen peroxide, and you’ll be able to scrub it out real nice.”

The cabbie mumbled something, and drove off.

We started shaking our heads when he pulled up to the front door of the hospital.

“What’s he doing?? Does he actually want a nurse to come out and clean the back of his cab for him?”

He popped the trunk, got out of his cab, and walked to the back. He reached into the trunk and pulled out a big cardboard box.

“Ohhhhhhh,” we all said, as the lightbulbs went on.

Here we’d been trying to picture the cabbie wanting to clean up after some drunk ride all cut up from a bar fight bled all over in the back seat.

Instead, I had simply witnessed for myself the apparent courier system for the blood bank.


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hello! A new reader here, 1st year medical student from Oz! Just wanted to say that this blog is great! Keep up the good work!

This post was an absolute classic! It made me laugh out aloud! [Grin] It brings to mind one of my former lecturer's experiences when he was delivering blood in his university days. He was running late and thought it a good reason to use his siren for the first time. So he sped off to the hospital, exhilirated as traffic made way for him! He managed to arrive on time. Imagine his shock when he went around the back to find a bloody trail behind his delivery truck! He had caused several bags of blood to rupture in the process of speeding! (He definitely got into trouble for that!) Imagine the fear and anxiety it must have caused for those who were travelling to the hospital for treatment!

Keep up the posting!