Sixty seven

Plumbers, HVAC and other home contractors love retired ambulances.

Ambulances that survive or don't have the box removed and put on another chassis get auctioned and are usually snapped up by these guys for a couple of reasons. The primary one being that the compartments are convenient for them to put tools, fittings and other bits of their trade into and sometimes the electrical systems hold out so that you still have electricity in the box.

One fine spring morning I am standing in the ambulance bay grabbing ass with an ambulance crew and out of nowhere we hear a siren and of course it gets closer and closer. I stay outside to help with whatever comes rolling up.

The ambulance comes screaming into the ambulance bay which in itself is highly unusual emergent ambulances unlike what you may see in the media are usually pretty careful when they pull in because there is usually an unrestrained medic in the back working a pt.

The ambulance looks familiar yet unfamiliar it's a dead ringer for one of the local fire depts but no markings. I'm intrigued and then stunned to see a guy in blue come stumbling out of the drivers side all bloody. He has his left hand elevated with blood pouring down his arm. For some reason my primal brain thought that this ambulance crew had been ambushed and they drove straight to the hospital.

This is not the case.

Turns out that this particular ambulance had been auctioned off a few months before by one of the local FD after having their markings removed. Home contractor snaps it up and uses it. Turns out he cut off some of his fingers in a saw. Instead of calling an ambulance to take him to the hospital he just figured that fuck it, I have a retired ambulance and the fire dept never disconnected the lights and sirens so I'll just drive emergent to the closest hospital and park in the ambulance bay.

I laughed at the reasoning and loved the clear mindedness of his thinking although did not appreciate him driving like a lunatic with one hand the few miles to the hospital. After we got the bleeding stopped and the pt calmed down I moved his vehicle (the retired ambulance) out of the ambulance bay and parked it in the ER managers spot. Security did not dare to tow it because they thought it was an in service ambulance and we all know certain types of clip board nurses don't show up on weekends.