When God Made Paramedics
When the Lord made paramedics, he was into his sixth day of overtime when an angle appeared and said, "You're doing a lot of fiddling around on this one." And The Lord said, " Have you read the specs on this order?"
"A Paramedic has to be able to carry am injured person up a wet grassy hill in the dark, dodge stray bullets to reach a dying child unarmed, enter homes with barely enough room to move and console a grieving mother as he is doing CPR on a baby he knows will never breath again."
"He has to be in top metal condition at al times, running on no sleep, black coffee and half eaten meals, and he has to have six pairs of hands."
The angle shook her head slowly and said, "Six pairs of hands....no way."
"It's not the hands that are causing me problems," said the Lord, "It's the three pairs of eyes the medic needs to have."
"That's on the standard model?" Asked the angel.
The Lord nodded, "One pair that sees open sores as he's drawing blood and asks the patient f they are HIV positive." ( When he already knows and wishes that he'd taken that accounting job.) "Another pair here in the side of his head for his partners safety and another pair of eyes here in front that can look reassuringly at the bleeding victim and say, you'll be alright ma'am when he knows it isn't so."
"Lord," said the angle, touching his sleeve , "rest and work on this tomorrow."
"I can't," said the Lord, "I already have a model that can talk a 250 pound drunk from behind a steering wheel without incident and feed a family of five on a private service check."
The angel circled the model of the paramedic very slowly, "Can it think?" she asked.
"You bet," Said the Lord, "It can tell you the symptoms of over 100 illnesses, recite drug calculations in it's sleep: intubate, defibrillate, medicate and continue CPR nonstop over terrain that any doctor would fear... and still it keeps it's sense of humor."
"This medic also has the phenomenal personal control. He can deal with a multi victim trauma, coax a frighten elderly person to unlock their door, comfort a murder victims family and then read the daily paper on how paramedics were unable to locate a house quickly enough, allowing a person to die. A house which had no street sign, no house numbers and no phone to call back."
Finally the angel bent over and ran her finger across the cheek of the paramedic, "There's a leak," she pronounced. "I told you that you were trying to put to much into this model."
"That is not a leak," said the Lord, "That is a tear."
"What's the tear for?" Asked the angel.
"It's for the bottled up emotions, for the patients they've tried in vain to save, for the commitment to that hope that they will make a difference in a person's chance to survive, for life."
"You're a genius," said the angel.
The Lord looked somber. "I didn't put it there," He said.