That depends....Do you have a gun?

So I am sitting in the ER one morning, talking with the registrar. She walks to the balk of the ER to guide a visitor to a room. While she is gone an old man (by old I am guessing in his 70's) walks into the ER lobby. While it might seem dumb, you have to ask people why they are there. Not everyone that walks into the ER is actually looking for medical treatment. In fact I would dare say that maybe less than half of them need medical treatment.

So as the man enters, he looks around a bit to see who is there to assist him. Being alone in the lobby, I ask the man if I can help him. He opens his mouth to reply, then pauses as he sees the Taser on my belt. He then says "Well that depends. Do you have a gun?".

I'm sure my eyebrows shot up off my faces as they rose in surprise. A gun? Why would my possession of a gun change my ability to help him? Does he think I might shoot him if he asks the wrong question?

I cautiously state that while no I don't carry a gun, yes that is a Taser on my right hip. I should mention that at up till this point my arms were folded across my chest. They no longer were. The man walks up to me and pulls a strange syringe out of his sweater pocket. Yes I know its august, but yes he was wearing a Mr Rogers type sweater. 70's ish remember. He then explains to me using several name brands and large words I know the man doesn't actually understand that he is holding an insulin syringe, and needs 4 needle adapters for it. Do we have any that he could have by chance? I almost fell of the counter I was sitting on.....laughing. Insulin? Needles? Do I have a gun? I told him to wait till the registrar returned, and she would better be able to answer his question.

I did laugh till I almost cried when he walked out of the ER lobby, empty handed. That depends.....Do you have a gun?

Rape

I mean the warning sincerely. This post might not be for everyone to read. I will tell you up front that this post deals with rape. I won't get too into detail about the act itself, but it is a story about a rape victim, and even more about a rapist. I will also warn you that I will use some expletives in this post. Sometimes it takes an ugly word to describe ugly things in life. I hope this post to be a catharsis of sorts.



A man raped a woman. I know it happens a lot, too much. Once ever in the history of humanity is too much. This one happened here though. Recently. She worked for him. I won't say much else about them, except that she speaks English as a second language.

After the "event" (I can't think of another way to say it AND stay calm enough to write) man brings his victim to the hospital. She is torn up enough, in two places, to need medical attention. He threatens her life if she squeals. When she checks in, her official complaint in the ER is "Pelvic Pain: due to a fall". Man sleeps in lobby for 4 hours of the night waiting for her to be discharged. We finally kick him out for being "creepy/annoying".

Some 8 hours after woman checks in, an interpreter that speaks her language arrives. THEN the story comes out. She was raped. Brutally. ER staff knew something was not right. You don't get the kind of damage and wounds she had from a fall. You don't bleed the way she was from a fall. ER staff spoke to us about the events. For those who don't know, hospitals have to report violent crimes, felonies and the like to the police. Its law. Provo PD was contacted. They began an investigation. The crime took place at her residence. PD went to investigate. Man had gone back to scene of crime already and destroyed any possible evidence.

I would like to point out now that second most vile crime aside, this man is and was an idiot. He began to call her and threaten her again. He figured his threats would keep her silent. He didn't know that several police were in the room with her while she was receiving the calls. On the last call, he told her that he would be there to pick her up in 30 minutes. We were ready.

One of us ran the cameras from the office, while the other stayed with the PD to relay information. He came, confident that he was safe. He was detained. His vehicle was searched. Enough evidence was present to arrest him. He spent 2 days in jail before posting bail. Small mercy that the bail was set at $100,000.00

I hope this man ends up in prison. With a large and lonely cell mate. One who believes in the law of Moses. Eye for an eye....

I'm not sure what I want people to get from this. I am thrilled that I was able to personally help the PD in catching and arresting this man. I put something like 8-10 of my hours into the ordeal. More importantly. Speak up. Do something. The only reason dumb rat bastards like that one get away with crimes like that is cause we let them. There is little we could do to prevent this particular crime from happening, but at least we started the process of justice.

I don't want to be burst people's bubbles, but there is a lot of scary shi* out there now a days. Be careful.

Where's the logic?

Here is another hospital story, a short one.

The other day, sitting in the office, watching the cameras with my partner, we get a call. I didn't take the call, but the man on the other end was a loud talker. My partner had to angle the phone away from his ear to preserve his hearing, so I took in both sides of the convo...

The man started by explaining a little that he was worried about the whereabouts of his sister. He didn't say much more about his sister at this time, but suddenly shifting to asking about our methods of identifying the dead. He wanted to know all the methods we employed in identifying dead bodies that end up at our hospital. My partner, not wanting to get into some crazy necro discussion, pushed to know more about the situation with the sister, and what that had to do with anything. After a minute of very frustration banter, the man finally explained that he hadn't heard from his sister in a couple days, and he was just sure that she wouldn't go anywhere or do anything without telling him. He was sure she had ended up dead somewhere, and somehow made her way to our hospital. I should mention at this point the man lives near St. George.

My partner suggested he contact the local authorities and file a missing persons report, but the man cut him off and blurted out "do you finger print dead people?". Long convo short, the man wanted to know if we finger printed dead people that show up at our hospital, so he could compare his sisters prints (why does he have those anyways?) to any dead people we might have in our morgue.

We again urged him to contact local authorities.

ARE YOU SERIOUS?! Finger print dead people? You think your sister is missing and the first thing you do is call a hospital half a state away to see if they do something like finger print dead people? If I hadn't heard the whole convo I'd say it was a prank...

Go through the normal channels. Call the local authorities. And in case you were wondering, we don't finger print dead people. We don't have Agent Booth and Dr. Brenen at the hospital helping us identify weird deaths....

Weird Lady

Holly... This one is for you.

So the other night I was working at the hospital. I was sitting at the front desk to the hospital, and it was somewhere in the middle of the night. Maybe I should mention for those that might not know me very well that I work as a security officer. My task while sitting at this desk is to verify that those people wishing to visit the hospital after hours are there for legitimate reasons.

As I'm sitting there as woman approaches the desk. She asks to go visit the 4th floor. For those familiar with the hospital, this is the floor where new mothers and their babies are. Its also a lock down unit. Unless you know the mother, and she has invited you, and given you her code to enter the floor you can't go up. I asked the woman what room she was going to visit. She didn't know. So far not unusual. I asked her the name of the patient she was here to see, so I could look up the room number. She paused for a minute, then gave me a plane-jane name like Jennifer. No last name.

At this point I am starting to get a little suspicious. I asked for the last name of the patient, and again she paused. She didn't know the last name. I tried my hardest to smile, as I politely told her that she couldn't go up to the floor i she did not know the name of the patient, or even what room she was in. I suggested that she try and call the patient, or someone close to the patient, and obtain the necessary information for her to pass. While she the woman did not say anything else to me at this point, she looked hesitant to leave. She turned and walked back the way she came.

Not five minutes later, she came back to my desk and gave me a first and last name. Again is was very plane-jane, something like Jennifer Smith. Let me remind you at this point that I am not using the actual name she gave me. I don't know if a Jennifer Smith exists, but if she does, she was not the actual subject of this story.

I looked on my census of the hospital. No Jennifer Smith. She then changed the name of the person she was looking for. Again, plane-jane. Not on the list. I kindly told her that we had none of those people in our hospital, and that it was time to leave. No attempt at a smile this time.

She again looked hesitant to leave. Instead of walking back out the way she came, she headed for a different exit, a hallway much closer to my desk. A few moments later when she must have thought I wasn't looking, she cut back down the hallways and into the hospital. Rather than yell at her, or give chase, I radioed to the other security officers. I gave them her description, and a short version of what had happened. I asked them to watch her and see what she tried to do. It wasn't two minutes later that she came back down the hallway and headed back out the way she had originally come. With two other security officers following behind her.

I did not see her again after that. But while I was recounting to the other officers what had transpired, I remembered that the same exact thing had happened, with I believe the same woman, about a year prior. I wish now I had asked for some ID, because I believe this woman's intentions were to snatch a baby.

Now comes the ranting. I just don't get it. Even if she had no intentions of stealing a baby, why come to the hospital in the middle of the night and try to sneak around? There is nothing good you can be trying to do in the middle of the night at a hospital. You also look a lot more suspicious in the middle of the night when you are trying to get to a lock down unit, and can't give a logical explanation of why you are there, or who you are there to see. Dumby.

New to Bloggin

Alrighty...

I feel like I am filling out one of those online dating profiles. You get to the box where it asks you to describe yourself and its so diffucult to think of anything to write. Should I be witty? Maybe a touch of sarcasm? Or should I go all out with the heartfelt "Sleepless in Seattle" intro?



I am new to blogging. I don't think I have ever really looked at a blog before. Except that one time that a research class of mine used a blog to keep track of all the "works cited" that we might use in our research papers. Kind of random.



Basically this first post is a long winded way for me to express how silly I feel about starting this. For some time I have thought about starting one, because I enjoy writing, but I never thought I had anything really to write about. Last week at a get together with some friends I was urged to start a blog so that I might tell some of the funny/scary/sad stories of people I come across in my line of work.



I hope you all enjoy my blog. Please feel free to make comments.



P.S. Due to the strict privacy laws surrounding my work (HIPA)(I work in a hospital) I will take measures to ensure that none of the people I am talking about are identifable. If you think you recognise someone from a story I write, I ensure you that you don't!