I would be out of a job if it weren't for alcohol. Sometimes I think the whole damned world is drunk 24 hours a day. I'd venture to say that 80% of the welfare checks, neighbor disputes, assaults, suspicious persons, domestics, loud parties, and suicidals we deal with involve alcohol. I worked a bank robbery a few months back in which the robber, who we caught less than 5 minutes after the call came out, had a BAC of .15. This guy even wanted to know if we could charge him with just attempted robbery, since we caught him and took all the money back. More recently, I stopped a DWI who was a .27 at 8 AM. WTF?
The biggest headache are the alcoholic transients, who used to be concentrated downtown but now seem to pop up everywhere. We constantly get calls to remove these schmoes from sidewalks, railroad tracks, park benches, bus kiosks, apartment hallways and laundry rooms, and restaurant booths. Often they are so far gone they have to go to the ER instead of our detox facility. It's not unusual to find that they've pooped and/or peed themselves. In those cases, I try hard to get them to an ER, because the ambulance transports them and I don't have to clean their residue off the back seat of my squad car (apologies to all you EMTs). Some want to fight. Others want a hug. They invariably stink. I hate putting my hands on them, and itch psychosomatically for the rest of the day.
To all of you who justify what you did because you were drunk and your judgment was compromised, I'm sorry but my sympathy meter is stuck at "ZERO".
4 comments:
Ha! At least you're honest. ;) And I guess it's easier to throw away a sheet than clean a seat...but the smell lingers for hours. Blech. My favorite is when they've peed or thrown up on themselves and passed out somewhere in freezing temps. I can't really justify to the ER doc why I didn't remove the wet clothing and check for hypothermia, so that has to be done. And of course they have an alcoholic belligerent fit if I take trauma shears to their clothing. No one wins with the drunks.
Our local probation officer says the same thing about alcohol. I guess that follows well what you're saying.
Alcohol, keeping us all in business since the beginning of grapes..
I read that in ancient times, the punishment was double for someone who did something wrong(illegal) when drunk, because every adult knows what happens when someone drinks.
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