Wrong place, wrong time...

Picture this:

It's a pleasant autumn evening.  A crispness and freshness fills the air.  It's a Thursday night, about 10ish, and most residents of Fairview are settled down for the evening and enjoying a book or some TV before bed.

Out in Centennial Park, however, trouble is brewing.

I'm cruising down Centennial Avenue with my normal partner and Robbie, a dispatcher doing his semi-annual Field Observation & Orientation ride.  Yep -- FOO.  As in, I pity the foo' -- at least for the dispatchers that wanna hide in the comm center for their whole career and hide their heads in the sand, pretending that the chaos they send us into on a daily basis actually happens only in Fantasyland.

Robbie is one of my favorite dispatchers -- cool under pressure, friendly, not much attitude -- and he gets major bonus points for riding with us whenever possible.  He worked the field before he tweaked his back, and while he can't lift anything heavier than a cardiac monitor, his mind is as sharp as ever.

But I digress.

As we approach Flint, I notice a Mitsubishi Eclipse that's high centered up on the dividing island that separates the northbound and southbound lanes of Centennial.  The Eclipse is resting up against a freshly planted tree that's maybe 2-3" in diameter.  Clearly the car wasn't going fast, or it would have knocked the new tree down.

I don't see anyone around the vehicle, and we flip around at Flint to take a closer look.  We stop in the fast lane of N/B (northbound) Centennial just south of the vehicle, and I advise PD of the vehicle's situation and location.  Traffic is light, and blocking the lane for a minute isn't going to be a big deal.  The car is mildly suspicious, but nothing too shady.  Until I get out of the ambulance, that is.

As I approach the vehicle, a bystander runs up to me and says, "he got hit!"

Huh.  There's no damage to the vehicle consistent with striking another vehicle or a pedestrian; in fact, there's no apparent damage at all.  I update PD with the bystander's report of a possible hit and run.  Still not a big deal.

I ask the bystander where the guy that got hit is at, and he tells me that he's in the passenger seat..

Huh.  It's getting stranger, but still doesn't seem too hinky.  The city had planted some trees all up and down Centennial to go along with the shrubs that were already there.  Unfortunately, the shrubs prevent me from easily accessing the passenger side of the car without walking around the rear.  As I approach the left rear quarter panel, the bystander yells, "Yo, man, look at that bullet hole!"

Huh?  HUH?!?  It clicks.  Hit meaning hit by a bullet, not hit by a car. And even worse, my partner and I (and my dispatcher) are walking around in what has suddenly become a very large and very uncontrolled crime scene.

I advise PD that we now have a shooting scene with one victim and 20-25 bystanders threatening the integrity of the scene.  Nobody seems to be anything but curious, but these people need to be removed from the equation ASAP.

God bless FPD -- less than fifteen seconds after I knew that it was a shooting and advised PD of the same I heard three different sets of sirens spool up around me.  Less than 45 seconds after that, I had 3 squad cars on scene with 5 cops clearing out our scene.  Impressive.

The sergeant takes a look at the car and gives us the go-ahead to make entry.  He stands aside to let us work, keeping a watchful eye on the scene to note any changes our work brings about.  We open the door and find a young adult male, unresponsive in the car.  Robbie hands me a backboard and c-collar, and we rapidly extricate our patient.  There's no apparent trauma, but as we move the kid I notice a small amount of fresh blood on the back of the seat.  Interesting...

We get the collar on the kid's neck and log roll him onto his side to check his back.  There's a small hole in the shirt, at around the level of the 12 rib and just to the left of the spinal column.  I make sure the cop sees the hole, and then cut the shirt off, making sure to keep the scissors far from that bullet hole.  Once the shirt is gone, a small caliber gunshot wound is revealed.  It's not bleeding (at least externally), so I toss a petroleum gauze bandage on it and move on.  We secure him to the board, and slide off his pants and leave them with the shirt.

Once we have the kid in his boxers, he starts to come around.  He's understandably a little confused, and more than a little cold.  The physical exam is unremarkable save for the sole entry wound, and we get him in the bus and prepare for transport.  I ask the sergeant if he wants to send an officer with us, which he declines.  The kid's talking now, so there'll be plenty of time to have a detective talk to him at the hospital, right?

We take off for University Medical Center and start to get the story from the kid.  It's about a 15 minute ride, and there's not too much in the way of patient care to do -- oxygen, IV, EKG, pulse oximetry... Pretty simple stuff.  So we talk.

The kid was at a party (on a Thursday?  Craziness...) and smiled at a girl from across the room.  He didn't even say a word to this girl, but her ex-boyfriend took serious offense.  Unfortunately for our patient, ex is a POS gang member and would rather not be reasonable.  He tells the patient not to say another word and just leave the party.

The patient says, "Hey man, I'm sorry... I'm leaving."  Apparently, he truly shouldn't have said a word because the douchebag banger pulls a pistol, yells, "I told you not to say a word" and pops off a round.  The kid runs to his car to drive away, but the banger -- intent on being the big man, no doubt -- follows him to the car and fires a second round.

The round goes through the trunk, through the back seat, through the driver's seat and into the patient.  He starts driving to Community Hospital, but gets dizzy as he approaches Flint.  He steers up onto the island, and tries to get out the passenger door.  He doesn't remember a thing until we have him out of the car in his underwear.

So basically this kid smiled at the wrong girl, and some waste of oxygen lights him up.  Lovely.

I make contact with U-Med and let them know what we've got, and the kid's level of consciousness starts to deteriorate.  He starts to get pale, and becomes increasingly hard to rouse.  By the time we pull up at the trauma bay, he's completely unresponsive again.  We hurry him inside and turn him over to the trauma team.  I give a quick report, and we get out of the way.  As the team wheels him into the ER, he stops breathing.

They end up terminating resuscitation efforts ten minutes into emergency surgery.

We walk outside and get the rig put back together.  A squad car rolls up, and the semi-bored looking street cop is shocked to hear that his aggravated assault victim is now a homicide victim.  We talk for a few minutes, as Robbie and I have heard the poor kid's dying declaration.

Fortunately, the cops already had a few leads, and the minimal information we had seemed to match up with witness reports from the scene.

I really hope they catch the kid's killer... Who shoots someone for smiling at their ex?  I mean, even OJ was better than that...