Nightmare call...

I woke up this morning, heart thumping, breath shallow and rapid. I'd had a nightmare.

In my dream I was paged out for some sort of medical call so I raced to the ambulance barn. I got there and pulled 101, our first response ambulance, out of the garage, radioed dispatch that we were 10-8 and waited for other techs to show up. I waited and waited, but no one came. No one! (Where were you guys?!)

I got on the radio and asked for assistance. In reply, I got a panicked sounding, "We're on scene!" from Medic 2. (I'm pretty sure on the voice, but I'm surprised it wasn't Medic 4. She always gets the crazy calls.)

So I took off toward the scene. On the way or as I was pulling up to the house, it's hard to remember which, I reached over to replay the page just to make sure I had the right address. That's when the "story" went bonkers.

The page in memory was NOT the same one I'd originally come running for. It was something about a fight gone bad at the grade school. By this time I was in the house I'd stopped at and Medic 5 was there. She was trying to buy something from the people who lived there and my bike was in the living room.

I ran back outside and Medic 2 was driving away with the ambulance. I waved frantically, trying to stop him, but he didn't see me in his mirrors. (I imagine he was mad because he needed an ambulance and didn't have one.)

Now, I don't know how it got there, but my van, the old one with 240,000+ miles, was in the driveway at the house. I ran back inside, grabbed my bike and loaded it in the van before roaring off after Medic 2 in 101. (Are you following all this?)

When I pulled out onto Main Street, I nearly cutoff a bright yellow custom pickup truck with flames on the hood and sides. The tough looking bald guy inside started shouting at me. He ran up on my bumper then swung around next to me and started threatening me.

I turned at the Lutheran Church suddenly, hoping to lose him. As soon as I was out of sight, I doubled back. I'd seen him speed up to the next block, so I thought I'd lose him with my sneaky maneuver. Unfortunately, he did the same thing at the next block and I found him next to me again. (What happened here would be physically impossible, but dreams aren't bound by the laws of physics. Would've been nice if they applied in this case.)

I was in a panic. I drove back to the ambulance barn, grabbed my portable radio and began frantically trying to raise dispatch while the driver, now out of his pretty pickup, started pounding on my window angrily.

I woke up. Whew! (Pepperoni pizza at an EMS meeting late in the evening...NEVER AGAIN!!!)