When God made EMTs


When the Lord made EMTs, he was into his sixth day of
overtime when an angel 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?

An EMT has to be able to carry an injured person up a wet, grassy
hill in the dark, dodge stray bullets to reach a dying child unarmed, enter
homes a health inspector wouldn't touch, and not wrinkle their uniform."

"He has to be able to lift three times his own weight, crawl into wrecked
cars with barely enough room to move, and console a grieving mother as he is doing CPR on a baby he knows will never breathe again."

"He has to be in top mental condition at all times,
running on no sleep, black coffee, and half eaten meals.
And he has to have six pairs of hands."

The angel 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 an EMT has to have."
"That's on the standard model?" asked the angel.

The Lord nodded. "One pair that sees open sores as he's controlling bleeding and asks the patient if they may be HIV positive,"
(When he already knows and wishes he'd taken that accounting job)

"Another pair here on the side of his head for his partner's safety.
Another pair of eyes here in front that can look reassuringly at a bleeding
victim and say 'You'll be all right ma'am' when he knows it isn't so."

"Lord," said the angel, 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 out from behind a steering wheel without incident and feed a family of five on a private service paycheck."

The angel circled the model of the EMT very slowly,
"Can it think?" she asked.

"You bet," said the Lord. "It can tell you the symptoms of 100 illnesses,
recite drug doses in its sleep; defibrillate, medicate, and
continue CPR nonstop over terrain that any doctor would fear...and still it
keeps its sense of humor."

"This EMT also has phenomenal control.
He can deal with a multi-victim trauma, coax a frightened elderly person to
unlock their door, comfort a murder victim's family, and then read in the
daily paper how EMTs were unable to locate a house quickly
enough, allowing a person to die.
A house which had no street sign, no house numbers, no phone to call back."

Finally, the angel bent over and ran her finger across the cheek of the EMT.

"There's a leak," she pronounced. "I told you that you were trying to put too much into this model."

"That's not a leak," said the Lord, "It's a tear."
"What's the tear for?" asked the angel.

"It's for bottled-up emotions, for patients they tried in vain to save, for
commitment to 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."