When God made Paramedics.........


When the Lord made Paramedics, 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? A paramedic 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 the health inspector wouldn't touch, and not wrinkle their
uniform."

"They have to be able to lift 3 times their own weight, crawl into wrecked
cars with barely enough room to move, and console a grieving mother as they
are doing CPR on a baby they know will never breath again."

"They have to be in top mental condition at all times, running on no sleep,
black coffee and half-eaten meals. And they have 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 a medic has to have."

"That's on the standard model?" asked the angel.

The Lord nodded. "One pair that sees open sores as they are drawing blood
and asks the patient if they may be HIV positive," (When they already know
and wish they had taken an accounting job.) "Another pair here in the side
of their heads for their partners' safety. And 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 they know 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 paramedic very slowly, "Can it
think?" she asked.

"You bet," said the Lord. "It can tell you the symptoms of 100
illnesses; recite drug calculations in it's sleep; intubate,
defibrillate, medicate, and continue CPR nonstop over terrain that any
doctor would fear...and still it keeps it's sense of humor. This medic also
has phenomenal personal control. They 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 paramedics were unable
to locate a house quickly enough, allowing the 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
paramedic. "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've tried in vain to
save, for commitment to that 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," He said.

(Author unknown. Thanks to Glen Jackson for submitting this)