One morning the husband and I were getting ready for work. When getting dressed at 4am You do it with only one eye barely open. The other eye still sleeping. You throw on your uniform out of muscle memory and habit. Since we have the great honor of being public servants we have the fancy uniforms (basically we’re just the guy in cool shirt). We had to wear the name plate and badge and all the doodads. Normally I tried to get these shirts decorated the night before work so the 4am drill was as smooth as possible. And so D. Krammer didn’t go to work wearing E.Krammer. (We were not 100% of the time in the right doodads and shirts. Pants we were pretty good at getting right) But I didn’t always get it done and some mornings it was a cluster while we tried to get out the door in time.
On this fateful morning D. Krammer was trying to get his badge on his shirt. For those of you who haven’t seen them,
these badges pin on your shirt with a giant needle. Much like a safety pin on steroids. The needle part of this thing is about the size of the plastic ink well inside of a ball point pen. And the badge is thick and heavy. So the man is walking down the hallway fumbling with the badge and shirt and drops the badge. Go ahead and sit down before you read this next part. (It makes me sweat to think about it.)
The needle went through his toe and pinned his foot to the floor. He made this sound that I cannot accurately describe here. I opened both eyes and came running. He shouted at me to “pull it out!!” HA. AS IF! Not happening. Now I am a seasoned paramedic. I have seen the blood guts and gore. But at 4am I am not prepared to remove an impaled object from my husbands foot. Especially while he is making all that racket. I stay a safe distance away. Staging for backup across the living room. I suppose he understood I wasn’t planning to help. Or maybe he was just panicking. I can’t say for sure. But he reached down and snatched the badge out of his foot. He screamed. Or I screamed. Someone screamed. He glared at me. “Thanks for helping” and he limped away. I stand there revisiting my career choice. My stomach was not ok. “are you still going to work?” I asked him. Because if I nail my foot to the floor at 4am I’m calling in. It’s a sign. That’s not the kind of juju you take to work. He assured me he was going. He wrapped up his bloody toe and stuffed it in his boot. This man is my hero. Paramedic-impaled object remover-extrodinare. Mr #walkitoff Oh to be this tough! for the record I am not this tough. I’m not this dedicated to going to work. And I would have fainted if that had been my toe! Employee of the year goes to the real D. Krammer. Not the E.Krammer in the wrong doodad.
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