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