"I Can't Find My Son!"

Ahead we see two state police cars and two private vehicles pulled over on the left side of the highway. Another car has gone off the road and into the trees on the median. We can only see the rear bumper sticking out from the green vegatation and branches. The people near the car suddenly look frantic. A large man is holding his arms out bellowing to the heavens. The others scatter and start searching the bushes. We are out and advancing toward the car.

"He's missing his boy," one of the private citizens there says. "He had his boy with him and he can't find him."

People are fanning out looking in the bushes. I watch the man at the center of the scene -- the father -- the driver. He is fat, sloppily dressed. He is sweating profusely. It's hot out, but not that hot. I ask him if he is okay. He says he's fine. "My son! My son!" he shouts. "I can't find my son."

I feel his pulse. He is banging away at 140-150. I ask him about the accident. He says a car cut him off and he had to swerve to avoid it. I look at the car. The windows are all closed. There is little damage. He is lucky the branches and bushes slowed the car. There is no invasion. No deformity to the steering column, No starrring of the windshield. In the backseat there is an empty child seat.

"No, no, wait a minute," the man now announces to the state trooper who is talking urgently into his radio. "He's not in the car. He's at home. I forgot. I got confused."

The trooper looks relieved, then angry. The word is quickly passed to the searchers.

What follows is the man being questioned, a phone call made to confirm the boy is safe at home, the man being spread against the car and patted down. He denies any drug use. Well, at least not for a couple months. Well not today anyway. The needle marks and bruise under his wrist are old, he says. A couple days. What about the needle in the car? He was going to buy drugs, but then he changed his mind. His story keeps changing. They get word he's also driving on a suspended license.

His eyes shift from one trooper to the next to us.

His pupils are pinpoint. Sweat is pouring off of him.

"You need to go to the hospital," I say.

I'm fine, he says. I was just confused.

"No, the officer says. "You need to go to the hospital."

"Listen to what the officer is saying," I say. "Make the smart choice and go to the hospital with us. You don't want the alternative right now."

He quickly says, okay.

We c-spine him and take him in. His heart rate is in the 130's. His pressure 180/110. I put in a lock and draw bloods.

When we are leaving the hospital, the state trooper is walking in.

***

Did a stabbing to the arm, a weakness in a diaylsis patient, and a man who had a tool box fall on his hand and gouge a small chunk out.

***

I told my partner about the call I had the other day with the guy who coded. He says there is a new drug out called "Black." It has heroin, cocaine and PCP all mixed together. The guy, just out of prison, probably wanted to party, and his body wasn't used to the stuff. I talked with the ER doctor about it and he told me he got a chance to talk to some of the guy's friends afterwards and they said he did a ton of drugs.