Ambulance Care

“HELP!” A man shouted as he lay bleeding on the sidewalk. “SOMEBODY HELP ME!”

His words reverberated around the side street he was hugging the side of. The grey, windowless concrete bulding he was sitting against was smeared with a single trail of blood leading to the victim. He, at this moment, had a round fleshy hole in his abdomen that he was desperately pressing his hands into. The street was devoid of any activity, the lone exception being with a single manhole cover eminating steam.

The distant sounds of honking traffic and garbled shouts raged on in the middle distance unchanged.

A garage door at the end of the street flung up and a woman dressed in a blue jumpsuit ducked under to leave. The man perked up and waved weakly.

“Hey!” The man shouted. “Blue jumpsuit lady.”

He could just about in the distance make out her turning her head to look at him.

“Help me, please!” He shouted.

She glanced around for a moment, as if he had suddenly disappeared, before turning and walking briskly in the opposite direction.

“HEY!” The man tried to, with the help of the wall, bring himself to his feet. His abdomen wouldn’t have it, searing a red hot poker of pain in his guts. With one jerking motion he flopped back on the ground and his gut wound spurted some blood for his efforts.

He lay groaning, holding his wound with one hand and making a shaky attempt to flip the woman off with the other. As she disappeared around the corner, the corner itself got more blurred. It was as if he had been hooked up to a juicer and all of his energy was being squeezed out of him.

Through the soundscape, one engine sound was slowly drawing into focus. Through the haze of faltering consciousness, at the nearer end of the street, he spotted a red van creeping past. He locked eyes with the driver and the driver flipped a switch under the dashboard.

Lights and sirens wailed as the van roared into life and raced down the street towards the man. As it came closer, the blurry details were thrown into sharp relief. The reversed ‘AMBULANCE’ on the front, the checkered white and red design on the top and bottom, and soon the red sirens that were now flashing and searing his retinas. The driver burst out of his door and the back flung open. The driver and a man rushed a stretcher with a laptop on top to his side.

“Thank fuck, thank fuck,” The man repeated to himself.

They stopped by his side and the driver knelt down next to him. “Alright stay with us, sir. Can you hear us?”

“Mhm,” He forced out. The driver’s uniform was red but bore a logo emblazoned with ‘HANDY ANDY’S AMBO SERVICE’ and a nametag that read ‘MICHAEL, P.” He nodded to his partner who scooped the laptop up and opened it.

“Can I get your name?”

“Derrick…”

“Great!” He said, nodding to his partner who was dutifully typing the response down. “Now, do you have insurance with our company?”

Derrick glanced around as the two stared intently at him. “What?”

“Do you, Derrick, have insurance with Handy Andy’s Ambo Service?” He repeated.

“N-no. But you have to help me p—”

“Okay,” Michael began. He produced a laminated piece of paper from his breast pocket. “Now, you have an option of signing with one of our deals and we can begin helping you.”

“What?” Derrick said again. “Please, I just need your help.”

“Now hold on there, cowboy,” He said with a chuckle, “We need to sort through this business first.” Michael traced his finger along the page. “Do you have any existing insurance from any provider?”

“Wh…wh—”

“If you have any from ‘Honest Abe’s Health Insurance,’ ‘Evercare,’ ‘Budget Cares Health Care’ and…” He squinted at the page, bringing it closer to his face. “‘Huggy Buggy’s Family Healthcare Conglomorate,’ We unfortunately can’t help you at this moment.”

Derrick winced as he pressed his hand harder into his wound; Partly to stop the bleeding, and partly to replace his fury with pain. He stared daggers at the ambulance workers who were very resolutely not assisting him. “AH! …I don’t have insurance.”

“Tsk, tsk. Let’s get that set up right away. Now, unfortunately due to your pre-existing condition we will have to charge you a 150% fee on this and all subsequent insurance payments.”

“I don’t care just please help me.”

“Well aren’t you an eager beaver. But let’s make sure we know what you’re buying. We just want to make sure you know what you’re paying for, and you have full transparency on this. Is there anything in particular you’d like covered.”

“Whatever’s cheapest,” Derrick forced out through gritted teeth.

“Mm, now, personally, I wouldn’t recommend that one. That just about covers us giving you some gauze and tape and a quick trip to the nearest hospital. Might I recommend ‘Basic Plus Plus,’ it has the basics of our expertise but you get one partially subsidised vicodin tablet a month.”

“Yes, yes, I’ll do it just, please…” Derrick wavered as his grip on consciousness slipped further and further.

“Splendid! Now if I could just get your—”

The sound of sirens wailing and tires screeching shut him up immediately. Michael perked up like a dog as a second van, an almost identical design as the Handy Andy van with a blue colour scheme roared past and screeched to a halt. On the side was ‘HONEST ABE’S HEALTH INSURANCE’ and ‘AMBULANCE DIVISION’ in a handwritten font. Michael stood up and the two Handy Andy men locked their gaze at this other van.

Two people popped out, a man and a woman, popped out of their van in the exact same proceedure as the Handy Andy fellas and raced their stretcher to Derrick’s side. “Hello young man, are you okay? Can you hear me?”

“What the fuck are you doing?” Michael demanded.

“I could say the same to you,” The other driver said. She stood up and jabbed a finger at Michael. “This is our turf, our patient.”

“The hell it is,” Michael said, putting away the laminated insurance page. “This is Hand Andy territory. Don’t make me call our squad to take you all out, you patient-chasing shit.” Michael made himself look taller, trying to put on an imposing figure.

“You guys are clearly lost. Want me to send you two to the hospital?” The second Honest Abe worker said. The second Handy Andy worker was still typing away in his laptop, ignoring the situation.

“Back up, now,” Michael said. His partner perked up at those words and slapped shut his laptop, tossing it in the van.

“Or what, you wanna start something?” The Honest Abe worker said.

“I’m gonna garrote you with my stethescope you Handy Andy bitch,” The second one said, pushing the stretcher away and marching up to .

“…please…someone?” Michael mumbled as his blood leaked like a fire hydrant and he was turning a corpse-like shade of pale white.

The first Honest Abe worker took a swing at Michael, but was held back by her partner. “Oh you little shit,” Michael shouted as he launched his foot foward. He, too, was held back by his partner. Both were straining against their partners as they tried throwing flurries of punches and kicks at each other.

Derrick quietly took his last breath and wend limp on the sidewalk, blood dripping into the gutter.