A Near-Lethal Case of Mistaken Identity

Another great story from my Ambulance days:

It was a very ordinary afternoon in this part of the country, quite warm and dry at the end of summer. My partner and I were driving the Ambulance to a town 50 miles south to pick up a patient.

We came upon a messy car crash on the highway, treated the patients, Cops and Medics showed up, and everything got taken care of. "Nice Work, Guys."

Then, out of the blue, a Cop yelled "Get Down! Get Down and Stay Down!"

We crouched behind the ambulance. What the $%)# was going on?

A helicopter circled overhead.

The copper pulled out his Automatic Rifle and aimed at a car coming down the freeway.

A beat-up old Cadillac pulled up followed by four more cops with searing lights and screaming sirens. A young man was driving the jalopy, and a baby was in the front seat.

"Oh man, whatever this is, this is really bad," I whispered to my partner.

"Yeah, no Shit," said my usually affable mate.

The man driving the beater car opened the door and lifted his hands high, yelling, "Don't shoot me! Don't shoot me!"

The muzzles of six cop rifles and pistols were trained on this guy, and they were all shouting at him, "Get down! Get down!"

The man slowly got down on the ground and I noticed blood on his shirt. Blood? I didn't hear any shots fired. How did he get shot?

The police shouted, "We need a medic NOW!"

We ran over, and sure enough the guy had two holes in his chest. By the time we had him bandaged and packaged up on a backboard, Paramedics showed up and took him to the local Trauma center.

Only later did we find out what happened: There had been a gang shoot out in a town 5 miles up the road at the same time that we pulled up to the car accident. The victim of the shooting had thrown his baby in the car and driven away to escape the shooters. With 2 bullets in his chest and 4 coppers on his back, he made it 5 miles down the freeway until he ran into us.

The police had made a mistake. They thought he was the shooter.

It wasn't until they saw the bullets in his chest that they realized he was the victim.

And I wouldn't have believed this story unless I had seen it myself.