What to do?
By Delbert Blickenstaff 

Editor’s Note: Due to an error in a previous publication, this corrected version is being reprinted. 

Now what am I going to do?  I need to leave now in order to get to Versailles in time for office hours.  And here I am boxed in by an emergency vehicle. 

The date might have been May 21, 1968.  The entrance to the ER was on the east side of Wayne Hospital, and my assigned parking space was next to the ER entrance.  The emergence vehicle was parked directly behind me so I couldn’t get out.  No one was in the vehicle and I assumed that the EMT people were in the ER. 

However, when I went inside they were not there.  And the ER nurses didn’t know where they were.  I quickly checked in the cafeteria and did not find them. 

I decided that I was going to have to solve this problem by myself.  So I went outside to the emergency vehicle and noticed that the key was in the ignition.  The engine was not running.  This will be easy, I thought. 

I climbed in behind the wheel and turned on the ignition.  All hell broke loose.  The siren went off.  The red light started spinning, and the EMT people appeared in 9 ½ seconds.  That was the last time that I was blocked by the EMT squad. 

Delbert Blickenstaff, M.D.