Responding to the call

Al Hunt had $5 in his pocket — and he used it to pay for someone else’s cab.

A lieutenant shift supervisor, Hunt has worked with emergency medical services in Orange County for nearly three decades.

In 28 years, he said he’s seen some of everything. He’s had stretches of time where the amount of death and dying really wears on him.

But one of the hardest parts of the job, he said, is watching students walk home alone at night.

“That just scares me to death.”

Hunt said the largest number of 911 calls are those involving students.

“We pick up a lot of drunks,” said Dave Sinkiewicz, an EMT-basic.

“They’re not necessarily sick, don’t necessarily need medical help — they just drank too much.”

Hunt said new legislation granting legal protection to students who call for help will likely push the number of alcohol-related 911 calls for 18- to 22-year-olds even higher — which, he said, is a good thing.

“From our perspective, as EMS, we’re prepared for it.”

But Landon Weaver, an Orange County paramedic, said legal immunity won’t necessarily increase calls for help — because it’s not trouble with the law that students tend to worry about.

“They’re usually just freaking out about their parents,” he said. “But if they’re coherent enough for that, I guess that’s a good thing.

“It’s not always the case.”

Between calls, the paramedics wait back at their stations — watching TV, relaxing.

They’ll trade stories — the repeat caller who keeps falling asleep outside the bar, the girl who passed out on a bench on her way back to South Campus.

And, mostly, they wait.

Once calls come in and EMS heads to the scene, Weaver said paramedics sometimes have a choice. It can be up to their discretion, he said, whether someone needs to go to the hospital.

“Sometimes they’re involved in things where the alternative to us taking them would be them going to jail,” he said. “They don’t really respect the fact we’re being good Samaritans if we don’t let that happen.”

Katherine Meyer, another paramedic, said difficulty with intoxicated patients is typical.

“It’s not uncommon to have somebody who tries to swing at you, to yell at you, to spit at you,” Meyer said.

“They don’t like having to go to the hospital.”

She said little stays constant from one call to the next — except in how they could be prevented.

“Use sense when you’re drinking,” she said. “And don’t leave your friends — because then we find your friends on the side of the road, vomiting.

“And nobody wants that.”

Contact the desk editor at city@dailytarheel.com.