What have you rolled up on as a PD, EMT, FD or good ol' civilian that just want to help, that once you get chin deep in it, turned out to be something TOTALLY different??

Here's mine............

It appeared to be a strongarm carjacking and attempted rape possibly.

We passed at 70 mph at night and witnessed a black male dragging a black female out of a Range Rover window on the side of a rural highway in pitch darkness about 60 miles from the middle of nowhere. I mean absolutely nowhere.

Pulled a quick U, unfurled my Superman cape (I was like 24), rolled up, jumped out, and were about 0.0004 seconds away from booting this guy in the face while he attacked a woman in a ditch on the side of the highway in my headlights.

When all of a sudden.....the black male looked up and greeted one of the persons with me by name, so I decided not to shatter his jaw with my Redwing steeltoe and gather more intel.

He complied with my orders to release the woman.......who then immediately jumped to her feet and RAN to HIS van and jumped on the side of the van and commenced to rip the mirror off and scream about "whore" this and "bitch" that.

Turns out.....the Range Rover driver was the wife. The van driver was the husband. The UNSEEN passenger in the van was the mistress, and the wife had been chasing and ramming his van for several miles until the husband pulled over, jerked the wife out of the window, dragged her into the bar ditch, and restrained her as he contemplated his decisions in life. My buddy knew him as a local contractor.

Thought it was a carjack or rape in progress. But SHE was the criminal offender and in the commission of vehicular assault. So everyone jumped back in their van and Rover and went straight back to midnight demolition derby as we stood on the side of the rural highway, watching the red taillights dart back and forth and then disappear into the night.

Glad I didn't kick him in the face.

Glad he OR she didn't kick my ass.

Just a typical Tuesday night in the country, but I learned first hand to SLOW DOWN and size up the scene (EMR/EMT day one training) and not be in such a rush to save the day.

Things are not always as they seem.....

Got called to a local gas station just off of the highway that splits our town. The call came out around 3am as a robbery and the suspect took, cigarettes and lotto tickets before jumping in his car and hitting the highway NB.

A county sheriff unit sees the vehicle and is following it in excess of 100 mph for several miles waiting for a second car. We finally light the car up, he pulls over and we do the whole felony stop thing. He complies and we find the evidence in his car.

After all the fun I head back to the gas station to discover it was only a misdemeanor retail fraud of $60.

One day we had an "Officer down, needs assistance in C dorm" call out on the radio. Then radio silence. I hauled ass to C dorm, an outside trusty dorm on the outside of the main fence at our prison. As I entered the dorm I was prepared to take down any inmate who got into the way. When I got in the door way I could see an officers legs on the other side of the desk on the floor, and what appeared to be two inmates on top of the officer. The desk was blocking most of my view. I ran around the desk prepared to go to battle with the two thugs. Turned out one of the inmates was the one who made the officer down, officer needs assistance, call out on the radio. The two inmates were actually assisting the officer. She had collapsed from being over heated, and was also diabetic and low on blood sugar. So, we got her to medical and taken care of. For once the inmates actually did a good deed. They were thanked and commended by the command staff.

Got a ems response to an unknown medical at a fleabag motel. Got there and this scrawny male in a loose fitting robe waves us in real fast. We go in, ask about the problem. He opens the robe and he's got an 9" hard on, purple as an eggplant. Turns out he's a gay hooker, slipped a cock ring on and couldn't get it off. He was in a lot of pain and couldn't even let the robe touch it. We thought it was a typical sick person during flu season. I was never so glad to be the radioman/report writer that day.

Not me but a fellow officer.  Called because a construction crew found a wallet on the side of the road.  He comes back to the station and calls the owner after finding her phone number.  18 year old mentally challenged girl who says she was raped and the guy dropped her off where the wallet was found.  His investigation revealed she wasn't lying.

Lost property call turned into an actual rape.

Dayum! Same darn thing happened to me around 1980. Found handbag. Called owner. Owner had been raped and belongings tossed. I guess when you're done dicking a victim you want to be sure to leave a trail of evidence and finger prints after you've fingered all the credit cards.

Went to a business alarm call, rush hour traffic, obviously bullshit alarm.

Sitting in traffic directly next to the business, see a guy pull out a pistol and hold it to the forehead of another guy in front of him, in the middle of the parking lot.

Lights, muzzle on target, shouting commands, ready to press trigger...gunman drops his pistol and complies.  Turns out he's the store owner.  And he thought it was reasonable and not at all questionable to hang out in the parking lot of his store, in front of half the city, holding an airsoft replica of a duty pistol to his bro's forehead, while pretending to rob his buddy at gunpoint.  Despite it all, no crime actually ever committed...and he didn't complain about the epic ass-chewing he received from everyone who showed up on scene.  Owner was literally bitching about how slow our response time typically was, while muzzles were still on target and before he was fully detained.  And of course, the alarm was indeed bullshit, caused by an employee of the neighboring business forgetting to set the passcode properly when going home.

So many times the national news headline has been avoided, by the skin of one's teeth, and the populace shall never know.

lowest priority dispatch for a fall.

head out for a lift assist.

get there and there are 6 inches of iron rod impaled in their head.

I typed out more and then deleted them. More appropriate ones will come to me later.

Edit: dispatched for a home medical alarm. Rural area, no cops come to these, just EMS.
We pull up, lights are off inside. Find an unlocked door and proceed through the house yelling "EMS" every 2 steps, mentally prepared for the volley of gunfire from some deaf old man or lady that accidentally hit their button or rolled over it while sleeping. Walk through this whole house. Which is scary as fuck at 3 am in the morning. Has the requisite horror movie type life size painting of the occupant on the wall, piano, etc. Pitch black except for flashlights. Looked in all the rooms, closets, under the bed, twice. Yelling the whole time who we are. Me and my partner are moderately freaked out, every horror movie starts this way. We decide to leave, bullshit alarm, false activation. On the way out find a door we missed, that appears to go to the garage.

Go to open the door and there is something heavy behind it. Hmmm, garage full of shit stacked against door? or body? Shove it open... its a body. Old lady, looks deader than fuck. Blood everywhere. All four walls of the white painted garage have bloody handprints from waist height down, from her feeling around in the dark with her bloody hands. Every. Single. Inch. of wall is covered in bloody handprints. Now we are freaked the fuck out, who hit the alarm? Should we back out and call the cops? I reach down to check a pulse.... the body moves and grabs me by the arm. I scream like a bitch, my partner screams like a girly bitch and jumps back out of the room. We find the garage door button and open the garage to get some light. Calling for cops on the radio cause now we are just freaked the fuck out. End of picking up the lady and transporting. Had a small skin tear that bled enough to coat her in blood. Been on the floor for a day at least. Take to hospital, clean her up, released from hospital 2 hours later. Damn near died of terror when that lady grabbed me after seeing the "obviously" dead body and the walls of blood, all over what we thought was a false activation. We went back after the sun came up because we'd accidentally forgotten to return some belongings or some such. Opened the garage and it was like it never happened. All the walls are scrubbed clean as a whistle. We freaked out again and bailed. Turns out some relative came by and cleaned up after we transported.

Called to a mid 40s male with chest pain/shortness of breath.

Found him in tripod position on the floor.  Fails the sick not sick on walkup.

Skin PCC, 3 word sentences with difficulty.

States 1 hour onset pain in chest, worsening sob

States history of afib.  Not on blood thinners.

Vitals show hr 150, BP 80 systolic, spo2 in the high 80s. 4 lead shows SVT at stated rate.

First impression is that this was a cookie cutter cardiac/rate issue.   Fix the rate.  Everything normalizes.

Do a rapid extrication via mega mover to gurney.  In the back of the bus we start looking for iv access and start cutting clothing to place pads.
O2, monitor placed.

While cutting off his shirt, I not a bruise about the size of a quarter in his ruq.

Guy is circling the drain fast.   Been on scene for all of 4 minutes at this point and mental status is declining to grunting to answer questions.

About this time the patients wife show up.   I get a brief history from her.   She said he was fine an hour earlier, but he had a bicycle accident several hours ago.

Meanwhile, iv access is not going well.  Pads are placed.  C3 to the hospital.

I shift gears from cardiac to trauma.   Partner starts pulling out the io.  I check lung sounds.  Finding absent sounds on the left.   I pull out the decompression kit and get set up

About the time I tap his chest (no whoosh, no improvement)
The guy codes.

Tell my partner to tube as I start cpr.
I have the driver call for additional personnel to rendezvous

Wife (who is riding up front) starts screaming.

We reach our rendezvous point.  Everyone piles in the back.  We get to work.   A few minutes go by (feels like 15) I notice that the bus is not moving.

Turns out the EMT driving thought I wanted him in the back to work the code.   Our bus is sitting in the middle of an intersection (where we parked to grab additional personnel)

Wife is still screaming.  She gets out of the front and tries to get in the back with us.

I get the driver sorted, wife calmed (probably not my best moment.  As I had to be very direct)

Code doesn't go well.  Gets called 5 minutes after arriving at the er.

Turns out the circular bruise was from the handle bars.  Guy blew out his liver and ruptured his diaphragm.

It was one of those calls where you start behind the curve and cannot catch up.   And to always keep an open mind when it comes to dispatch info and what history the patient gives you.

Holy shit...  

Get a call about 0330. "Someone scratching at my door"

We arrive and I'm looking for the address..."Hey, what's that?"

I've materialized outside the car with my pistol in my hands pointing at the door.

A moment later my rookie is beside me going "what the Hell is that?"

"That" was the corpse of a woman, kneeling against the front door. She had been stabbed, ran to the door and tried to knock. Then she died, slowly sinking to her knees.

It was the creepiest thing, and it presented such an alien sight(utter stillness, arms over head, her vivid blond hair and red jacket) that it fired every alarm my brain had.

I instantly recognized her as a local hooker-one I'd spoken to about an hour earlier in the company of her pimp.

I BOLOed him and his car and we caught him less that a half a mile away.

DA nol prossed and he walked. My snitches used to tell me how he bragged about killing her.