OCME....., just a little sidebar
You guys have really got me thinking about my days on the job, mostly out of 21 (Lincoln), 22 (Boston Outpost), & then my time flying a desk, -and floating out in a PRU grabbing some ot as a tact unit in the 18 & 19 (Harlem hospital sta., & Washington heights, respectively). In '87 or '88, EMS started their trial of 800 radios in Manhattan north. We'd have our usual 477-480 mhz portables (yeah, those mx 340s...better than my Kel light in a 13), & we'd get one 800 mhz portable, as Lincoln covered the northern most areas of Manhattan (19 units), & we're dispatched by Maspeth on 800. Well, almost every tour, we'd end up swinging by the garage at 18 to get more batteries, or to swap out radios til we got one that worked. I remember being on an OD on the 7th floor of one of the projects, -tubed the guy, & wife thought we were trying to kill him (she thought the scope was a knife we were pushing down his throat! ). In trying to call a 10-13, -I ended up leaning waaay outa the window, trying to raise the Board for help. They thought we were calling a '90, & basically put us 99....Ended up getting a desk Sgt at the 43 on our trusty old UHF mx, -who relayed to Housing pd.
- yeah, the guy woke up after loads of narcan, signed off rma, & wife went to jail. We, in turn, headed down to 18, tossed that 800 radio at the Lt., & proceeded to each receive around 20+ stitches from a PA in the er, -courtesy of the rma's wife. Never took an 800 radio again.
.....is it PTSD ? - but I still hear those modat signals in my sleep....
[Mod. Sorry for getting sidetracked]