First, a little backstory. I live in a small town of 2000 people with a small 25-bed hospital. I live across the street from the hospital, literally 50 steps away. After 1730 on weekdays and on weekends, the lab is not staffed but each of us take turns being on-call. This story happened the weekend I was on call.
Sunday morning came, and I woke up with a loud banging on my door leading upstairs. Scared as I was, I braved going downstairs to confront my unwanted visitor. When I opened the door, it was quite a sight!
There was a cop, and a couple nurses from the hospital. They entered my house through my unlocked side door. Locking doors isn’t really common practice in small towns. The “banging” sound was the cop trying to remove the door off its hinges.
“What’s going on?” I asked, confused and barely awake.
The nurses said that they’re trying to get a hold of me a few times, but I didn’t answer. They were afraid something happened to me like carbon monoxide poisoning or something.
I really don’t know how to react. So I just decided to laugh it off and later on found out that my phone was off the hook, which was the reason why they failed to get a hold of me. It was a rather embarrassing, yet memorable experience for me.
Submitted by:
Alex Friedman
Laboratory Technologist
South Dakota, USA
