My traditional Thanksgiving includes lights and siren

Like the rest of the civil service world, us paramedics tend not to get to celebrate holidays as traditionally as we would like.

And if you work nights like I do, Thanksgiving dinner is more often than not a hotdog from 7-Eleven at about 2 a.m. I'm not complaining; it's the nature of the business. I haven't had a Thanksgiving Day off in ten years or better. I've delivered a baby, taken care of umpteen choking victims, gone to fatal wrecks and shootings, and everything in between (except sit down and eat turkey). My mother in law makes me a plate every year, and every year it gets eaten the day after.

But to me, the unusual has become the usual during the holidays.
I'd like to share this bit with you: One year, I was at a bad accident scene in St. Pete that happened in a residential neighborhood at dinnertime. The car was twisted around a tree so badly that it took the fire fighters more than 30 minutes to get the patient extricated out. I was waiting with my equipment, and was aware that families had come out of houses to watch. An older lady asked me how we could do this job on Thanksgiving. My answer is the same it always has been: "How could we not?"

Later at the hospital, my patient safely delivered, I got in the cab of the truck to write my report and almost sat on a plate of food! Turkey and gravy and potatoes and collard greens and stuffing and corn bread! No 7-Eleven hotdogs that night, as my partner and I got to have a feast thanks to that lady, who snuck that food into the ambulance while we busy taking care of the patient. Just one of the little miracles along the way...

So I invite all of you to tell your unusual Thanksgiving stories, as I'm sure there are some out there that need to be told. Log on and share your tale! We all need some little miracles and laughter.