o help the other three lift the patient. One of the paramedics turned toward me and said, “don’t worry, we have it, why don’t you go stand over by the truck and look cute.” Another example that demonstrates this point occurred when my partner and I were transporting a patient from his nursing home to his daughter’s personal home. Our patient was an overweight man who could not stand or walk at all. My partner and I moved him from his bed to our stretcher. Once we were at our truck downstairs preparing to lift him into our truck, he said, “are you sure you are strong enough to do this?” immediately followed by, “You are pretty, I bet you have sex a lot.” The ride was uneventful save the repeated offers of a shot of Sambuca once we reached our destination. When we reached the man’s house we took him out of the truck on the stretcher and prepared to transfer him to an apparatus called a stair chair. A stair chair is a device that looks like a chair with wheels used to carry patients up and down flights of stairs. We transferred him despite many interruptions from our patient who thought himself fit to tell me, not my partner, how to do my job. Of course this particular patient lived on the third floor of a house with narrow winding staircases. My partner and I prepared to lift our patient in order to carry him to the third floor. Before we could, he told us to call for assistance because he didn’t think a female could lift him. He did everything he could to bash females and try to convince me that there was no way I could lift and carry him up the stairs. As it turned out, we ended up carrying our ornery patient very slowly, with frequent rest stops, all the way up the stairs, and denied the shot of Sambuca once we got to the top. My partner and I proved him wrong, and that felt great. Our backs on the other hand… Another area where women are treated ...
