We should all be able to agree that not only are there too many stories of abused women out there, there are too many of those abused women who are married to, dating, or estranged from officers of the law.

OP didn’t know that’s what he was rolling up on when he and his partner stopped to check on a woman sitting on the side of the road. That said, when they saw her bruises and dejected manner, they were suspicious that abuse had played a part.

I’m a paramedic.

A few months ago, we’re coming back from a routine patient transfer when at an intersection about four blocks from the base I notice a woman sitting on the side of the road with her arms wrapped around herself and her head down.

I nudge my partner who’s driving, and we flip on the lights and I see her head come up real fast, and she looks terrified. I get out and she relaxes when she sees the ambulance.

After I approach, I notice bruising on her wrists and other similar signs of domestic abuse.

She was reluctant to go with them but agreed to lay down, so OP started the process of letting the cot/stretcher rig down from the back. It was one of those electronic ones, and it wasn’t finished when the police car rolled up.

She seems hesitant to get up off the curb.and into the ambulance, so I decided that I would at least pull the cot out of the back and give her something a little more comfortable than concrete to sit on.

Now a few important details. All the cots in my service are Stryker powered cots. You’ve almost certainly seen these before. They’re bright yellow with black handles and side panels. These cots have a motor and battery built in to allow us to raise and lower the cot at the touch of a button instead of throwing out our backs having to physically lift the cot up after loading someone.

They’re usually paired with an automatic loading system built into the ambulance that lifts the cot up to the right height to be pushed inside and also secures the cot when loaded.

There’s a little red tab at the end of the track, just inside the doors, that you press down to free the cot and allow it to slide out. When you press this tab, it simply releases the cot and the loading carriage it’s connected to and it’s up to you to keep it under control until it reaches the unload position and locks into place again.

This can be problematic because these cots weigh about 125 pounds, about 55kg.

As soon as I hit the release tab for the cot, I hear lights and sirens behind me. It’s a city police car. Which is weird because we had not yet requested police, and we were outside the city, in the sheriff’s department jurisdiction.

We merely informed dispatch that we were stopping to check on a woman at such and such intersection.

At that point, the woman booked it into the back of the ambulance and OP slammed the doors shut without pushing the button to slide the cot back into place.

The woman says something along the lines of “oh god he’s here” and moves faster than me seeing free food being distributed at base.

She dashes past me and pretty much hurls herself into the ambulance, sitting on the bench seat.

He stopped the cop from getting to the woman and called for backup, but the officer/husband wasn’t keen on backing off.

The cop is approaching and he’s angry. I put two and two together and slam the ambulance doors shut.

Let’s call this officer Police Officer Steve, or POS for short.

POS: Is she in there?!

Me: Who?

POS: You know damn well who I am talking about.

Me: You mean my patient? I’m afraid I haven’t gotten a name yet.

POS: Open those doors, I need to talk to her.

Me: You’re not using my rig as an interview room. You can talk to her at the hospital.

We go back and forth like this for a few minutes, my partner at some point came back to see what the hold up was, but overhead my stonewalling and went back to the cab to call our chief. I continue my routine of deny and delay until a pair of deputies (likely specifically requested for this by the chief) arrive. Oh good, now I have witnesses.

See, we had stopped on an upwards incline. I had hit the release tab on the cot and it wanted to slide back. I had to close the doors so swiftly, I didn’t bother pushing the cot back against the stops and locking it in place.

So, when he went past OP to open the back doors, OP let him go – and watched 150 pounds + barrel the guy right to the ground.

Emboldened by the presence of two deputies, he gets in my face. “Get out of my way or I’m gonna have to charged with obstruction!”.

Okay. I step out of his way, and he opens the double doors.

Between the cot, the monitor, and the jump bag, I’d say there was probably close to 160 pounds contained by those doors.

It all comes falling out and hits him square in the chest.

He goes backwards and falls on his butt. One of the deputies laughs aloud. The other walks up and kneels down beside the guy.

He says “Your shift captain is going be here in five, I wouldn’t be here then if I were you.”

POS gathers himself up and scowls at me, then stomps off.

Even if his life has been a little inconvenient in the months since, he says getting to have that mental image forever is worth it.

There is a limited amount that I can say about the aftermath as the trial is not settled yet, but we all know how well charges stick to cops.

The woman is now living elsewhere, the cop is still a cop, and I have been getting pulled over at least twice a week ever since then. But the video footage of him getting bodychecked by that cot remains one of the best things I have seen.

Reddit is surely ready to pat this man on the back. Let’s hear it for him!

The first couple of comments laud OP for being a hero.

They say job or no job, it’s nice to know good people are out there.

People are wondering just how many bad apples are hanging around out there.

This person says maybe the judge will be on OPs’ side.

I mean just imagine.

Y’all, this story is so good but so bad.

So much in this world needs to change.