We Figured He Was Dead. Then He Walked Up in a Suit.

The person you’ve already written off.

I was cleaning up the ambulance after a call one day. Nothing particular about the call or the day sticks out for me. It was pretty routine.

While I’m cleaning up, this man in a suit walks up to me and starts talking with me. He started apologizing to me, saying that the paramedics used to pick him up regularly, and he had gotten himself clean and sober now, and he wanted to apologize for his past behavior.

At first, I blew him off. I was busy, and people walking up to thank me never did much for me. I didn’t do the job for that. But I was a captive audience, so I let him keep talking.

He said his name (I’m not going to say that publicly). I couldn’t believe it. I had looked at him, and I’m scanning my memory, and I was just dumbfounded. Certainly, I remembered the name. I asked him, “Let me see your ID.” He showed me the ID, and sure enough, it was him.

WOW.

Regular patients, or frequent flyers as we call them, happen a lot in metropolitan cities, and San Francisco is no exception. There were several people we picked up routinely, mostly for drugs and alcohol, and sometimes it would be several times a shift. This guy stuck out because he was really, really difficult and would shit himself. He was abusive. He was difficult to manage. He was a big, strong person, and it was really challenging.

I remember when he went missing. We actually talked about it because his absence was something that we were kind of happy about. We figured he died. That’s what happens to most of them.

This was a down-and-out street drunk, so to be standing there talking to a man with a suit on, clean cut, blew my mind. If this guy can get sober, then what are the possibilities?

It’s pretty rare, as a paramedic, to know the outcome for people. You see them on their worst day, having the worst experience of their life, and never really find out what happens next. Who’d have thought that that guy would get himself together, and of all people, he came up to, it was me?

He was the rare one.

He became my teacher.

He made me less sure I know how anyone turns out.

So here’s what I keep landing on.

Who have you already decided can’t change?

The person on your team you quietly wrote off.

What if the only thing that can’t change is your mind about them?

John Christy spent 36 years in emergency services — first as a paramedic with the San Francisco Department of Public Health, then as a firefighter-paramedic with the SFFD, where he led their peer support team. Now he coaches leaders and speaks to organizations carrying more than anyone sees. The Hard Truth is his weekly newsletter. If this landed, subscribe.