Mike Lewter, Ex-paramedic with 12 years experience with other related ER and medical exp. "I had taken a "frequent flyer" to the ER one night. He always claimed to be Vietnam vet (unproven) and was very outspoken, but was also homeless, a severe alcoholic, and had a long documented psychiatric history. We (or someone else on my shift) would see him on a 3-4x a week basis. Rather nice guy though all things being equal. Most of the time however, he would just use the ambulance service as a free one-way taxi ride back to the city center since we couldn't deny him transport and had no way to peruse collections on his numerous outstanding bills. Still, he became one of my most memorable patients, mainly because of the following two transports. The first whopper was during a visit to the ER. It was during this trip that he impressed almost everyone within ear shot of how large his vocabulary was and the fact that he was extremely well educated, be it from a college or the streets. He decided while lying on the stretcher at the nurses station to inform everyone that he had taken it upon himself to rewrite the Declaration of Indepence. We were all just like "uh huh, ok man, whatever" so he started reciting from memory the original and complete declaration (and it was 100% right as judged by general consensus). Then, he laid his rewrite on us. I wish I had had a tape recorder because it was one of the most awesome things I had ever heard but I can now only remember the beginning of his version. "When in the course of human events it becomes socially and metabolically necessary to mutate..." The crowd listening to his version quickly grew from about 5 to over 30 people, and once he had finished, everyone from doctors to patients because applauding his oratory work. A few years later, he completely dropped off the radar. There were even unofficial investigations done by several cops to see if he had died somehow because he disappeared literally overnight. Sure enough though, he resurfaced about 6 months later. When asked about why he disappeared and what happened, he had one heck of a tale to tell. Apparently one day while panhandling with the typical black magic marker and cardboard sign at a traffic light, he had a group if 3-4 Mexicans approach him. They didn't speak any English, but came bearing their own markers, blank pieces of cardboard, and money in hand. They pointed at his sign, then at their cardboard, and handed him about $40 so he'd make them signs of their own in English. It was later that night that he skipped town because being the character that he was, he made their signs as requested, but the wording wasn't 'exactly' what they wanted it to be. Instead of the typical "Homeless - Will work for food" sign, he made them 4 signs that said "Homeless - Will give {oral favors} for food". They apparently went in opposite directions and displayed those signs for several hours before someone told them what it actually said, and they all went looking for him for retribution, so in fear for his life, he literally took the entire summer off and was living in the next city over, about 30 miles to the east." Source 1 Source 2
