What do you do with a drunk-en sai-lor?
What do you do with a drunk-en sai-lor?
What do you do with a drunk-en sai-lor?
So ear-ly in the mor-ning!

Thus goes an old navy ditty from the glorious days of sails and brass cannons. I never learned WHY they had to do "something" with the drunken sailor. Couldn't you just let him lie where he dropped? Or perhaps the ship was sinking--I can see where you might feel obligated to DO something with one of your rum-besotted fellows under that circumstance.

What do you do with a massive wheelchair? (I'll spare you the other three verses.)

Yesterday was one of those "sinking ship" days. We had a storm around 1 PM, and the power was knocked out by a nearby lightning hit. The power surge also damaged our emergency generator, so that when it tried to come back on, the lights would hold steady for 10 seconds, flicker, go out for 10 seconds. Repeat. Repeat.

Even if your PC is on a UPS as mine is, having the lights go on and off is too big a distraction to get anything done. And besides, the emergency generator did NOT operate the air conditioning. Temps would hit 90 in less than an hour. So management told us to go home.

Now, the emergency generator DID supply power to our two elevators. I'm on the second floor. But the generator wasn't working properly. No elevators. My wheelchair weighs 370 pounds. No elevators. Even four burly men could not lift my wheelchair because it doesn't have four hand-holds that can bear enough weight. No elevators. I was stuck.

What do you do with a drunk-en sai-lor? ...

So, we called the Fire Department.
The Nassau Bay Fire Department has a station only one block from the SAIC building!

My bosses and I (for by this time, my "problem" had attracted the department manager, contract manager, COO and Regional VP) went to the second floor lobby, out the front doors and waited at the top of the long flight of concrete stairs. Shortly, we had an ambulance pull up, and a team of five blue-shirted EMS folks stepped out. Reminded me vaguely of Ghost-Busters.

Their first problem was getting ME down the stairs. Their solution was a high-tech Stair Chair. All folded up, it's the size of an attache. Click all the red buttons and it unfolds to an average sized straight-back chair with castors and a "tank-tread" on the back.

They popped me over into it, rocked it back a little, unfolded the tread, shoved it down under the chair, and two EMS folks took me down that staircase as fast as they could have walked it without me. The treads literally "rolled" over the steps.

They advised me that I would soon get heat exhaustion, and suggested I retire to their ambulance which was air conditioned. I reluctantly accepted their offer.

Bingo, their next solution was to pull a "stretcher" out of the back of the ambulance. A Smart Stretcher, with lots of little motors hidden in odd places. The EMS person pushed it toward the curb, never slowed down, the stretcher somehow "climbed the curb" as if it were not there.

They popped me over onto it, and with a finger, adjusted the back to a comfortable sitting position. The EMS person pushed it, with haste, toward the curb, never slowed down, the stretcher somehow "descended the curb" as if it were not there.

They positioned the stretcher at the rear of the ambulance. Click. Click. Hard push! The stretcher was inside the ambulance without the slightest bump. Amazing!

After the A/C was on, Renee (the very nice female EMS person) gave me a guided tour of the interior. It was all so well laid out and organized. The ambulance was a Frasier. She was very, very proud of it. She told me they are made in Houston.

Meanwhile, the other EPS persons eyeballed the wheelchair situation, came down to the ambulance, opened up some external cabinets and there was a complete selection of bars, rods, straps, crowbars, mallets, jaws of life, jaws of death, jaws of serious injury. They pulled out some rods, straps and harnesses, donned the harnesses, slipped the rods under the wheelchair, strapped the rods to harnesses, and four men carried the wheelchair down the staircase like it was a day on the beach.

Ten minutes later, I was in my van, ready to go home.

That was a fascinating experience, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Especially, I enjoyed getting to understand the technology behind the Smart Chair ($5,000) and the Smart Stretcher ($15,000) that enable any average person to transport a 350 pound incapacitated person down flights of stairs without breaking a sweat. Just for the record, I weigh 130 pounds.

It was a real adventure!

And THAT is what you do with a drunken sailor!!!