We’re called for a domestic in an apartment complex. Minor injuries. The police are already there.
They lead a man out of the front door. He is a big muscled man, six three at least with linebacker shoulders. Except he walks with a cane and I see a brace of his left foot.
“What happened?” I ask.
“She pushed me down,” he says. “I had a stroke a year ago.”
“Did you get knocked out?”
“I hit my head. I saw stars.”
I feel his head and neck. There are no bumps or bruises. His eyes are wet.
One of the cops rolls his eyes as if to say, “that’s bullshit. Be a man.”
“You want to go to the hospital?”
“Yes,” he says.
I have my partner bring the stretcher over and we help the man on it. His huge feet hang out over the end.
He is forty-eight years old. High Blood pressure, high cholestrol and residual left sided weakness from his stroke. He hasn’t worked for a year.
He sits on the stretcher looking forward, looking nowhere.