Monalisa Perez & Pedro Ruiz: Pluperfect Poster Children for the “Dumb & Dumber” Impact of th
It ought to be a soul-cleansing experience. But it is instead quite paralyzing to realize that the focus of your life’s work – in our case, that would be rescue medicine – is inherently, damnably illogical. Perhaps you wonder why. Well, we'll be happy to tell you. It's because we in the rescue business save an awful lot of mental midgets who ought not live to breed at all. And, that folks, is the cold, hard fact.
Yes, for decades my colleagues and I have retrieved the wretched lives of more cretins than we can count. And every day, as certain as sunrise, some mighty fine men and women across this nation get the call; hop into their bright-hued Tonka Toys; flip on the bells and whistles and dash out to salvage a hundred more abject fools. Some will lose their own lives trying.
You’d think we’d learn.
Once, in 3:00 a.m. loon-laden stupor, I sat slumped in an ambulance seat too tired to sleep, and actually scribbled this late-night bafflement on a blank medical chart:
“Churls and creeps, stinkers and slime
Lowlifes, vulgarians, birdbrains and swine
Snots and scoundrels, racists and stupes
Gangsters, clodpolls, golems and dupes
We save them
Nut-jobs and morons, dingbats and nitwits
Pinheads, lamebrains, dipsticks and halfwits
We save them
Varlet, rapscallion, barbarian and all?
Thug and fiend and Neanderthal?
Assassin or dumbass, bomber or rook?
Villain or terrorist, gunman or crook?
We save them.”
Why?
Well, you’d have to read our book – The Paramedic Heretic – in order to appreciate the full inanity of saving the lives of morons. But when it comes to the pesky little matter of rat-bag rescue, here’s one jaw-dropping case where – had the victim not had a hole in his chest the size of a Dodger baseball – the Paramedics would have been legally required to get bloody by trying to save him, too:
They thought a book would stop a bullet and make them YouTube stars. Big mistake
In what just might win the “YouTube Stupid” gold star of the year, a Minnesota teenage mom shot and killed her boyfriend last summer in a social network stunt gone awry.
Oh, it wasn’t an accident. They planned it in detail.
According to the Norman County Sheriff’s Department up in Halstad Minnesota, an idiot by the name of Pedro Ruiz, age 22, spent a full week persuading his equally feeble-minded female that by holding a book up against his chest, he could stop a bullet fired from what might be the most powerful handgun on the planet.
The female half of this dim-witted duo is Monalisa Perez, age 19. She told police they were intent on making a “dangerous” video to post to their YouTube account.
According to law enforcement, Perez, who is 7 months pregnant, called 911 one Monday evening and told the dispatcher she had, “accidentally shot my boyfriend in the chest while we were making a video.”
Perez told investigators that Pedro Ruiz had been talking about the prank for more than a week; that he wanted to make a YouTube video of her shooting him as he held a book up to his chest. They both believed the book would stop the bullet. So one evening they arranged 2 cameras to film the stunt, hoping their video clip would be seen by millions and make them famous.
In a Facebook post that week, Perez wrote that they were in the process of making Ruiz his own YouTube channel. His would focus on “all the crazy stuff,” she wrote. La MonaLisa would be about their “family life.”
“Oh man is it going to be sweet!” she wrote. As it turns out, the weapon in question wasn’t sweet at all.
Monalisa Perez @MonalisaPerez5
“Me and Pedro are probably going to shoot one of the most dangerous videos ever HIS idea not MINE!”
So now, Monalisa Perez has been convicted of Second Degree Manslaughter. Perez could have gotten a 10-year prison term. That didn't happen. She could have been fined $20,000. That didn't happen. So what did happen to this mental midget who killed her husband for a social network prank?
She got 3 months in jail.
Had poor pitiful Pedro had a smidgeon of a vital sign when EMS arrived, the medics would have been ordered to try to save his wretched life. They had already risked their own lives – as well as the lives of citizens on the streets – by racing across town to get to him.
To our mind, not everyone is worthy of the risk.
On a case-by-case basis, saving lives is surely the gold standard of human decency – no question. Yet the sad reality is that EMS – in the aggregate – engenders the perfect Catch-22 of ethical conundrum. Individual lifesaving means individuals win. Far too often however, society loses, by perpetuating the continued misbehavior of societal evil-doers and fools, of whom an enormous number will live to endanger those around them yet again.
Everyday and in numerous ways, America’s rescue systems are saving misfit lifeforms from themselves. And these are fatally-flawed characters whom nature – in past eras – would otherwise have relegated to a socially appropriate, group-healthy and thus fitting, demise.
And nothing – and we mean nothing – underscores the human tendency toward urban-gorilla misbehavior, than the preposterous drive for 15 minutes of face-fame on the internet.
All of which brings us to The Paramedic Heretic’s Immutable Law #10:
Much of rescue as we know it is inherently insane. It contradicts natural laws. The simple fact is this: Not everyone is socially fit to live