Early 80’s. I was with one of my favourite mates to work with, he was happy, knowledgeable, a bit reckless but really cared. He eventually went mad from it but that’s another story. Anyway we got called to the hospital to get briefed by a doctor wanting to bring in a psych patient who hadn’t been taking her medication. He had all the forms signed, a syringe of drugs and the family on side. It was going to be easy he said. Why did he bring the drugs and what does he want us for if it was going to be easy I thought to myself. My mate was driving (no one ever liked me driving, ever throughout my whole career) and the Doc was in the front. We parked near the patient’s house and were around the back. Force of habit. I saw there were 8 or ten stairs from the level of the backyard to the kitchen and there was no handrail on the stairs. It was a council house not particularly untidy, not overly neat.
The Doc climbed the stairs first and was met by the patient’s daughter, a woman about my own age. Mum was in the lounge room, destructive, disorientated, delusional and dazed. In we walked, hi, hello, we moved into non aggressive stance but took up positions of safety which could quickly escalate to positions of dominance or afford a path of retreat. She was sitting in a Jason recliner rocker, an original Lay-Z-Boy, muttering and wringing her hands. The Doctor started doing his patter about having to go back to the ward, how she should behave and take her medication and not up-set her family, you know: he was reasoning with a mad woman. The Doc was getting nowhere, his patter was now prattle, it was like trying to teach a pig to whistle, it wastes your time and annoys the pig. And she was starting to get annoyed.
In step the bully boy coppers, “okay love you’re going to have to come with us” (What is it about uniform police attending to delusional, paranoid people – isn’t our very presence justification of their fantasies, I mean by this stage the cops are out to get them.) Millie moved in, I gave the area a quick scan and spotted a heavy cut glass ash tray sitting on a table next to her right hand and quickly reached for it. But not quick enough! In a flash she’d grabbed it and struck Millie over the side of the head, knocking his hat off. He loved wearing those stupid hats. A bit shaken, we both took hold of the patient. Now bear in mind she is the same age as my mum, the same build, the same clothing, her daughter the same age as me, and we were setting up to wrestle with her. I took hold of the arm with the ashtray and leaned my body into her. Bit of a half arsed arm bar to stop her swinging about and hurting herself or us. Because she was quite mad, she did exhibit a bit of unusual strength for a lady of her age and build, but all in all we were trying very, very hard not to hurt her or let her hurt herself. By the time the Doc got his finger out of his arse and prepped his syringe full of dream juice, she was quite agitated and my face was a few centimetres from her late middle aged, fleshy upper arm. And that’s just where the Doctor plunged this needle in. Now I’m not too squeamish about getting injections, I can simply turn my head and not look, but this was right in front of my face, no where else for me to look and it was intramuscular as well so it took a while to go in. She whimpered a bit but started to settle right down.
After five or six minutes, the Doctor gave us the okay to move her to the car. I still don’t know why we didn’t use the front door. We helped her to stand up and the daughter came up clucking and straightening her clothing and hair. Poor woman was quite distraught. We walked her out, the Doctor leading the way, Millie to the left or her, me to the right. We got through the kitchen okay, I had asked the daughter to move anything that might tempt her to hit or stab us with. And eventually the door. As we were negotiating the steps the kindly grandmother time her strike to perfection. She took a half step, which I felt then stuck her leg out against Millie’s as it was coming down onto a step. She used the least amount of effort to produce the greatest result. Millie’s leg buckled and he started, very slowly to fall off the stairs to the backyard below. I had the opportunity to say . “Millie” pause whilst I watch him fall “Millie” as he is still falling and then “Millie” he’s just got to be on the ground by now. “Are you okay?” I had cocked my fist and was about to beat the poor old dear into unconsciousness to go and assist my fallen comrade, but from below my line of vision came a weak, “I’m okay” The old biddy had a smirk on her face and fairly chortled as I dragged her down the rest of the steps. Millie had got up by this stage and we escorted the dear to the police car without any further incident. Millie was driving (again) and I was in the back with mum. Good old Doctor was in the front as far from her as he could get. I put the seat belt on her and gave her a quick visual once over for weapons that she may have picked up but she had none. The car started off and got 50 metres before the Doctor felt secure enough to turn around and peak to the patient. He barely got a word out before as quick as a flash the old dear reach down grabbed on of her thongs and slapped the Doctor in the middle of his face snapping his glasses in half at the bridge of his nose. Very quick, very funny, I just turned and looked at her and she had a gleeful, crazed look on her face and I just could help laughing with her.
