Well, as you may or may not know, I work full time as an Emergency Medical Technician. I work 24 hour shifts, and see all kinds of patients. From trauma/medical, to drug addicts, and homeless people that are just looking for a meal and a bed.

Aside from all that, the company I work for has the LA County contract to do transports for the PMRT (Psychiatric Mobile Response Team). What this means is that we get AAAALLLLOOOOOTTTT of Psychiatric emergencies (aka 5150s, or 5585s if theyr'e a minor).

Last night at around 11:30pm, my partner and I were dispatched to one such call. We arrive on scene to find orselves facing a girl who was about 16 years old, and looked like she was terrified. I talked to her a little bit and she wasn't violent, so I didn't restrain her. And we loaded her into the ambulance to get her on to the hospital. Well, we were on route, and she was looking like she felt pretty uncomfortable, so I asked her if she liked magic. She said yes.

I pulled out a couple rubber bands and did a rubber band penetration for her.......

..........She FREAKED!!!

She was then absolutely positive I was Satan, and I wanted to use my evil powers to take her away, and all kindos of other nonsense. All the while flailing her arms about and trying to unbuckle herself from the gurney's safety belts, and flee the rig.

After a little scuffle, I managed to get her restrained to the gurney, and got her to the hospital. Come to find out, the nurse at the ER recognized the girl and told us she was a schizophrenic. Apparently she had run out of meds and decided she didn't need them anymore, and had been without for about a week (information that would have been more uselful to me an hour prior).

I think I learned something valuable from that whole situation:

Don't do any more magic tricks on duty.

-Well, thank you for letting me share that with you, I thought some of you might get a kick out of it.

-Matthew Wadsworth

I just read this without expecting anything, sort of a Sunday browsing with coffee thing. !!!!!!!!!!!!!

Man, that must have been a tough one. I have had some strange reactions but I usually have more knowledge of my spectators and nothing like that has ever happened. Thanks for sharing.

M

I had an instance happen that was so intense that I had to tell the person how the effect was done. I am a Pastor and was eating with another Pastor. I decided to do a telephone trick where the person would think of a card and we would call "Mr. Wizard" on the phone and he would tell him what card he was thinking about.

well, the trick went wrong and the person on the phone told him the wrong card. The problem was that the card named was the first card the Pastor actually thought of before telling me another card verbally. He was convinced that this person had connections with the devil and he was starting to distance himself from me.

It was funny and scary at the same time how superstition and religion can mix to cause a trick gone bad to be a satanic miracle.

I once did a balducci, and someone asked me why I don't use my powers for good. As I was getting ready, he asked if I was gathering my magical energy, then he asked if I really needed to do that. Some people... It makes it fun though.

Brian