Good Buddies
Date: March 27, 2006

Although the headlines prefer stories of the daring and the brave: walking into a burning building, staring down a criminal or crawling into an overturned car, sometimes it’s the behind-the-scenes work that happens back at the station that is truly heroic.

It’s not uncommon for ambulance stations to have visitors–people in the neighborhood who see them washing the trucks or coming back from a call and just want somebody to talk to. And, from these encounters, some pretty meaningful relationships are formed. That’s the case with long-time Floyd medic Gene Proctor and a friend we’ll call Buddy.

Buddy kind of looks up to Gene as a big brother or a father figure, even though he has a good 15 or 20 years on Gene.

One day Buddy was ill, sick enough that he called Gene to tell him. Gene asked Buddy if he was going to work that day, and his friend said he was. Knowing Buddy wouldn’t have called if this was just a case of the sniffles, Gene advised otherwise. He called Dr. Lee Cline in Floyd’s Emergency Care Center and told him Buddy was on his way.

It turns out that Buddy was very sick. Dr. Cline checked him out, gave him a couple of prescriptions and sent him on his way. But Buddy, wasn’t sure what to do with the prescriptions. Gene called Buddy the next day to check on him, and Buddy sounded even worse than he had the day before.

“I couldn’t even understand what he was saying on the phone,” Gene said. “I asked him if he was OK, and he said, ‘I’m sick, real sick.’”

Gene went to Buddy’s house, got his prescriptions, had them filled at the pharmacy, paid for them with his own money and brought them back to Buddy’s house. He then took a sheet of paper, drew a two-week calendar on it and placed the correct dosage of pills under each day of the week.

Before he left, Gene instructed Buddy to take the pills each day until all the medicine was gone. Buddy told his friend he’d do just as he said, then reached into his wallet, counted out all the money he had–19 dollars–and asked Gene to take it for his medicine.

Knowing there was only one way around this particular situation, Gene told Buddy a little white lie.

“I told him the pharmacy said he was such a good customer they wanted to give him the medicine,” Gene said.

For the next 14 days, Gene received a phone call every day from Buddy, reporting that he had taken his medicine just as Gene had instructed.

Buddy recovered and has returned to his job, but that’s not the end of this story.

Recognizing this could happen again for Buddy, Gene took some extra time to help his friend.

Working with Jackie Newby from Risk Management and Bobby Purcell in the Floyd Medical Pharmacy, Gene arranged for Buddy to never have to worry about having a prescription filled again. With all the paperwork and such completed behind the scenes, now, whenever Buddy needs a prescription, it will be filled right here at the Floyd Medical Center pharmacy.

Buddy will be healthier, and he’ll never really know just how good a friend he has in Gene Proctor.

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