Nothing to see here

I had dinner with an assortment of colleagues, clients and miscellaneous others last night at a tasty little Italian restaurant in Seattle called Café Lago.

We were jarred mid-meal from a rousing and topical discussion by the flashing red lights of a fire truck that appeared to be pulling right in the front door. It stopped short of coming all the way in, parking instead on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant where the lights persisted in their flashing the entire 30 minutes or so the truck remained there. Apparently a woman at a table near us was unwell and had fainted. This was explained to us discreetly by our waitress after she called 9-1-1. "I think it's just an intense food coma," she hypothesized.

Trying not to rubberneck lest I make a bad impression on my table full of work VIPs, I did manage to see a couple of medics come in with their bright yellow bags and their large boots. I then tried to stay focused on the conversation until it was clear from the expressions on my companions' faces that it was time to turn around again.

In addition to the fire truck that had arrived first on the scene, we now had two additional ambulances and another emergency vehicle. Slow night for emergencies in Seattle, I guess.

All of the members of the crews of all of these emergency vehicles piled into the restaurant, standing around and evidently hoping someone would pass them a slice of pizza or something.

At one point I counted nine paramedics all standing there watching one guy filling out paperwork on a clipboard. Meanwhile, the woman who had brought this group together is still lying on the floor receiving literally no attention whatsoever. This went on for easily 20 minutes. Then the whole group filed out and my eyes slowly adjusted to a world which is not flashing red.

The only comfort I take from this incident is that the woman must have been essentially fine, because otherwise there's no way they would have stayed so long. Right?