For two weeks in a row, I have had patients who have been the victims of assaults. More specifically, these patients had been pepper-sprayed. After having spoken to multiple experienced EMTs who I came to find out have never had patients who had been pepper sprayed, I have begun to wonder, is this some kind of pattern? One patient was assaulted inside Central Park while the other was assaulted in a subway station and then stopped by the police at the next stop along Central Park West. By the time I arrived at the first patient, they were not in a terrible amount of pain. Thankfully, for the most part, pepper spray available to the public is not all that strong. This patient was obviously upset and her eyes were severely irritated. This scene was extremely active, it was in a public place and the patient did not want to be transported or even put in the ambulance, so as I was flushing their eyes there were onlookers approaching, many NYPD officers attempting to obtain a description of the perpetrator, as well as the patient being outwardly and understandably upset. This type of scene brings a lot of complications to patient care as there is a lot of information, some of it private, to go through with this type of patient. It is also extremely important to be extremely thorough and document everything as this ACR is very likely to be examined in court. This patient was assaulted by a person they knew who they had been trying to get a restraining order on for the better part of a year. The patient refused medical attention and signed the necessary paperwork to be released. The second patient was a homeless person who had gotten into an argument with another subway customer at which point they were pepper-sprayed. This patient had been sprayed with a much stronger type of pepper spray and was in serious pain by the time they made it to us. With this kind of situation, you want to remove as much contaminated clothing as possible and rinse as much of the pepper spray off of the face and body as possible. These first steps should be done outside in a well-ventilated area as they can be hazardous to medical providers and anyone else who has to interact with this patient. This patient was transported to a local hospital for further treatment. These two patients brang me a lot of new and unique experience that will definitely help improve my patient care for the future.

*details changed to protect patient privacy*