I volunteered to role-play a distraught nurse for a scenario-based training for two neighboring police departments. My job was simple: be the lover who was cornered by the SWAT team with a gun, allowing them to practice de-escalation tactics so they could move on to the actual hostage negotiation. The officer in charge of negotiating with me, Officer D, was acting like a total Dick, full of condescension and half-assing his job. I decided to make it real for him, going all in as a heartbroken nurse whose life was crumbling. We quickly devolved into a screaming match, with me telling him to “FUCK YOU” multiple times. That was my downfall. Officer D’s ego was wounded, and he ordered the flash bomb detonated.
The blast was nonlethal, but the distraction was perfect. Eight big dudes decked head to toe in black SWAT suits charged me. The rule was supposed to be a “mock tackle,” where they stopped short and we’d all go have coffee. But Officer D’s wounded pride cancelled that coffee. They hit me full speed, slamming me to the concrete beneath a dog pile of 80-pound armored bodies. I heard a CRACK and was instantly in shock. I was carted off to the hospital in an ambulance, where Officer Manko (a good dude who was mortified by the incident) was yelling for them to get me some morphine.
The only thing I was worried about as they cut off my pants was if I was wearing clean underwear—I’d forgotten my mother’s golden rule. At the VA hospital, I was treated like a cold, hard criminal by Dr. Asshole. They assumed being tackled by SWAT meant I was a bad gal, and they didn’t believe I should get up and walk. Eventually, the hospital staff found out the truth—that it was a training exercise and I was just an enthusiastic volunteer. The SWAT team, all eight big burly guys, even came to apologize by giving me a black T-shirt embroidered with MOUNT VISTA SWAT, which was apparently a “very, very big deal” only for members of the team. No, I didn’t sue. But I did get one hell of a story I’ve told too many times to count.