BABY, IT'S COLD OUTSIDE.

December 22, 2006

It was the kind of cold that made your bones ache. The kind that seeps through three layers of uniform and settles in your spine like a bad decision. Every time the doors opened, it felt like Colorado itself was trying to kill me.

We were getting slammed—back-to-back calls, no rest, no food, and the heater in the rig could barely keep up. Every time we’d climb in after a scene, we’d sit there in silence, hands under our armpits, trying to pretend the defrost setting actually did something.

Somewhere around 3 a.m., we got dispatched to a “man down” near Colfax. No details. No caller. Just a vague dot on the map and a warning tone in my gut. We pull up and sure enough—there’s a guy lying half-in, half-out of a doorway, wrapped in something that used to be a sleeping bag.

He was alive. Barely. Hypothermic, disoriented, reeking of the kind of vodka that comes in plastic jugs and ruins your memory. We woke him up, checked his vitals, and tried to get him to come with us. He refused.

Said he was fine. Said he was waiting for a friend. Said he'd be inside soon.

We offered again. Blankets, warmth, food. He waved us off.

And here’s the part that stays with me—I believed him. Not that he was actually fine, but that in his world, that doorway was inside. That he’d decided this was good enough. That freezing in familiar misery was better than the sterile kindness of strangers.

We cleared the call. Drove off. Didn’t speak for a while.

That kind of night makes you question a lot of things—systems, safety nets, your own capacity for giving a damn. But mostly, it just makes you tired in a way that sleep can’t fix.

And cold. Always cold.