Cautionary Tale:
Back in the mid seventies, we had off-duty cops in uniform doing security duty at the hospital, with mace and other accouterments on their belts. A ‘Code Gray’ announcement on the PA system was used to summon security and all able-bodied types to a unit where there was that kind of trouble-an unruly patient, a beached whale, a screw-top jar with a sticky lid…whatever.

One evening, there was a ‘Code Gray’ announced for the newborn nursery. This was unusual, so the (young and foolish) male nurse and orderlies responded, as did the Sgt. Murphy, at a faster pace than usual. Murphy was slightly ahead of us (he was faster, and he was also the best choice as point man) and as he rounded the corner to the nursery corridor, he slipped and fell, damaging his can of mace, which proceeded to empty itself, creating a cloud that pretty much filled the corridor. This incapacitated Murphy, the misbehaving visitor who was in the corridor and who was the object of the code call, and te male nurse and orderlies who ran into the cloud. Alls well that ends well, but the Sergeant was known as Mace Murphy for a long time thereafter.