The paramedics were parked near the ambulance garage behind Coney Island Hospital when the call came. The 70th Precinct was in another sector, but when Brooklyn bleeds, they roll. Two hours later, they returned to the hospital with Abner Louima and two police guards.

This is the story from inside Ambulance 431 on Aug. 9 after cops allegedly shoved a wooden stick into Louima's rectum and then his mouth.

Frank Birnbaum was driving. His partner, Billy Pagan, was riding shotgun. They arrived at the 70th Precinct stationhouse at 6:24 a.m. to get two prisoners. They didn't return to the hospital until about 8:15 a.m.

The Fire Department paramedics, who work out of Station 31, have been taken off the street because bosses fear they will be harmed if they go back into the 70th Precinct.

They are scared, too.

"What happened to you?" the paramedics said they asked Louima.

"I have nothing to tell you here," the terrified prisoner said. "Wait until we get to the hospital."

The paramedics weren't allowed to leave the stationhouse until their boss, Capt. John Travis, went to the 70th and demanded that they be allowed to leave.

"I was just doing my job," Travis said. "I can't talk."

But others are talking. Pagan and Birnbaum have been interviewed by police, but not by federal investigators. This is what they have told friends and associates.

"I never knew how badly he was injured until I saw the story break in the Daily News," Pagan has said.

He has been a paramedic for 10 years, and works the midnight tour. Pagan's new partner, Birnbaum, was hoping to become a cop until this ride.

"We were told it was a two-prisoner job," Pagan has said. "We get there and there are two holding cells in the back. There are three guys in the cell on the left. One guy is sleeping in a chair with a hat on his face. Patrick Antoine [another prisoner] is standing there with another guy. Patrick has a cut above his eye."

When Pagan asked about the second prisoner, cops pointed to the adjoining cell. Louima lay there, his hands free, fully clothed, Pagan told investigators.

"Louima was in there alone," Pagan has said. "We didn't even see him at first. He got up when Frank went over. Louima had a swollen face, that was all we saw. No blood. No smell."

The paramedics said cops told them that the prisoners were hurt in a riot and that they were cop fighters.

"The cops told us nothing about rectal trauma or homosexuality," Pagan said, referring to police claims that Louima's injuries resulted from homosexual activity.

The paramedics wanted more information. "What happened to you?" Birnbaum asked.

"I am not going to say anything here," Louima said.

"You gotta tell us what happened," the paramedic said. "What's wrong with you? We can't help you unless you tell us where it hurts."

"Wait till we get to the hospital," Louima whispered.

That is consistent with what the torture victim told me from his hospital bed.

"The medics helped me," Louima said. "But I was too scared to tell them."

He said because the cops threatened to kill him if he talked, he never spoke to anyone until he got to the hospital. Then Louima spoke to a nurse, who told another nurse, Magalie Laurent, who placed the 911 call to Internal Affairs that the NYPD could not find for two weeks.

"I don't blame him for not telling me," Pagan has said. "I would have done the same thing if I was surrounded by cops. The Fire Department doesn't want us to go into that precinct on a job. Cops may feel we overheard something. But we didn't hear or see anything unusual."

Their two-hour delay occurred, the paramedics say, because the cops didn't want to authorize overtime. They were told to wait for an 8 a.m. precinct shift change until officers could accompany the ambulance.

"As I waited I noticed a lot of white cops," Pagan has said. "There was only one black guy I saw. I was even playing with a dog for a while, waiting. I had to leave the precinct twice to move the ambulance. Were the cops stalling? Maybe."

It wasn't until Travis spoke to a sergeant, the paramedics claim, that police allowed them to depart.

"Louima walked to the ambulance," Pagan has said. "Frank was driving. There were five of us in the back. Two cops, one to guard each prisoner.

"Louima was moving slow. I felt bad for him. He wasn't some homeless guy. . . . The cops in the ambulance had just come on duty. They didn't say a word to him."

There was a white sheet on the stretcher. There was no blood on it when Louima got up, Pagan has told investigators. Any rectal bleeding, Pagan reasoned, was internal.

"I don't think I ever saw Justin Volpe," he said of the cop accused of using the wooden stick. "But one of the cops I saw in the paper . . . took Polaroid shots of Louima outside the cell before we left. Very normal. 'Face left, then right.' "

The cop seemed proud of his work, Pagan told investigators.