Once Upon a Medic

10-50 No car found

2006-09-08T01:49:00.000-05:00

I just got back from another call. We were called for a check up on a 10-50. It was at the furthest edge of our district. When we got on scene, all I saw was a squad car. I asked my partner, "um...where's the car?" We just couldn't figure it out. Not wanting to sound stupid on the radio and say that no car was found (you know, just in case we find one in the forest or something) we just put ourselves on scene. We didn't give a scene size up, which, of course, pissed off everyone back at the station because they wanted to know what was going on.

Anyways, I got out of the rig and headed towards the squad. There was an officer and a guy standing outside. The officer said that there was a girl in the car too, and that she keeps nodding off. At this point, I still wasn't understanding what was going on, so as I went to talk to the girl, I spoke with the cop. He said that the couple was in a taxi and he missed the turn. Rather than turning around, he tried to make it at about 60 mph. Needless to say, he didn't make it, went into the ditch, and kept driving. The couple yelled at him to stop and they got out of the cab, and the driver sped away, leaving them on the side of the road.

The girl was complaining of head pain and needed to be transported. The guy had ear pain and then started complaining of neck pain. We only had the two of us on the rig, and since both wanted to go to the hospital, and they both needed to be boarded, I had to call for a second ambulance. We got another one enroute, which left our station with no ambulance and on a general alarm. They got on scene, and all hostility over not getting a scene report was gone. They realized how screwed up it was, got the less critical patient and headed towards the hospital. Good times.

I also did a stand by at a football game. It was absolutely crazy-people everywhere. The people were horrible; they played the national anthem and you couldn't even hear it because people were being so rowdy. And most weren't even watching the game-they were just hanging out in their little groups.

The game was in the next town over, and they tend to have a lot of gang related problems which have just gotten worse with a huge influx of people from Louisiana and from Chicago when a bunch of the projects shut down. There was one big fight that ended with several people being kicked out. Other than that I just concentrated on watching my back...and the drug box in the rig :)

We didn't have any injuries from the game. Just a kid that hit himself in the head with a baseball bat, cut his eyebrow and wanted a bandaid. Good times.

Chest Pain

2006-07-14T21:37:00.000-05:00

Only one call today. It was a walk in for "chest pain." The lady looked like she was in pain, but something just wasn't right. She got into the rig and sat down. One of the firefighters called dispatch and had them tone us out, so of course, all of our pagers went off. She was like "what are all those noises!?" By this time I had it figured out for the most part.

I tried to question her, and got very few answers. My partner turned on the monitor and pulled down the corner of her shirt to put electrodes on. When he did this he noticed that she already had electrodes on. We asked her what they were from and she gasped, and freaked out like we weren't supposed to find those. Whatever. I continued with my questioning. She said she needed oxygen. I put her on some to try and muffle her nonsense. We found out a bit later from the police that she was seen by rescue in another town, signed AMA, and then came up here. Fantastic.

Then she has the balls to say that she doesn't want to go to the hospital, she just wanted to make sure her heart was okay. I gave her the look, and asked her where she wanted to go. I told her she had to go since we just hooked her up to everything.

We headed towards the hospital (after the IV, etc) and I was still trying to get any info out of her that I could. She yelled at me, "If you'd stop asking so many questions, I could answer them!" I was like, okay, bring it on. Then she started yelling that she was choking. By this point I was beginning to lose my patience. I shouted back, "If you were choking, you wouldn't be talking." She continued to say this for the rest of the ride. She finally gave me a story. "I was at my daughters house...(insert pregnant pause here) and I was standing outside (another pause), and I was shot in the chest....with electricity." I gave up after that.

I called tele and gave them the story. While I was on the phone, she's yelling, "tell them that they left these things on me!" I got off the phone and started asking her about her doctors. She listed about 10 off, and then gave me a doctors name and said, "from.....Mental Health." I was like, ding ding ding!!!! We have a winner! She absolutely tested my patience. I was glad to finally hand her over to the hospital staff.

Boring life

2006-07-04T22:36:00.000-05:00

I haven't posted in a while. My life is boring. I might have had some good calls. I can't even remember anymore.

I am bored out of my mind with everything. I have been working every day. I barely even got to see fireworks today. We had to make our own noises because the fireworks were so far away we couldn't hear them.

Yeah...imagination isn't as good when you grow up :(

Maybe we will get a decent call tonight. All we've had today is a call for a seizure in a toddler. It was an okay call. But I want more.

We actually did get another call earlier, but I didn't go. My pager went off four times in a row. They gave our tones, MABAS tones, our tones, MABAS tones, and then our tones again. It sounded like the entire world was coming to an end. Not quite. Just dispatch hitting the wrong keys. Half of the department was flying like bats out of hell to the station. I came flying out of my driveway and flew down the street. It only took me 20 seconds to get to the station if that tells you anything. I think my neighbors think I'm nuts. All that for a rescue call. I was caked in paint from painting my house, so it was probably a good thing that I didn't have to go out in public. They retoned again as I was pulling into the parking lot to disregard the MABAS tone. Oh well. It was a good adrenaline rush :)

Laceration

2006-06-24T22:06:00.000-05:00

We got called for a child with a laceration. He had been riding his bike at the skate park and fell. His sunglasses caught him right above his eyebrow. A nice deep 3 cm laceration. We cleaned him up, got ahold of his parents and waited. His parents were at a friend's house, but got there in about 5 minutes. They wanted to take him to a hospital out of our district. They signed him AMA and that was that.

No other calls yet. I'm bored out of my mind. Hopefully we get something good tonight :)

Fire Prevention

2006-06-11T22:12:00.000-05:00

I just arrived in Emmitsburg, MD. Well, yesterday anyways. Good times. I am having the time of my life. It is so wierd to be away from work. When the alarm clock went off this morning I thought it was my pager and came flying out of bed. When I actually came to I realized that I wasn't at the firehouse.

My class is going to be really good. We have tons of outside activities. We even have graduation! We are taking a class trip to Gettysburg to visit, and if I can convince a couple others, maybe DC. We shall see.

I was told how wonderful it is here, but I know now that it is definitely the truth. This place is awesome. Everybody treats you like an equal. Even the security officers are nice.

We are right across the street from Camp David. When the president comes in, the blackhawk helicopters land here. That's pretty cool.

Anyways, I will have more blogs from this week and a couple backdated ones. I haven't had time to keep up.

Phantom of the Elevator

2006-06-06T22:14:00.000-05:00

Several calls today. Good times. We had a smoke investigation. A deck caught on fire. A neighbor put it out. It was still fun. We also did an elevator rescue that turned out to be nothing. We joked that it was the phantom in the elevator. There was nobody there and the students needed to get a key from the office to use it. Oh well. At least we got the keys figured out so that if there is a real emergency we can act more efficiently. We also had a dumpster fire. Lots of fun. The paint was completely melted off and the lid was burned off. The water was boiling off the metal. It was almost a real fire. I hope I get a real one soon :).

Even Better

2006-06-04T12:54:00.000-05:00

One good call. We were called for a man who took the wrong medication. When we got on scene, our patient was very agitated, and said he was going crazy. He had taken the wrong meds. Not his fault though; the pharmacy gave him the wrong ones. He had been taking them for four days, and obviously, not taking the meds he should have been. They gave him clomiphene instead of clomipramine. Yeah. Clomiphene is a drug some women take to increase fertility, etc. Not really for men to take. The calls just keep getting better. First a leaky testicle, now a guy that will probably grow ovaries... :). What next?

Urine

2006-06-01T21:07:00.000-05:00

I worked 0800 until about 1400. One call for a man with urine leaking from his testicle. Very weird call. I guess it's possible, but as far as I know-unusual. All I could think about was the human anatomy and I couldn't figure out how it was possible. But, there was, in fact, a hole (small) in the man's testicle with fluid leaking out-and the room smelled like urine. Even the doctor at the ER had never heard of it. It had been going on for 6 days. I don't know if it's just me, but if I had urine leaking out of my testicle, I wouldn't wait 6 days to figure out why.

I caught a "structure fire" today responding from home. It was just room and contents. If we had been two minutes later, it would have been a good one. I was just excited to get a fire.

I figure this: since I have been "official," I got one supposed structure fire mutual aid that we got on scene-went to staging, and never got out of the rig. This one was #2, and I actually made it on scene, packed up, with my axe in hand, and (almost) did some work. Granted, all I got to do was carry and set up a ventilation fan and repack hose, it was still a step closer to the real thing.

I was absolutely psyched to finally be on a fire scene :) It was that much better without having "recruit" plastered across my helmet. Yeah for me!

Triage

2006-05-31T20:11:00.000-05:00

I worked from 1700-2000. No calls. We did a drill on MABAS and mass casualty. We had a new triage system that we are finally going to start using. Very good training.

I ran errands for most of the day. All I want is a good call!

Memorial Day

2006-05-29T21:01:00.000-05:00

Had our Memorial Day parade today. It was a really good time. I got my one armed sutan. Woohoo! I think we hit a record high today. Besides the heat (which wasn't too bad) it was a perfect day.

Busy as a bee

2006-05-28T21:03:00.000-05:00

Five calls today. One was a mutual aid fire that we never made it out of staging for. Another for an electrical problem with smoke in the building. We did two rescue calls-one for a fall (cockroaches included) and one for a seizure, with a prolonged extrication because it was on a boat. Extra points to all on scene for not falling into the lake off the dock, and not losing any equipment into the water :). Then a washdown at a gas station. It was a good shift. I love being busy!

Posting

2006-05-25T17:09:00.000-05:00

More posts soon. I don't have access to a computer for a couple of weeks, so I will update soon!

Mass

2006-05-24T21:29:00.000-05:00

Very slow day. First call was for an "abdominal mass." Our patient had been seen earlier today at the hospital for a CT scan. When it was read by the doctor he found a mass and wanted her re-evaluated. She already had a history of a AAA. Her v/s were stable. A nice slow transport and an easy ALS call. We got that call around 1100. We didn't do anything until almost 1900-actually 1930.

We did a BLS MRI. Our patient was the sweetest little lady I think I have ever taken. We dropped her off, ran a couple errands, and got called to bring her back to the hospital around 2200. We slept all night-no calls.

Unresponsive

2006-05-19T20:47:00.000-05:00

Only one call all day. We got toned out for a man who had fallen and that was unconscious. When we got on scene our patient was lying on the floor, semi-conscious. He complained of right shoulder pain. Other than that we couldn't get much out of him. We got vitals and that is when we started to worry. There were stairs going out of the house (probably 10 or so), so I called for a lift assist. The guy's heart rate was about 30, and his blood pressure was about 80/P. Not so hot. His O2 sats were also in the low 80s. We got him packaged (c-collar, backboard, the whole deal), and by that time three people had showed up for the lift assist. Out to the rig we went.

I hooked up the monitor and my partner got a line. We got a new set of vitals. We got out the atropine, pushed 1mg, and his heart rate came up to about 62. His blood pressure also came up to about 90. Good good good. That's what I like. I drove to the hospital, and my partner said that he became quite responsive on the way in.

All in all it was a good call. He was an elderly gentleman, so this is quite common. His rhythm just looked like a sinus brady, but I would be interested to see what a 12-lead says. He already had a history of MIs.

Nothing Special

2006-05-15T21:30:00.000-05:00

First call was for "unsteady gait." The page said x1 week. I spoke with the RN and she said that the patient would get weak and slump to the right side, become minimally responsive for about a minute, and then come around. This has been going on for a week. She had also fallen several times in the past week and had received no treatment. They did take an x-ray towards the end of the week which came back positive for fracture. They got results on Saturday. Her foot wasn't wrapped or anything-no treatment once again. Supposedly her last episode of weakness was on Saturday also.

The woman was 48 years old. She was very hard to understand. She didn't complain of any pain, but her ankle was swollen and black/blue. There was redness running up her leg that almost looked like the start of cellulitis.

During transport she would slump to the left (not the right like the nursing home said-maybe they're dyslexic). She was literally hanging halfway off the cot. I was constantly moving her back onto the cot.

I told the RN at the hospital about my concerns and she agreed. Possible neglect. We got ball rolling and hopefully the hospital will admit her so she gets some good TLC.

We did a BLS return...a psych...

Our last call was an 18 y/o girl that was a psych patient. We were taking her to a south side psych hospital. She looked like she was 9 years old. She said she does this on purpose. She's been to over 8 different hospitals so far this year.

Broken

2006-05-12T09:21:00.000-05:00

I did mostly BLS calls today. We did some transfers, many psychs, and a couple of ALS calls.

The best call of the day, you ask?

A woman from a nursing/psych facility going to another long term psych hospital. She seemed okay when we first got her. They were sending her out because she left the facility and walked to the hospital across town. She starting talking once we got out of the facility. She said that all of her family is at that hospital-she was the only one that they let out. She had many health problems: both of her legs were apparently broken, but she had to "keep walking." Both of her arms became broken during transport. We also had to go in search of her heart meds for her "transplant." She was also pregnant. I asked her how far along she was and she said, very seriously, "oh, I'm pregnant with a premium...I usually have several a day." I told her that she must be a very busy lady. The only thing I could think of was that she meant preemies. Anyways, she also had a dislocated shoulder, a glass eye, and just had surgery on one of her hips. It was a miracle though, because once we got to the hospital and got her in her room, she was up and walking. She just has to keep walking...

Now that's what I call a save :)

Ghost Light

2006-05-10T08:51:00.000-05:00

We did our last transport at 0400. It was a psych going from the suburbs into the city. She was depressed with suicidal ideations. She recently discovered that her husband was cheating on her. She was quiet the entire ride.

I had all the lights shut off in the back of the rig because I had finished my paperwork and my patient was nodding off. Every time we hit a bump, one of the lights would turn on, and just as quickly, shut off. Then it started happening even when we didn't hit bumps. Weird. It's kind of creepy because with how the lights are wired, we can't just turn on one of them. It is either the front two or the back two. Only the last one was flickering. It's probably the ghost of someone that died in that rig. Who knows.

Ouch

2006-05-09T22:42:00.000-05:00

We did several routine transports today. Mostly psychs.

Our first priority call was for a 20 y/o male who was cutting a box at work with a box cutter and the box cutter slipped. He put it right into his eyeball. Yuck. You really couldn't see too much, but what you could see was that his eye was cut diagonally almost right through the center, and his pupil was anything but normal. We drove on a priority to a trauma hospital 60 miles away so he could get into a surgeon.

We did a BLS MRI.

Then another priority-a woman in labor. She was 38 weeks pregnant with her bag of waters still intact. She didn't speak English, and I don't speak much Spanish, so it was an interesting call trying to understand each other. She was only 19. After we got her to the hospital and a Spanish-speaking nurse was found, we were told that she was only having one contraction an hour. I don't know, but she seemed like she was in a lot of pain the whole time she was with us. Oh well.

Shorness of breath at a home address. Nothing extremely interesting. He called us because he didn't want to go to the closest hospital. All his vitals checked out, and it was pretty much another routine transport.

Our first psych of the evening was a 24 y/o girl that tried to commit suicide-she cut her arm across her AC and another cut across her hand. She was upset because her aunt took her car and sold it for drugs. The girl had just been released from a 7 year sentence in prison and was on house arrest. She ran away once at the hospital, but was tracked down by the police and brought back.

Day off

2006-05-07T20:53:00.000-05:00

I'm glad I finally have a day off. I just ran some errands and hung out with some family from out of town.

I got a message on my phone at 1900 saying I was supposed to have been at work at 1700. Oops. For some reason today never made it onto my schedule. A no call no show is not something I want on my record.

I plan on being a bum tonight. Maybe I'll watch a good movie.

GI Bleed

2006-05-06T20:43:00.000-05:00

Today was relatively busy. We did several psych bounces. We did a call for a toothache and, of course, the patient wanted to go to a hospital 40 miles away. It never fails.

We did an ALS MRI-nothing special.

We had a guy that we were called to for a "psych," but when we got on scene, it wasn't. The guy was off his meds-insulin mainly. We checking his glucose, which was fine. He was complaining about itching and sores all over. He showed me one on his arm and that was enough for me. I was itching all night. They were little nodules and he was scratching them so much that he was making them bleed. Yuck. He thinks it is from his job, but I'm sorry, from what I saw, it looked like he had scabies. I was just disgusted. It was funny because after dropping the guy off in the ER, I was standing at the nurses station finishing my report, and the doctor walked out of the room with a disgusted look on his face and was scratching his arm and neck. Ha. It's not just me :).

We actually got about three hours of sleep before we got our next call. It was a priority coming out of an ER. When that happens, it is either a) cath lab, or b) peds. This time it was a baby. It was funny because my partner and I were just talking about peds and how we both get them all the time. We got on scene and found out that the baby had a GI bleed and every time she would pass blood (there wasn't even any stool-it was all blood) she would get lethargic and nod off. They said her heart rate had been in the 200s, but she was at about 130 for us. During the ride my partner said that she would get sleepy and her heart rate would drop into the eighties.

It didn't take long to get to Children's Hospital. I was running hot and on a highway. You can put two and two together. We dropped her off around 0630 and finally returned to quarters at 0750-just in time for shift change.

Shortness of Breath

2006-05-04T21:23:00.000-05:00

Two calls for shortness of breath today.

The first one we were dispatched to came across as "20 y/o female not breathing." Of course we hauled butt, meeting up with another medic and a police officer on scene. They ran in with the AED while I got the clipboard and my partner got the jumpbag. I was the first one in the door; there was a young woman sitting in a kitchen chair in very mild distress. She said she just felt like it was hard to breathe. She didn't want to go by ambulance, but she finally gave in. She had a history of anxiety and had been sick with the flu all week. Nothing out of the ordinary-just another SOB call.

Second call was also for shortness of breath. It was an elderly woman sitting on the edge of her bed, with her oxygen already on, complaining that it was hard to breathe. She wasn't too sure about her history, but I got what I needed off of her prescription bottles. She had pitting edema in all extremities. Thank goodness she had one of those motorized chairs to get to the first floor, because we would have had a hell of a time getting her outside. Once in the rig we worked our magic, called the hospital and were on our way.

I forgot how much I absolutely love this time of year. It was a beautiful day and I made sure I took my time cleaning so that I could leave the bay doors open. Ahhh...

I did some cleaning and training in the afternoon. Nothing out of the ordinary. I took some online terrorism awareness courses which were actually somewhat challenging. Something good to do with my free time I guess.