Exams....

Sorry for no posts in awhile, it's crunch time in Medic class. We have but 3 short weeks to go and I'm trying to study up for the state and national registry exams, not to mention the final in-class exam. Had a pretty good shift the other day though, a code in the morning and a trauma arrest from a MVA later on. Hopefully I will get to post about it in the next couple of days, if not sooner.

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Let us pray....

Ninjas.....

Just got home from 48 hours straight. 24 at my regular gig, another 24 at my part-time one. We didn't do a whole lot at either place. A few transfers, a couple of nausea/vomiting and one drunk.

The call came out as a 10-73, (our radio code for a person in need of psychiatric help). We staged with the rescue squad at the top of the street while the local cops went in to see if there was any danger. We got cleared and went on in. As we entered the house, a run-down two story with fading paint and creaky steps, we could smell the beer that she had apparently been drinking all day. The patient was a middle-aged woman that was arguing with the cops that she wasn't going anywhere. Then she sees us and jumps up and runs behind the couch. We stop mid-stride, wondering what to do next, the cops are looking bewildered. One of them slowly walks around the couch and asks her if she's OK. I hear some whispering and then the cop turns to look at us and starts snickering that slowly changes to guffaws. Wondering what in the hell is going on, I walk over and look behind the couch. She sees me and starts screaming, startled I jump back. The cop is trying to tell me something, but unable to because he is still snorting through his moustache. I stand there, waiting for him to let me in on the joke. He finally drys up and motions for me to walk back to where my partner and the 3 squad members are standing. He then tells us that we are scaring her. I return with a "no shit". He starts snickering again then motions to our heads. We are all wearing black toboggans, pulled low over our ears to keep out the cold night air. "She thinks you guys are all ninjas and here to get her!" We all bust out laughing. I take off my head-gear and walk over to the couch. I stand back and start talking to her, letting her know that we are EMT's here to help her. That we were definitely not ninjas. After a few minutes, she peeks around the side of the couch and asks me if I am sure. I tell her yes, I am sure. She slowly comes out from behind the couch and looks around at us. Everyone had taken off their toboggans and I guess she didn't see the threat that her alcohol-fogged eyes had shown her. So she sat down and started drinking again, which of course was the only logical thing to do. She then starts to flirt with us. Telling us that we were all very cute and why didn't we all sit down and have a beer. Eventually we decide that she is just drunk, not a threat to herself or anyone else and try to obtain a refusal. My partner is explaining the form to her and she is listening intently. When he gets to the part about "if you will just sign right here, we will get out of your hair ma'am," she says "one one condition." Intrigued, said partner asks what that condition is. The patient states with a straight face that she wants all of us, 2 EMS, 1 cop and 3 squad members, to line up and turn around so she can take a gander at all of our hind-parts. At that point I lost what little composure I had left and almost fell to the floor laughing. My partner, between bouts of laughter himself tells her that isn't going to happen and just sign the paper. As predicted, she continues to refuse to sign until we all show her our bums. Well, to make a long story shorter, we all took a backwards bow as we made our exit. My partner had to stay behind, no pun intended, to get the paperwork signed. He eventually made his bow as well to the tune of whistles and cheers from the lady of the house. That was yesterday, the story has already gotten around. This morning on the way home I stopped by a gas station that is owned by one of the squad members, one that wasn't on the scene. Behind the counter was the wife of said squad member. As she rang me up she asked me how the ninja training was going. "Fine, just fine," I said as I walked out.

History.....

A nice little page I found to remind us all of our history....

I can remember when I was a kid, the service my Dad worked for still had one of these.

gold patch....

Decent shift, not too many calls. First was a little old lady that couldn't breath. She was discharged from the hospital for the same thing the day before. Personally I think she just liked the food there, or the staff waiting on her hand and foot, or something. Then ran another gentleman with the same thing. He was a little more serious. Got to the house and he was laying in a hospital-type bed in obvious distress. He had a chest tube coming from the left side of his chest that was attached to a vacuum pump. His son was slightly frantic running from one side of the bed to another, clearly not knowing what else to do for his father after he had increased his oxygen from 2 liters to 4 by cannula. The man had a whole list of medical problems and medications. We got him loaded up and headed down to the big hospital. My partner looked at me and said, "You OK with this?", well I could tell that he would rather drive, so against my better judgement I said yes. I put him on a mask and increased his liter flow, took vitals and got him on the monitor and started an IV en route. Everything was checking out pretty good, O2 sat was down a little, but given his history I figured that was probably normal. His lungs were slightly diminished, but no rales, rhonchi, wheezing or stridor. But he kept complaining that he couldn't breath. While I was looking at him, fidgeting around trying to make him comfortable, something just didn't click, felt like I was missing something or there was something else going on with this guy. Well, we were about 15 minutes from the ED and I remembered capnography. I got it out, unraveled it and hooked it up to the monitor. When I turned back around to put it on him, he was all clenched up in a seizure. Shit. I hollered to my partner who was oblivious to the goings-on in the box, content to drive and listen to his music, to step it up, he was seizing. OK, what do I do now? Valium, yea! Shit, I can't! I'm not a damn Medic yet!!! I looked out the window, we were about 8 minutes out as the sirens started blaring. Looked back at the patient and he stopped seizing. Sigh of relief, now re-assess. That's when I noticed he's not breathing, no pulse, but the monitor was showing a nice sinus rhythm. PEA! Fuck me! Shit on a stick! Damn it! I layed him back real quick-like and checked for pulses one more time just to make sure. Nope, nothing. Dead. I grabbed an oral airway and threw it in and bagged him a couple times and started compressions, hollering at him to wake the fuck up! I reached over and flipped open the jump bag and grabbed an epi which I ripped open with my teeth. Then I slammed it in with one hand and went back to pumping on his chest. My partner took this moment to ask what the hell was going on? In the 2 seconds before the words came out of my mouth, I called him everything but a son of God, then answered him in as calm a voice as I could manage that the patient was in PEA. A few minutes later we got to the ED and roll in with me doing CPR. The charge nurse looked completely dumbfounded, "I thought you guys had a difficulty breathing?" she says to me as we roll past her to the room. I give report while they scramble up the people to continue the code. I can't really blame them, the report I gave was completely different than what we came in with. After a few minutes a tech takes over for me as I wipe the sweat from my brow and strip my gloves off. My partner is just looking at me, I say nothing as I walk back outside. He comes out as I am smoking and putting the cot back together and has the nerve to look at me, laugh and say, "I guess I should have taken that one". Needless to say, I was a little hot under the collar. I've ran codes before, this wasn't my first rodeo. This was just the first one that I did on my own, granted that it was only for 10 minutes, but I've not even graduated yet. I tried to take it in stride, chalk it up to a learning experience. "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger" and all that. Now I sit back and try to take stock of what I learned about myself. I learned that I could have delt with it a little better, I don't think yelling at the dead man on my stretcher helped anyone. It's a good thing a family member wasn't riding with us. I learned that in the midst of the shit, I did remember how to read the monitor and what to do, even though it was just CPR. Hopefully next time I will do it a little better. Hopefully next time won't be until I have that gold patch on my arm.