Had a call last shift and like many calls that I run, I have no idea what was going on...
The call was for a respiratory distress on a child. We get to the daycare center where the call was and go inside expecting to see a child in distress. Instead we see a smiling, laughing, playing kid. The workers at the facility said that the little patient had turned blue. Now, when you get a call for respiratory distress call and the people on scene say the patient was blue, you expect the face, or at least the lips and maybe nail beds to be blue right? Wrong.
They said that the patient's feet were blue, well actually everything from the knee down. I asked if he was having trouble breathing? No. Wheezing? No. Crying? No. Did it seem as though he was in pain? No. Acting different than normal? No. What was he doing before, during and after? Nothing, just playing. Hmmm... So he wasn't acting like there was anything wrong with him at all? No. They just noticed that his legs were blue.
The patients legs and feet were fine when we got there. The first responders who got there before we did said that the kids feet were a bit cyanotic, but quickly returned to normal. I continue my questioning...
Any past medical history, medications, allergies? No to all. Last meal and what was it? Lunch, mac-n-cheese and apple juice, same as every Tuesday. Did you change the brand of food, drink anything? No. Any new people, toys, carpet, anything new at all? With a weird look, they answer no to all. Well, I'm completely stumped at this point. Either they don't know this child's complete medical history, or they are hiding something to try to keep themselves out of trouble. The patient is too young to talk to me, so I can't ask him any questions. But my partner has been playing with him and checking him over. She tells me that the kid seems fine, nothing wrong that she can see. Vitals are fine, cap refill is good, lungs sounds good, neuro check is good and he seems to be acting like a kid his age should act.
Then the grandmother shows up and I find out that she is the child's primary caregiver. She tells us that the history is slightly skewed from what we were told. The patient was a preemie, and only 2 pounds when born. But the kid is 16 months old. I ask her if he had any medical problems? No, none at all, his doctor said he was the picture of health. I ask if there was a reason that he was a preemie? She darts her eyes away from me. I tell her that I need to know if I am to make an informed decision about her grandson. She leans in and tells me that the child's mother was a meth addict. I ask her all the same questions that I asked the staff and get the same response. No other history, and nothing new around the child.
I tell her that he seems to be fine now. And that, according to the staff, the child displayed no other symptoms during the episode. I tell her that if it was my child that I would want this to be checked out by a physician, at the very least, his regular doctor.
She doesn't want him to go to the ED, nor be transported by us. But says that she will call the doctor and see if he can be seen today. She signs the refusal and we leave.
I have no idea what would cause this. My first thought was cardiac. But if it was his heart, I'd think it would have systemic symptoms. At least it would have involved his other extremities, not just his legs. My other thought is maybe a congenital defect that hasn't been found yet. Maybe some kind of peripheral vascular defect in his legs. Maybe it was some sort of arterial spasm. I've never heard of it in a kid, nor just in the legs. But who knows? I'm just a paramedic...
BRM
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Monday, December 1, 2008
When God Make Paramedics...
...an oldie, but goodie...
When God made paramedics, He was into His sixth day
of overtime. An angel appeared and said, "You're doing a lot of fiddling around
on this one." God said, "Have you read the specs on this order?
A Paramedic has to be able to carry an injured person up a wet, grassy hill in the dark, dodge stray bullets to reach a dying child unarmed, enter homes the health inspector wouldn't touch,
and not wrinkle his uniform."
"He has to be able to lift three times his own weight. Crawl into wrecked cars with barely enough room to move, and console a grieving mother as he is doing CPR on a baby he knows will never breathe again."
"He has to be in top mental condition at all times, running on no sleep, black coffee and half eaten meals, and he has to have six pairs of hands."
The angel shook her head slowly and said, "Six pairs of hands...no way."
"It's not the hands that are causing me problems," God replied. "It's the three pairs of eyes a medic has to have."
"That's on the standard model?" asked the angel.
God nodded. "One pair that sees open sores as he's drawing blood,
always wondering if the patient is HIV positive." (When he already knows and wishes he'd taken that accounting job) "Another pair here in the side of his head for his partner's safety. And another pair of eyes here in front that can look reassuringly at a bleeding victim and say, "You'll be alright ma'am when he knows it isn't so."
"Lord," said the angel, touching His sleeve, "rest and work on this tomorrow."
"I can't," God replied.
"I already have a model that can talk a 250 pound drunk out from behind a steering wheel
without incident and feed a family of five on a private service paycheck."
The angel circled the model of the Paramedic very slowly.
"Can it think?" she asked.
"You bet", God said. "It can tell you the symptoms of 100 illnesses; recite drug calculations in it's sleep; intubate, defibrillate, medicate, and continue CPR nonstop over terrain that any doctor would fear... and it still keeps it's sense of humor."
"This medic also has phenomenal personal control. He can deal with a multi-victim trauma, coax a frightened elderly person to unlock their door, comfort a murder victim's family, and then read in the daily paper how Paramedics were unable to locate a house quickly enough, allowing the person to die. A house that had no street sign, no house numbers, no phone to call
back."
Finally, the angel bent over and ran her finger across the cheek of the Paramedic.
"There's a leak," she pronounced.
"I told You that You were trying to put too much into this model."
"That's not a leak," God replied, "It's a tear."
"What's the tear for?" asked the angel.
"It's for bottled up emotions, for patients they've tried in vain to save, for commitment to that hope that they will make a difference in a person's chance to survive, for life."
"You're a genius!" said the angel.
God looked somber.
"I DIDN'T PUT IT THERE" He said.
Author Unknown
BRM
When God made paramedics, He was into His sixth day
of overtime. An angel appeared and said, "You're doing a lot of fiddling around
on this one." God said, "Have you read the specs on this order?
A Paramedic has to be able to carry an injured person up a wet, grassy hill in the dark, dodge stray bullets to reach a dying child unarmed, enter homes the health inspector wouldn't touch,
and not wrinkle his uniform."
"He has to be able to lift three times his own weight. Crawl into wrecked cars with barely enough room to move, and console a grieving mother as he is doing CPR on a baby he knows will never breathe again."
"He has to be in top mental condition at all times, running on no sleep, black coffee and half eaten meals, and he has to have six pairs of hands."
The angel shook her head slowly and said, "Six pairs of hands...no way."
"It's not the hands that are causing me problems," God replied. "It's the three pairs of eyes a medic has to have."
"That's on the standard model?" asked the angel.
God nodded. "One pair that sees open sores as he's drawing blood,
always wondering if the patient is HIV positive." (When he already knows and wishes he'd taken that accounting job) "Another pair here in the side of his head for his partner's safety. And another pair of eyes here in front that can look reassuringly at a bleeding victim and say, "You'll be alright ma'am when he knows it isn't so."
"Lord," said the angel, touching His sleeve, "rest and work on this tomorrow."
"I can't," God replied.
"I already have a model that can talk a 250 pound drunk out from behind a steering wheel
without incident and feed a family of five on a private service paycheck."
The angel circled the model of the Paramedic very slowly.
"Can it think?" she asked.
"You bet", God said. "It can tell you the symptoms of 100 illnesses; recite drug calculations in it's sleep; intubate, defibrillate, medicate, and continue CPR nonstop over terrain that any doctor would fear... and it still keeps it's sense of humor."
"This medic also has phenomenal personal control. He can deal with a multi-victim trauma, coax a frightened elderly person to unlock their door, comfort a murder victim's family, and then read in the daily paper how Paramedics were unable to locate a house quickly enough, allowing the person to die. A house that had no street sign, no house numbers, no phone to call
back."
Finally, the angel bent over and ran her finger across the cheek of the Paramedic.
"There's a leak," she pronounced.
"I told You that You were trying to put too much into this model."
"That's not a leak," God replied, "It's a tear."
"What's the tear for?" asked the angel.
"It's for bottled up emotions, for patients they've tried in vain to save, for commitment to that hope that they will make a difference in a person's chance to survive, for life."
"You're a genius!" said the angel.
God looked somber.
"I DIDN'T PUT IT THERE" He said.
Author Unknown
BRM
Monday, November 24, 2008
Another Article...
Here's another article about problems in EMS...
http://kob.com/article/stories/S661228.shtml?cat=10134
BRM
http://kob.com/article/stories/S661228.shtml?cat=10134
BRM
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Reasons...
I'd bet money that just about everyone in EMS, no matter their level of practice, has been asked why they do what it is they do. And if they have been doing this job for any number of years, they've been asked why or how they have stayed in as long as they have. I was asked the other day by one of my EMT students. I've been asked several times over the years. It seems that my answer changes over time.
Originally it was about the rush. You know what I'm talking about. The feeling you get when the pager goes off. You rush to the rig and tear off with lights blazing and siren wailing. Get to the call and maybe get to do a bunch of cool shit, see someone all fucked up. Then after it's all over you sit back, beat your chest and holler at the moon to let everyone know how stoked you feel.
Don't get me wrong, helping people is a major reason that people, including myself, got into this business. But the rush is equal or greater than the want to help people. If anyone reading this is honest with themselves, I believe that they will agree with me. People may initially get into EMS for helping people, but the rush keeps them coming back.
Now, 13 years have passed since I ran my first call as a spunky teenager. The rush is still there, sometimes. Other times, not so much. At times, I find myself falling asleep while my partner drives us emergency traffic to the call. It's not that I'm burned out, far from it. But like AD said once, either you find something to love about EMS, or you get out.
Even before the rush, there was my Dad. He got his paramedic a year before I was born. To say that I grew up in this business is an understatement. My daycare was the EMS station. The ladies that did the billing were like surrogate mothers to me. Hell, I even had my own locker with a blanket and GI JOE's, complete with toy ambulances. Until my Dad left EMS in the late 80's to be a flight medic, I lived at the EMS station; eating, sleeping and helping the guys wash the trucks. (I was the tire washer....)
For many years I was in the fire dept and volunteered as a first responder. But my inherent disregard for authority led me to rebel against my Dad and his chosen profession. I have to give it to him though. Even though he loved EMS and medicine in general, he never pushed it on me, he let me make my own decisions as far as my career was concerned. So I never even considered it as a career till about 5 years ago when I finally realized that I couldn't run away from it any longer. Nothing else I did was ever satisfying. I'd learn everything I could and usually excel in whatever it was I was doing. Then I'd hit that wall. Either there was nothing else to learn, or I couldn't advance my position to be able to learn any more for one reason or another.
So I turned to EMS and I haven't looked back since. In medicine, I found an ever satisfying subject. There is just so much about the human condition that no one person will ever know it all. So I found "it". The thing that could keep me busy for the rest of my life. That's the real reason I'm in EMS. I can never learn it all, there will always be something else to learn.
The second reason that has came around in the past year or so is teaching. I love to teach. I realise that in the grand scheme of things, I don't know much. But what I have learned, I enjoy passing that knowledge on to others. That's the only thing I can see myself doing other than being a field medic. I would someday like to be a training officer, or maybe over a medic program at a local college.
Those are my reasons for doing this and sticking around....
BRM
Originally it was about the rush. You know what I'm talking about. The feeling you get when the pager goes off. You rush to the rig and tear off with lights blazing and siren wailing. Get to the call and maybe get to do a bunch of cool shit, see someone all fucked up. Then after it's all over you sit back, beat your chest and holler at the moon to let everyone know how stoked you feel.
Don't get me wrong, helping people is a major reason that people, including myself, got into this business. But the rush is equal or greater than the want to help people. If anyone reading this is honest with themselves, I believe that they will agree with me. People may initially get into EMS for helping people, but the rush keeps them coming back.
Now, 13 years have passed since I ran my first call as a spunky teenager. The rush is still there, sometimes. Other times, not so much. At times, I find myself falling asleep while my partner drives us emergency traffic to the call. It's not that I'm burned out, far from it. But like AD said once, either you find something to love about EMS, or you get out.
Even before the rush, there was my Dad. He got his paramedic a year before I was born. To say that I grew up in this business is an understatement. My daycare was the EMS station. The ladies that did the billing were like surrogate mothers to me. Hell, I even had my own locker with a blanket and GI JOE's, complete with toy ambulances. Until my Dad left EMS in the late 80's to be a flight medic, I lived at the EMS station; eating, sleeping and helping the guys wash the trucks. (I was the tire washer....)
For many years I was in the fire dept and volunteered as a first responder. But my inherent disregard for authority led me to rebel against my Dad and his chosen profession. I have to give it to him though. Even though he loved EMS and medicine in general, he never pushed it on me, he let me make my own decisions as far as my career was concerned. So I never even considered it as a career till about 5 years ago when I finally realized that I couldn't run away from it any longer. Nothing else I did was ever satisfying. I'd learn everything I could and usually excel in whatever it was I was doing. Then I'd hit that wall. Either there was nothing else to learn, or I couldn't advance my position to be able to learn any more for one reason or another.
So I turned to EMS and I haven't looked back since. In medicine, I found an ever satisfying subject. There is just so much about the human condition that no one person will ever know it all. So I found "it". The thing that could keep me busy for the rest of my life. That's the real reason I'm in EMS. I can never learn it all, there will always be something else to learn.
The second reason that has came around in the past year or so is teaching. I love to teach. I realise that in the grand scheme of things, I don't know much. But what I have learned, I enjoy passing that knowledge on to others. That's the only thing I can see myself doing other than being a field medic. I would someday like to be a training officer, or maybe over a medic program at a local college.
Those are my reasons for doing this and sticking around....
BRM
Friday, November 7, 2008
Instincts...
Have you ever ran a call that made the hairs on the back of your neck stick up? You know that feeling that something just isn't right? Well, if you ever get those feelings, you need to pay attention. Your mind and body are trying to tell you something...
We get dispatched to an obscure address for a respiratory distress. Dispatch tells us that its beside a church, but no other information is available. But if memory serves me right, that church is abandoned. We arrived to find an old pickup sitting next to the church. I can see someone inside the truck. The windows are up, the doors closed and the vehicle isn't running.
I get out of the rig and it hits me. Something isn't right here. For one, if it is a respiratory distress, most people wouldn't be sitting cramped up in a vehicle when its over 70 degrees outside. I would imagine the door would be open to try to get some fresh air. Maybe even sitting with their feet on the ground, tripoding, etc. depending on how bad they were struggling to breath.
I make my way around the back of the truck, keeping a good distance. The windows are tinted so I can't see much inside. But I can see that the person isn't moving. Looking around the scene, there is nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing that would raise my suspicion level. It's the truck, or rather the person in the truck that's got me worried.
I continue to walk around the vehicle towards the drivers side door, keeping my distance. The hairs on the back of my neck starting to raise and someone has dropped a large rock in the pit of my stomach. As I get level with the driver, I can see it's a man. He doesn't seem to be in any respiratory distress from where I'm standing. Plus, he doesn't look at me. It's like I'm not even there. He continues to ignore me as I holler at him, approaching slowly. My partner has sensed my hesitation and is slowly bringing the cot and equipment out of the truck, keeping his eyes on me.
I get to within a few feet of the truck and the driver is still not paying me any attention. I move towards the front, in his line of sight and he still ignores me. I can see that he is alive. I can see him breathing and his eyes blinking. That's enough for me, I holler at my partner and tell him to get on the radio and get the cops here, now. We are right down the street from the sheriffs office, so it shouldn't be long before they get here.
I start to back off, keeping my eyes on the driver, not daring to turn my back. Just then my foot hits something and over I go. I land on my ass and see the rock sticking out of the ground that my heel struck. I hear my partner hollering and I look up.
I see the driver standing outside the vehicle. How the hell did he get out of the truck that fast? He has his hands in the pockets of a jacket that seems a bit too big. I can see his eyes. They seem blank. I don't know how else to say it, it was like the lights were on but no one was home, literally. Because I started talking to him and it made no difference. He was looking at me, but other than that, nothing, no response at all.
He takes one step towards me and stops. I start backing up, pushing with my hands and the bottoms of my feet. Trying to put distance between the two of us. I see his arms start to move. Then I see a something from a nightmare coming out of the pocket of his jacket. Flat black, metal and dangerous. A gun.
I get to my feet in the blink of an eye as he raises it level with my face. In an instant I am covered in sweat and my heart leaps into overdrive in my chest. It's amazing how big the barrel of a gun looks when it's pointed straight at you. My mind does some quick calculations. I am too far from him to jump at the gun and try to knock it away and there is nothing around me but open ground, so no help there either.
This is it, end of the line for you BRM... I close my eyes and a picture of my family jumps before me. I whisper a prayer and hope that it's a clean shot and it doesn't hurt...
I open my eyes and he is just looking at me. Then he moves his hand and puts the barrel in his mouth. The report is loud, but not as loud as I would have thought. I feel something wet hit me in the face as he falls to the ground. I can't move. I can't speak. I can feel someone shaking me.
I turn to see my partner is holding me by the shoulders, shaking me and saying something, but I can't hear him. I look back at the guy on the ground. His eyes are still open. The expression hasn't changed, still that blank stare.
Slowly my hearing seems to return and I hear approaching sirens and my partners voice, screaming at me now.
"I'm OK," I say. I remove his hands and wipe my face. My hand is red. I turn and walk back to the ambulance and sit on the tail board, my expression blank...
The entire event took less that 10 minutes.
BRM
We get dispatched to an obscure address for a respiratory distress. Dispatch tells us that its beside a church, but no other information is available. But if memory serves me right, that church is abandoned. We arrived to find an old pickup sitting next to the church. I can see someone inside the truck. The windows are up, the doors closed and the vehicle isn't running.
I get out of the rig and it hits me. Something isn't right here. For one, if it is a respiratory distress, most people wouldn't be sitting cramped up in a vehicle when its over 70 degrees outside. I would imagine the door would be open to try to get some fresh air. Maybe even sitting with their feet on the ground, tripoding, etc. depending on how bad they were struggling to breath.
I make my way around the back of the truck, keeping a good distance. The windows are tinted so I can't see much inside. But I can see that the person isn't moving. Looking around the scene, there is nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing that would raise my suspicion level. It's the truck, or rather the person in the truck that's got me worried.
I continue to walk around the vehicle towards the drivers side door, keeping my distance. The hairs on the back of my neck starting to raise and someone has dropped a large rock in the pit of my stomach. As I get level with the driver, I can see it's a man. He doesn't seem to be in any respiratory distress from where I'm standing. Plus, he doesn't look at me. It's like I'm not even there. He continues to ignore me as I holler at him, approaching slowly. My partner has sensed my hesitation and is slowly bringing the cot and equipment out of the truck, keeping his eyes on me.
I get to within a few feet of the truck and the driver is still not paying me any attention. I move towards the front, in his line of sight and he still ignores me. I can see that he is alive. I can see him breathing and his eyes blinking. That's enough for me, I holler at my partner and tell him to get on the radio and get the cops here, now. We are right down the street from the sheriffs office, so it shouldn't be long before they get here.
I start to back off, keeping my eyes on the driver, not daring to turn my back. Just then my foot hits something and over I go. I land on my ass and see the rock sticking out of the ground that my heel struck. I hear my partner hollering and I look up.
I see the driver standing outside the vehicle. How the hell did he get out of the truck that fast? He has his hands in the pockets of a jacket that seems a bit too big. I can see his eyes. They seem blank. I don't know how else to say it, it was like the lights were on but no one was home, literally. Because I started talking to him and it made no difference. He was looking at me, but other than that, nothing, no response at all.
He takes one step towards me and stops. I start backing up, pushing with my hands and the bottoms of my feet. Trying to put distance between the two of us. I see his arms start to move. Then I see a something from a nightmare coming out of the pocket of his jacket. Flat black, metal and dangerous. A gun.
I get to my feet in the blink of an eye as he raises it level with my face. In an instant I am covered in sweat and my heart leaps into overdrive in my chest. It's amazing how big the barrel of a gun looks when it's pointed straight at you. My mind does some quick calculations. I am too far from him to jump at the gun and try to knock it away and there is nothing around me but open ground, so no help there either.
This is it, end of the line for you BRM... I close my eyes and a picture of my family jumps before me. I whisper a prayer and hope that it's a clean shot and it doesn't hurt...
I open my eyes and he is just looking at me. Then he moves his hand and puts the barrel in his mouth. The report is loud, but not as loud as I would have thought. I feel something wet hit me in the face as he falls to the ground. I can't move. I can't speak. I can feel someone shaking me.
I turn to see my partner is holding me by the shoulders, shaking me and saying something, but I can't hear him. I look back at the guy on the ground. His eyes are still open. The expression hasn't changed, still that blank stare.
Slowly my hearing seems to return and I hear approaching sirens and my partners voice, screaming at me now.
"I'm OK," I say. I remove his hands and wipe my face. My hand is red. I turn and walk back to the ambulance and sit on the tail board, my expression blank...
The entire event took less that 10 minutes.
BRM
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