Past midnight. A giant of a man stands by the open door of his twisted Buick blinded by the lights of the fire truck. He is bare-chested, blood streaming from his severely lacerated head. There is a hole in the windshield the size of a basketball. “I don’t need a collar,” he says, ripping off…
Month: November 2006
Stay Awake
Buy stock in ambulance companies. There is no way around it. There will always be ambulance transports. Talk all you want about treat and release. It’s not going to happen. Here are the problems. Liability. No body wants to take it. Plus people seem to like ambulance rides. There is a certain cachet about them….
Hit Me With Your Best Shot
My left deltoid is killing me. I can hardly lift my arm up. I got a flu shot last night. Needles don’t bother me. I took the PPD like a pro. The little tuberculin syringe into the right forearm. I hardly felt it. Then the nurse pulled out the flu shot needle. I wasn’t even…
The Edge of the World
It’s a cold rainy evening. We’ve been doing nothing but soaking wet drunks and third floor carry downs of heavy women. Dispatch pages us with a transfer from a local hospital to a town about thirty minutes away. I don’t like transfers except on cold rainy days. They beat doing MVAs in the rain, they…
Medical Priority Dispatch
I have written in the recent past about my frustrations with Medical Priority Dispatch (MPD), as well as the recent research that has been published pointing out its failings. The posts include Troublesome, Unformed Idea, Fair Enough and Dispatchers. Bryan E. Bledsoe, DO, FACEP, who has made a name for himself debunking EMS myths in…
Changing Season
People were out raking today or in many cases using their high-powered blowers to clear their lawns of the orange and red leaves still falling from the trees. They didn’t have those blowers when I was a kid. I’m lucky though, I have a small yard now and don’t get many leaves. The ones that…
Freedom
He is a young barrel-chested man in his thirties with a thick Russian accent. The cops found him asleep in his car outside his apartment building. They have ordered him to the hospital to sober up. “I love you,” he says to the burly officer. “Okay, fine, buddy,” the officer says. “Just go with them…