In a recent post I wrote about the movie Asphalt City and how many of the calls were reminiscent of my own. The only exception being when there was an asthmatic trapped in a burning house, I never went into the house to intubate the patient, I waited for fire (in full gear with respirators) to bring the patient out to me where I intubated her on the lawn. While the movie, which I quite liked, was full of action that we see in EMS, it didn’t give a full picture of what a paramedic’s day can be like. I don’t blame the directors/writers here as the movie is supposed to be entertaining and gripping and all too often, the life of a paramedic is filled with tedium. Case in point – yesterday.
I worked 10 hours in the city. Here are my calls (details changed slightly for HIPPA purposes).
Respond lights and siren to overdose in car. Arrive to find person who called 911 say the overdosed patient woke up and walked into apartment building. Clear scene.
Respond light and sirens for GI bleed on third floor. Arrive to find patient walking downstairs with fire department. Patient describes bleeding whenever he uses bathroom. Was at hospital several days ago for same problem. Diagnosed with hemorrhoids. Requests transfer to hospital several towns away. Taken there, triaged to waiting room.
Respond lights and sirens for low blood sugar. Find patient with iPhone in his hand, stating his blood sugar was 134, but it has dropped to 125. She is very concerned and nervous. Says she ate a bagel an hour ago. She has no symptoms. We explain a blood sugar of 125 an hour after eating a bagel is normal. Encourage her to call her doctor who just gave her this new device to get retrained in how to use it. We tell her to call us if she has any symptoms. Clear no transport.
Respond lights and sirens for chest pain in apartment building. Find healthy female who said she had a brief 15 second episode of shortness of breath and chest tightness. Has no medical history of note. Had a friend who died this week of cardiac arrest while on a train. She is worried the same could happen to her. She wants to get checked out. 12-lead ECG is normal. Transported to hospital, triaged to waiting room.
Respond with flow of traffic to apartment building for welfare check. Fire department helps open apartment door. No one home. Neighbor says she called 911 because she hadn’t seen him all day. Second neighbor says ambulance took him to hospital that morning.
Respond lights and sirens for chest pain. Find 60-year-old woman who ran out of her Seroquel yesterday and wants to get more. Patient denies any chest pain. Says she has a headache. 12-lead ECG is normal. Taken to hospital triaged to waiting room.
In between these six calls we do a lot of driving from post to post. In one hour and a half period, we travel six times between two posts, one in the city, one in a neighboring town.
We get off an hour after shift change due to late call.
An old medic I know once called our job, “Boredom punctuated by moments of terror and chaos.” He said “we get paid, not for what we do each day, but what we might have to do.”
Yesterday was boring and the only thing I had to do strenuously was crawl all the way under the ambulance in the dark, when I accidently dropped my radio coming out of a scene and it bounced under the ambulance. I retrieved it adeptly for a man of my age.
Not the stuff of movies yesterday, but at least the company’s checks are good at the bank.