By all accounts, the opioid overdose epidemic is getting worse. A recent study published in JAMA which analyzed emergency department visits (ED) found overdoses were up 29% from March to October of 2020 versus the same period for the previous year. Opioid overdoses 29% higher in 2020 than before the pandemic: Study Fatal Unintentional Drug…
As I approach the house with my medic pack over my shoulder and my monitor and isolation bag in my hands, two boys, maybe fifteen or sixteen, stand on the sidewalk out front of the building, and look at me expectantly. “He’s not alive? Is he? Is he still alive?” the shorter one asks. I…
When I am in the rapid response paramedic fly car, I usually always arrive on scene, before the fire department, before the police, before the ambulance. (Unless, I am requested to stage for a violent psych or an assault if the assailant is still believed to be on scene). I carry with me my paramedic…
I just watched a fantastic and very thoughtful lecture of pediatric cardiac arrest given by Dr. Peter Antevy as part of the Refresh2021 free national registry program, which I encourage everyone in EMS to sign up for. Register for Refresh 2021 When I precepted as a paramedic in 1995, my preceptor told me when we had a…
I wrote this post on Thanksgiving 2005. *** It’s Thanksgiving morning. I awake at 5:10, shower and dress, then open up the garage door to see a couple inches of snow on the ground. It’s beautiful, but I hate winter, hate the cold weather, hate driving in snow. When I get to the base, I can see…
This week I received in the mail special glasses I ordered from the back of an old comic book. They enable me to see COVID. He is a tiny little green monster with a coat of suction cups. He is not just one fellow, but an army of millions of little green monsters. I sit…
Twenty-seven years ago, in a retaliatory shooting, a man in Hartford’s north end opened fire with an automatic weapon, killing his target. He was sentenced to fifty years in prison. He left at home a baby daughter, *** I get called for the unconscious. I arrive first and climb windy wooden stairs to the third…
Welfare check. The superintendent lets us in. The apartment is a poor man’s hoarderville, open boxes and dirty clothes stacked as high as the unwashed dishes in the sink. The man is sitting at a table with his head in his hands; a chess board in front of him. For a moment, I fear he…
Friday night in the city on a dead end street. Light beams out of the ambulance’s open back doors. Inside the EMT spreads a clean white sheet on the black stretcher mattress. He hits the exhaust button on the wall, and then exits from the side doors. My masked patient steps up into the back where…
On the Sunday morning sidewalkWishing, Lord, that I was stoned‘Cause there’s something in a SundayMakes a body feel alone.“Sunday Morning Coming Down” – Kris Kristofferson Twenty-six people in Connecticut died of overdoses on the four Sundays of this past April. Twenty-one males. Five females. One was aged 15-24, eight were 25-34, six 35-44, four 45-54,…
I am on my stomach intubating, staring down the throat of a still warm body, looking at the vocal chords. COVID is invisible, but I imagine him there behind the folds, taunting me, giving me double barreled middle fingers, then unleashing a dragon’s breath torrent of viral load, a hot water cannon of death and…
There is a cartoon hero named Narcania created by the same guy who wrote Lil’Dope Fiend Overdose Prevention Guide. In the mini comix, Narcania rescues people who have overdosed and gives them new life. As one character who has been resuscitated remarks, “I don’t know if there is anything worth living for, but at least now,…
The Hartford Courant this week noticed what most everyone else around here has– panhandlers are on nearly every corner of big intersections these days. Many carry the standard signs drawn on ripped cardboard “Homeless and Hungry.” Some wear masks, others don’t. Some make eye contact, others look down at their feet. They almost universally say…
Years ago, I did all of my writing at a desk in a lonely room. I would write on yellow legal pads and then when I had something, I would type it out on my portable smith corona. When my daughter was little, I showed her my old typewriter and she was fascinated with it….
In Connecticut, when EMS responds to an opioid overdose, after they have taken the patient to the hospital, accepted a refusal, or presumed a patient dead, they are required to contact the state poison control center and answer a series of questions about the overdose. The program, known as SWORD (Statewide Opioid Reporting Directive), that…
I heard today that Opiant, the company behind the 4 mg Narcan Intranasal spray, is at work on a new product to combat opioid overdose — Intranasal Nalmefene. Nalmefene Nasal Spray Nalmefene is an FDA approved medication to reverse opioid overdoses when used intravenously. It has yet to be approved in a nasal form suitable for…
We are told to keep six feet of distance from each other, but how effective is this the distance in preventing the spread of COVID-19? The answer may well be, yes, it helps, but it is not the full answer. In a new article published in the British medical Journal provides a fuller view of…
In 2013, I wrote a post called Get Another Job. Here’s how it went: We were dropping off a regular patient at one of the hospitals the other day. A chronic PCP user. The “crusty” old nurse in the psych ward threw a fit complaining that she had just dealt with him two nights before. The…
For over twenty-five years I was a full time street medic. I have been part-time now for only a few months. I have tried to work at least 20 hours a week, but there have been a couple of weeks when I have only worked once, and one week where I did not work at…
From 2012-2014, I kept up a blog called A Paramedic’s Guide to Take out in Hartford. I haven’t updated it since then, but am considering doing so. In the meantime, I came across this old entry called Bizarre Foods Hartford, and since all five restaurants are still operating (open for carryout), I thought I’d post…