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…
Category: EMS in City
A Simple Dream
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…
Help is Always Right
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…
Trapped
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…
Bizarre Foods Hartford
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…
The Chair
Last week, (due to medic vacations) the company put me into a volunteer town as the paid paramedic (on an ambulance staffed with volunteers) for my shifts. Many years ago, I worked three days a week in the same town in addition to three days of overtime in the city back in the days when…
Forced Sedation
Interesting article on NBC news about the use of ketamine for sedating patients in police custody. Elijah McClain was injected with ketamine while handcuffed. Some medical experts worry about its use during police calls. The reporter centers the story around the tragic case of Elijah McClain, who was apparently walking down the street, wearing a…
A Complaint
I was accused of being racist. This was about fifteen years ago. At the time my main assignment was working as a contract paramedic for a volunteer service in Bloomfield, a volunteer town to the north of Hartford that like Hartford had a predominantly black population. I was working that day with a black partner/friend…
Kevin Andrews
With all that is going on these days, I thought of Kevin Andrews, one of my first partners in EMS. I first posted this in January of 2011. *** In EMS, we cannot help but be shaped by our earliest partners. They are the ones who show us the way. I was lucky in that…
Wild
Many years ago, I watched a long video of a police scene in California, where a man who was reported to be on “angel dust” (PCP), was being held down by police officers. The officers chatted among themselves while the camera focused in on the man who was pleading for help. I watched as the…
I Can’t Breathe
I have heard many people say “I can’t breathe.” Sometimes the people are full of it, other times they are dying. I have also heard the response line, “You’re talking fine.” I’ve heard EMS say it and I’ve heard police say it. On May 25, 2020 , George Floyd said to officer Derek Chauvin, I…
Ghost
Death in a Nursing Home We’re called for a child not breathing. The address is a convalescent home. It makes no sense. Then we pull up. There is a car parked askance by the entrance, two front doors and a back door open. The engine still running. In the front lobby two nurses and a…
Water
The next drug to add to the EMS formulary should be water. That’s right. H20. How many times have you been on a call and the patient has asked for water only to be told by every EMS responder in the room, “No! You can’t drink anything!” Really? The reason we don’t let people drink…
How We Feel Versus What Dispatch Hears
It has been busy at work lately and the crews have been getting pounded. An EMT posted this video (found on the internet) on our employee Facebook page. I laugh every time I think of it. If you have never worked commercial EMS in a high volume system, you might not appreciate it. I can…
Fountain
In Connecticut we are in the midst of hospital wars. It is a very competitive market and all of the hospitals fight to attract patients. You can see it on the billboards that line Interstates 91 and 84 with hospitals proclaiming themselves the best at heart care, stroke, trauma care or declaring they are the…
Murals of Hartford
I have been writing much lately about sorrow and despair in Hartford, so I thought I would take a break, and lifting my eyes up from the heroin bags on the ground, look at some of the beauty of Hartford as seen on the city’s murals.
Election Day
A 10-year-old girl was shot in the face in Hartford yesterday. She wasn’t walking down the street or riding a school bus, she was in her own home when the bullets raked through the front door. She doesn’t live on a busy street like Park Street or Albany Avenue where criminal activity can be going…
The Wolf and the Sheepdog
In the Looney tunes cartoon, Ralf E. Wolf and Sam the Sheepdog go to work each morning, exchanging greetings while punching the clock. “Morning, Ralph,” the dog says. “Morning, Sam,” the wolf replies. Then it is down to business. The wolf spends his hours trying to steal the sheep and the sheepdog spends his hours…
Park Street
I only went to one heroin overdose this week and one PCP overdose. The heroin overdose was on Park Street in the South end and the PCP was on Capen in the north end. You get get called for an overdose on Park Street and it is pretty much always heroin. You get called for…
Cat Burglar
One of my greatest joys on the job is the opportunity to play cat burglar. By this I do not mean the opportunity to break into homes to steal jewelry and works of art. I am talking about the chance to break into homes to rescue people (with police permission). The person has fallen and…