Category: ems-topics

It was on TV, on the radio and the following article in the paper: Officer Praised In Saving Baby City police officials are praising one of their North End beat officers, saying his quick actions saved a baby’s life over the weekend. Officer X, a year veteran of the Police Department, was on foot patrol…

15 month old not breathing. You rush out to the ambulance, buckle yourself in, and as you flip through your field guide to read the recommended ET tube size for the age and the epi dose, you wait for them to update you. Child is breathing. Child choked on some milk, but is alert and…

Most ER’s require you to punch in a code to get in the ambulance entrance. The near universal code is 911*. Sometimes it’s a little bit of a pain if you have a serious patient, and have to stop and fiddle with the keypad or if it is raining and the hospital doesn’t have an…

Lady had a syncopal episode on the toilet, hit her head and sustained a lac above her eye. She crawled to the phone and called her neighbor, who came over and helped her call her doctor, who said she should go to the hospital. She checks out okay. Vitals are good, skin warm and dry,…

We are sent on a priority one for severe pain at a nursing home. The home is in the southern end of one of our satellite towns — not a facility where we routinely respond. It is pouring rain and we race up the driveway and park under the awning. As we are pulling our…

Called for a possible stroke. Find a middle aged woman lethargic, skin very warm, blood sugar reads HI, which means over 600. Delayed capillary refill. Pressure 76/40. Heart rate on the monitor – 120. Respiratory rate in the low 30’s. Can’t get a SAT. History of IDDM and a kidney transplant, with subsequent infection problems….

Ahead we see two state police cars and two private vehicles pulled over on the left side of the highway. Down in the gulley of the median, I can see the rear end of a car sticking out of the trees and bushes. The men near the car suddenly look frantic. A large man is…

I work 12 hours (noon to midnight)with one of my old partners, who I don’t get to work with much anymore. We have a good laugh right off the back with our first call. Our patient is being transfered from intensive care to a rehab hospital. She has a trach and is on a vent…

Busy day, five calls all in a row, three transports and two refusals. My ambulance is down for service so I’m working in another one. The medic who works in that one reguarly has the cabinets locked with pull ties so he doesn’t have to check the shelves unless they’re broken. I check my gear…

We took a dialysis patient back to his nursing home. I was surprised when my partner told me the guy was only 55. He seemed much older. He’d had a stroke and couldn’t communicate. His body was all contracted and he seemed in pain, whenever we moved him like he may have had bed sores….

I am set to depart on a medical mission to the Dominican Republic as part of a 33 member surgical team headed into the mountains to bring medical care to the poor of San Jose de Las Matas. Packing for a place you have never been is difficult, particularly when it is an impoverished area….

We get called for a violent psych at the juvenile school. Wait for PD, our dispatcher tells us. A violent psych at the juvenile school. The last violent psych I had at a juvenile school was a fifty pound ten-year-old who was standing up on top of the cabinents in the principal’s office jumping up…

4:00 A.M. Twenty-two hours into a twenty-four hour shift. The tones go off for the third time that night. They send us for an unconcious man. It is an address we were at the previous afternoon — a lift assist for a man who’s wife needed help lifting him off the toilet because he felt…

A forty-five year old man lays slumped against the storefront of the Erotic Palace. He is out cold, drooling. He clearly has done some drinking from the smell of his breath. Doesn’t respond to a sternal rub. We take his jacket off so we can get access to his arms. No track marks. He is…

Last night I went to a going away party for an old partner of mine. I was glad there was a good turnout. In EMS people work at a place for years. They come in to work everyday, work long hours, and give it their best. They become a part of the life, of the…

A guy escapes from a mental hospital, hitchhikes to his friend’s house, then sits on the porch waiting for the friend to get home. Suddenly, he starts to feel his neck tighten up, and his face and arms. he can’t move them. Panicking, he staggers out into the road, lurching in and out of traffic,…

Guy goes to the paint store, buys some white paint. Driving back to his mother’s house in the north end of the city he is driving through a green light when bam. He gets slammed by a car being chased by the police. The other car rolls. A fire hydrant is hit. Water sprays everywhere….

A three year-old hits his head. The cops are questioning the mother when we get there. It looks like an accident. The kid just banged his head. He didn’t lose conciousness — he just hurts when he moves his head. His mother has to be six two and well over four hundred pounds — she…

It’s been snowing all day — a blizzard. Eight or nine inches on the ground already. Now it’s night and I’m hungry, so we drive out through the snow to get a hot pizza. At the pizza shop, I notice a grey faced woman say hello to me as I go in the door, then…