For many of us in EMS, our origin story began with watching the TV show Emergency. The decent paramedics Johnny and Roy, the wise Drs. Brackett and Early, and the beautiful unflappable nurse, Dixie McCall. Together they stood for all that was good in the world. They were role models for us in showing us…
Xylazine, a horse tranquilizer, has been increasingly found as an adulterant in the East Coast street supply of fentanyl. In 2019 in Connecticut, xylazine and fentanyl were found together in 71 overdose deaths. There were 141 deaths of this combination in 2020, and in 2021, through August with still many cases outstanding, the number…
I came to work the other day and saw a chilling site in the parking lot. Ambulance 911 — the ambulance that was assigned to me for many years when I worked the 5:30-17:30 shift, the ambulance that had been my EMS home — sat battered and wrecked in a line with other battered and…
You’re called to an urgent care center on a priority one. The nurse is holding the front door of the center open for you and directs you back to a treatment room, where a PA and another nurse are providing ventilations to a two year-year-old. The story they tell you is the the child fell…
Instead of following the same failed policies, if we are serious about lessening the deaths and ending the slaughter of far too many Americans, we need a new approach.
No one ever said being a medic was easy. Do the best you can. Know your protocols. Use sedation with caution. Act on your patient’s behalf.
800,000 Americans dead since 2000. No end in sight. People are dying because they use alone and their drug supply is contaminated. In the age of fentanyl, every bag or counterfeit pill bought on the street could contain a lethal dose. Stopping fentanyl at the border isn’t going to work. The War on Drugs (Interdiction…
Many years ago, a paramedic I know who worked for another company got into a spat with a nurse at a dialysis center. I don’t know the details of the spat. It sounded like nothing more than two people in a bad mood snapping at each other. Nothing that occurred resulted in a suspension or…
Tim was working for the company when I started. As tall as me and twice as broad, he was a strong EMT — a good lifter, quiet sense of humor, hard worker, gentle with patients. And if he was standing behind you, no one would think of causing trouble. One night fifteen years ago, he…
In 2012, I wrote a series called Street Lessons, but I could just as well call it any of the following: Things They Didn’t Teach Me in Paramedic School Things They Might have Taught Me in Paramedic School, but I Was on a Bathroom Break. Oh Shit! Things I Learned The Hard Way Trial and…
I am pleased to announce the relaunch of my blog on a new server. I began this blog almost 20 years ago on the blogger network. Quite a number of years ago, I was recruited to move my blog over to an EMS network, which I did in hopes it would increase my viewership. They…
We used to (25 years ago) pick Darryl up every night around 10:00 PM. He’d call from the pay phone on Barbour Street. He was drunk and cold and wanted a ride to the hospital where they would put him in the waiting room and he would fall asleep in one of the chairs. He…
“Falsehood flies, and truth comes limping after it, so that when men come to be undeceived, it is too late; the jest is over, and the tale hath had its effect.”- Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels *** This week, the San Diego County Sherriff’s Department posted a video purporting to be a deputy overdosing after minimal contact with fentanyl…
I was a new paramedic. The senior medic briefed me. They took two guys out of a basement apartment with high carbon monoxide readings after a dryer caught on fire. Ones already on the way to the hospital for evaluation. Your patient is the guy over by the building door arguing with the police officer. …
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…
These are two old Christmas posts I wrote years ago, reposted now. *** Fifteen on the Scale It’s Christmas eve. We get called to one of the local nursing homes for rib pain. The room number sounds familiar. As we wheel our stretcher through the lobby, “Good King Wencelous” plays through the speakers. Gently shone…
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…