Spent a week in Jamaica. It was my third time there, but the first time I stayed outside of an all-Inclusive resort. This time I really got to see the country and to “eat the fruit off the tree.” I grew grey-whiskered stubble on my face, listened to reggae music, swam in the ocean and…
Tincture of Chicken Soup
I have been a big advocate of pain relief for patients. All the studies show that patients are consistently undermedicated both prehospitally and in the ER. Pain relief is something we can do that makes a huge difference for the patient. We can take care of their pain. I try to be as aggressive as…
Problems Associated with the Determination of Carbon Dioxide by Infrared Absorbtion
I apologize again for the lack of a post for the last two weeks. I have been very busy and have had too much to write, and so haven’t written anything. The title above refers to a study I was trying to find this morning as I researched a question raised to me by a…
Safe
It’s raining. The Saab comes around the corner and sees a car pull out ahead of it. The driver turns to the right. Immediately the car begins to hydroplane. Ahead is a telephone pole. We are dispatched to a MVA at a familiar location – a known bad corner. It is ten minutes before crew…
Electricity
The call is for a man’s defibrillator going off. When we arrive, it has gone off four times already. I put him on the monitor. “No wonder,” I say. “It looks like v-tach” to me. Then all of a sudden, he cries out as his whole body convulses in pain. (The artifact was caused by…
Meetings
Worn Down
At a doctor’s office, there is a man in his 80’s with a BP of 70, dizzy, not feeling well for two days. I take his pressure — 68/34. He is pale and gray and does not look well. His capnography number is in the low to mid twenties, showing poor perfusion. I do a…
Transfers
When I started in EMS paramedics rarely did transfers. Out of twenty cars, maye six were medic. Sometimes only two. One of my first partners used to get very upset if we were even dispatched to an ETOH. We were to be kept back for the bad ones. Who you work with, particuarly when you…
39 Medical Diagnoses
60-year-old female (a frequent flyer know to us) with low temp this am (87.6 –Shouldn’t they have maybe taken it twice to see if that was really what they got?) and low blood sugar(given 2 mg glucagon by nursing staff at 6 AM), now this afternoon (5 PM) has high blood sugar (400) and a…
Crash
I’m in the back, helping my preceptee with an IV. I repositon the catheter to get a blood flow, and then pull out the needle, occluding the vein with my left hand while I reach for the saline lock. All of a sudden we are decelerating and I start sliding to my right, and I…
Snow
The snow is coming down in near white out conditions. At one point we lose the road the snow bank kicking up snow that completely obliterates our view through the windshield. We arrive at a townhouse apartment complex where we have been called for an unresponsive diabetic. Carrying our blue house bag, heart monitor, and…
You Never Know
We’re called for chest pain at the court house. We question whether it is a case of “Jailitis.” We find the patient sitting in the lobby on a bench surrounded by marshals and firefighters. It is a young man – twenty-five. My first reaction is he is a prisoner, but then I realize he is…
Suffering in the World
We are sent to a detox center for a diabetic. We find a sixty-year old Puerto Rican with a blood sugar over 600, although he has no complaint. He has come to the center to kick his heroin habit. But first now he will have to go to the ER to get his sugar under…
Grand Central Station
I walk through the ER. There are beds in the hallway. I step aside as a tech pushes a portable X-Ray machine past. I call a greeting to a nurse who steps out of a room carrying an IV tray. In another room a doctor intubates an extremely large patient. The intercom pages a cleaning…
ECG Changes
It’s pouring rain and we get called for anxiety. 40 year old female sits in her kitchen holding her chest saying it feels heavy. We ask if she has been under stress and she says, “You don’t want to know.” But she has never felt a pressure like this before and she says it feels…
Carolina Tall Tale
I’m working on the computer when we get the call. I am in fact in the middle of downloading a program. Bad timing. There is no way I can wait for the download to finish. I decide to just minimize the window amd leave it at that. Only when we are on the way to…
Out! — I Mean Safe! — Legacy of an Ear
A number of years ago, one of our ambulances was involved in an MVA. The EMT in the back went flying forward and banged his head against the cabinets and sliced his ear against a sharp edge. When he regained conciousness, his ear was just hanging there. Shortly after, he recieved (I believe) a prosthetic…
Good as New
An old woman in a group home slips and hits her knee. She mutters “I broke my leg, I broke my leg” so her aides call us. We find her sitting on the floor. I ask her how she is. She mutters, “broke my leg, broke my leg.” But she didn’t break her leg. There…
Call 911
Ruby has been taking care of old Mrs. Johnson for seven years. This afternoon she finds Mrs. Johnson has been a little too quiet, even for a 93-year old. And she just won’t wake up. Her skin is cool, and she doesn’t respond to the throat rub that the doctor taught Ruby to do whenever…
Paramedic Journal: A Year on the Streets
A year ago I started another EMS blog, called Paramedic Journal: A Year on the Streets.It was my intention to only record “a year” of being a medic, so anyone interested in knowing what the day to day life of a medic was like could have a reference. In Paramedic Journal the entries are rougher…