We get sent for a choking downtown. We find the fire department standing around a guy on a low cement wall that is part of the landscaping. A tree looms over him. Even in the dusk I can see the man is purple. He looks dead. I am about to say, check for a pulse…
Roommates
A woman in a nursing home is in severe respiratory distress. History of COPD. Her lungs are decreased with an expiratory wheeze. Her SATs are in the 80’s. The nurse’s aide who gives me her paperwork says she is a DNR, but the papers haven’t been signed by her doctor yet. I give the patient…
Variance
I’ve been playing poker seriously for over five years. When I say seriously, I don’t mean I play for big money, I mean that I am a student of the game. I read books about it, discuss the game with friends, run simulations, constantly try out new strategies. I started out playing in the local…
Honey, I Love You
I come in at six and find the night crew is out on a call. A few minutes later they clear their scene with a refusal, but then are dispatched to a possible dead body/overdose at a local business. They ask me to respond in the second ambulance to meet them there in case it…
Homer Jones
We get sent for a premature baby difficulty breathing. Lights and sirens response. A minute later we get the update we want to hear, “Baby breathing normally.” We arrive to find a twenty-three-day-old baby sleeping comfortably on his mother’s knee. She tells us he was born seven weeks prematurely. For about a minute his head…
It is Unethical
230 lb guy slips in the shower, lands on his shoulder. When we get there he is in extreme pain and has an obviously deformed shoulder. It is either fractured, dislocated or both. What do you do for pain? Morphine. Okay, now here’s the catch. The location is a drug and alcohol rehab clinic, the…
School’s Out/ The Grasshopper and The Ants
I love being a paramedic, but I periodically wonder about the future. How long can I continue in this field? Will my back hold up? Will 70-80 hours a week of work destroy my life? Will there continue to be 70-80 hours of work a week available for me? What will happen to me when…
Viva Las Vegas
I’m on the Strip in Las Vegas. A volcano erupts in front of the Mirage, giant spumes of electrical lava shoot up into the night sky. Outside Treasure Island, an attacking pirate ship blasts it cannons, setting the rigging of a merchant ship on fire. I’m walking across the street when I hear a loud…
Dead is Dead (Or Is it?)
We get dispatched for a report of a man unresponsive in a locked car, covered with blood. Priority One. My partner and I speculate as we head out lights and sirens toward the address in the neighboring town, a street lined with cheap hotels, where many marginal people rent by the week. We both think…
Here’s to You!
A week or so ago I wrote an entry called “A Remarkably Heroic Feat.” It was about a police officer credited for saving a baby’s life by performing mouth to mouth on what appeared to be a child who had suffered a fairly typical febrile seizure, which may briefly convince a layperson that the patient…
Ritual
I drove up to Boston, left my car at my friend’s house, then took the train in to North Station, then took the T to Kenmore. Met my buddy at Boston Beerworks, and we drank several pitchers of beer while we got caught up. We do this two or three times a year. We tell…
Remarkly Heroic Feat
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…
Funeral Procession
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…
Open Sesame
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…
Hurt
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,…
Left Lateral Femoral Condoyle
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…
Stud? or Idiot?
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….
"Where's My Son?"
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…
Check it! Check it Out!
The guy sits on the cement floor when we enter the warehouse. Co-workers kneel on either side of him, holding his hands. There are tears coming down his cheeks. “What happened?” I ask. “The beam dropped on his boot.” The co-worker points to a twenty-foot long steel beam that lays nearby under a hoist, but…
Old Partners
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…