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…
Que Sera Sera
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….
One Day at a Time
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….
For What We Might Do
A medic I know likes to say we don’t get paid for what we do every day, we get paid for what we might have to do. This is the second day in a row, I haven’t done squat. I had a lady with a nose bleed this morning and an MVA refusal this afternoon….
Sleepy Boy or Fetch My Dart Gun
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…
Your Honor
There’s an article in the paper this morning about a family suing an ambulance company because the ambulance allegedly got stuck in the mud while at the scene where a family member — a previously healthy young man had collapsed while running. The article also reports that the ambulance arrived within minutes of the collapse…
At Bay
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…
I’m Walking
I had the day off today so this morning I went to a Jamaican church in the north end of the city. I arrived late and was escorted by chance to the front row just as the lead vocalist and gospel choir started singing “Highway to Heaven,” which was great because I knew the song,…
The Gift
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…
Someone Else's Name
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…
Escaped Mental Patient
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,…
Don't Quit the Day Job
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….
My Sunshine/Little Daddy
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…
Modern Medicine
“Did you hear what happened to Art?” “No?” Art is my old partner. I am a little concerned by the urgency of the question. “He had an MI.” “What?” “He had an MI.” “Is he okay? What happened?” “He wasn’t feeling well. He and his partner were at the hospital. They’d just dropped a patient…
Anthropophagi
an•thro•poph•a•gi — Pronunciation: (an”thru-pof’u-jī”, -gī”). She has beautiful blue eyes, a slender woman with long blonde hair who looks like at one time she was very pretty, but she has been sleeping on a mattress in a house that smells like urine. She says she has back pain and has been hurting too much to…
An Encounter
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…
Compressions
Last night one of our long-time members came in at ten to relieve the on duty crew. He has been an EMT for over twenty years and helps teach the EMT class here in the suburbs. He heard about the code we did yesterday and talked to the new kid about it. “I wanted to…
49 Years
The man is breathing like a fish cast up on land. He is quiet, then with all the effort of his chest, he gasps. He’s quiet, then he gasps again. His wife says he started losing conciousness an hour ago. He has terminal lung cancer. It has all been very quick. It started with back…
Credit
I’m precepting a nice young man who is very on the ball. He knows his protocols better than I do. I ask him the dose for Cardizem. He rattles it out. .25mg/kg first dose. .35mg/kg second dose after fifteen minutes if the first dose didn’t work. Once the rate slows, you run a drip at…
Ruby
We’re called for a fall at a private home. When we pull up my partner says he’s been here before. He gets on the radio and cancels the district car. “What if she’s a big lady and we need a lift?” “She’s a little thing,” he says. We go to the front door. It’s locked….