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Community CPR

December 19, 2011 By 2 Comments

So there I was, minding my own business, when we get toned out for a vehicle accident with “multiple victims”. On our way to the call, our MDT pops up with an update that “bystander CPR” is in progress. Had this have been on an interstate or any long stretch of road, I would have most likely been expecting some serious injuries and possibly a DOA. However, this was on a residential street.

We arrived on scene to find 2 vehicles involved. One was pulled off to the side with it’s flashers on, and the other – a late model Chevy Impala with large, chrome, custom rims and some “sparkly” purple paint – was completely blocking the street. Minor damage was noted to both vehicles. No airbag deployment, no passenger space intrusion, no skid marks, no blah blah blah blah found.

A glance to the left showed all occupants of vehicle #1 standing on the sidewalk. The driver was holding a cellphone to his head with one hand and rubbing his forehead with the other. A glance to the right revealed the driver of the Impala standing outside the passenger door, reaching in and pumping on the chest of the passenger yelling; “Don’t leave me bro! I can’t let you go like this!”. The passenger? Well, he too was yelling…….between chest compressions; “Stop – I’m – Not –  F*^$ing - Dead”.

We quickly intervened and ceased resuscitation efforts. The police also intervened and arrested our Good Samaritan on DUI charges. As we wheeled the passenger / blunt-trauma victim to the back of the ambulance, he shouted towards the police car “I love you bro! You saved my life!”

I don’t know about you, but I have a sneaking suspicion that this wasn’t what the American Heart Association had in mind they started promoting community CPR.

 


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So There I Was

November 30, 2010 By Leave a Comment

A recent post over at the “Notes From Mosquito Hill” blog reflected on a story of what happens when you violate rule #4 in my post about the “EMS Gods“. This of course compelled me to share my own story of what happens when you betray the almighty ones.

It was my first day as a paramedic. I had just received the long awaited call that informed me that the State of California had issued me a paramedic number and that my county card was available to be picked up at the office. I jumped up, put on some clothes and called into to work. This was actually supposed to be my day off, but I was excited to finally work a shift as a paramedic. I called our scheduler and had him put me in an overtime shift that started at 09:00. A quick stop by the county EMS office and I was official.

I arrived at work (45 minutes early), checked out my gear and waited for my partner to arrive. Even though I had been married to my protocol book for the last 570 hours of training, I still pulled it out and reviewed it one more time. For the first time, I was actually excited to hit the streets and use my newly acquired skills.

My partner showed up and we logged on over the radio. Just as I was running call scenarios through my mind, I was interrupted to hear that we were being assigned a long distance transfer that needed to be picked up within the hour.

“A long distance transfer? Are you F#$king kidding me? It’s my first day as a medic and they are going to assign me this horse sh*&?” I said this and many other phrases that I would soon regret. My tantrum was suddenly stopped with a message on our MDT that read “Are you really that upset about it?”. As it turns out, my knee was pressed up against our private channel mic for the whole company, including dispatch, to hear. “Well we just sealed our fate” muttered my partner, who I’m sure was just thrilled that he was assigned my car today.

Well the good news was, this transfer should have taken all day so I should have been safe from any real repercussions.

Not so much.

We arrived at the hospital to find out that we were taking a patient from the ICU that required a balloon pump, vent and 4 IV pumps. Not only did we not have the room for all that equipment, but there was no way in hell the nurse and RT that came with the patient was going to fit. After about 25 minutes of playing EMS Tetris, we managed to fit everyone and everything in it’s place.

About 2 minutes into our trip, the RT let out a sigh and said “this is a disaster, I should have stayed home”. I looked at him without saying a word and returned to my documentation.

I can see that me and him are going to get along JUST FINE……NOT

A couple minutes later, my favorite RT decided to voice his opinion once again. “Well let’s hope this poor bastard doesn’t code, because we can’t help him”.

“OK dude, if your are going to keep making comments, I’ll turn this rig around and drop you off at the hospital”, I replied.

Did I just say that? My mom would be proud….

After about 10 minutes of awkward silence, he decided to bring up the topic again. “Well think about it, we are packed in here like sardines, how do you plan on working this guy if he codes?”. I set down my paperwork and looked at him like my father would when I interrupted his morning reading of the almighty newspaper and said, “Well let’s see, you are going to bag through the ET tube that’s ALREADY IN PLACE, she’s going to take turns with me doing compressions, and we are going to pick one of the 6 ALREADY established IV lines to push drugs through. But since he’s stable for transport, I don’t think we need to worry”.

I was about 1 more comment away from either trading places with the patient or kicking the RT out the back door. This was of course until I had a bigger problem on my hands. About half way through the trip, my partner suddenly pulled over and vomited on himself. “Are you okay up there?” I yelled through the dividing window. “Yea, I just get car sick sometimes”.

Car sick? On a freeway? When your driving?

He assured me that he was well enough to finish driving, which I guess was a good thing as our nearest ambulance was now over an hour away. This was of course, better than than alternative that our RT gave us. “Let me up front, I’ll drive”, he demanded just before we headed back on the freeway.

Yea right pal, the last person I want in charge of our safety is you.

We made it to a hospital (notice I didn’t use the word “the”), drug out the gurney and all the gear all the way up to the ICU only to find that we drove to the wrong hospital. “I told you I should have drove”, mutters the RT. If I didn’t have the little ounce of self control that I did, he would have found himself with the word “Zoll” permanently imprinted on the side of his head.

We finally did get to the correct hospital and dropped off the patient without any further incident. So now came the much anticipated food stop on the way back to town. I hopped up front any told my partner to stop at the nearest Tommy’s burgers. I consider it a sin to pass on a Tommy’s chili-burger. We pulled up, I hopped out and opened the back door to let the nurse out. The RT stood up and managed to say “What? Tommy’s burgers??! I’m a vegitari….” before I could slam the back door shut. “He’ll be fine in there, let’s go”.

I learned a valuable and hard lesson on my very first call as a paramedic. Messing with the EMS gods never pays off.


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So there I was…

November 15, 2010 By 1 Comment

We were sitting at one of our usual posting locations around 9:30pm. We had been on shift for 4 1/2 hours and had yet to receive a call or a post move. This wasn’t unusual for this shift as at the time, I was assigned the first half of the week. Most of the excitement was enjoyed by our counterparts working the 2nd-half night shifts.

Up until now, there wasn’t anything spectacular about this evening. My partner and I were eating the same fast food, listening to the same talk-radio show and talking about the same BS as usual. We had no idea that we were about to get a critical lesson in customer service.

So there we were, parked in front of the same drug store that we usually park in front of, and sometimes shop around in during our hours of down-time. The night was quiet as could be until a blacked-out car pulled in front of the building. 3 men jumped out and one remained in the vehicle. They quickly put on ski-masks and 2 of them grabbed shotguns from the back seat.

I saw this and gave my partner the “check this sh*& out” punch to the shoulder. The look on his face was almost as entertaining as what we were seeing unfold.

Not wanting to become a target, we backed the unit up out of the way while we notified dispatch of the incident and requested for law enforcement to respond. Now the right thing to do would have been to leave the area immediately. But unfortunately, our curiosity over powered our common sense.

We watched the robbers storm into the store, and continued to watch the show through the large glass windows. They immediately ran to the cash registers, only to find that all of the employees were nowhere to be found. One guy ran up and down the isles, which I’m presuming was looking for an employee to operate the cash drawer. Another was keeping watch at the front door while the 3rd was frantically trying to figure out how to work the register.

The robbers now shared something in common with me and my partner. We had both now experienced the notoriously bad customer service that went along with the night shift at that store. Our silence broke when my partner said, “I can’t believe it. Their service is so bad, you can’t even find someone to rob”. We started laughing hysterically as the team finally gave up and fled to the car empty handed and took off.

We were interviewed by the police shortly after and confirmed our theory that the employees of the store really had no idea what just happened.

So what’s the moral of the story?

Bad customer service affects everyone, including criminals.


Filed Under: Humor, Stories Tagged With: , , ,

The impending feeling of doom

May 12, 2010 By 1 Comment

We respond code-2 to a residence for a complaint of a headache. As we walk inside the house, we see a man in his 40′s on floor holding his head. His wife and kids are sitting next to him, looking up at us for some kind of answer. She explains that he started complaining of a headache about 2 hours ago and it had progressively gotten to to point where he can’t function. He denies any recent head trauma, but confirms that he is feeling very nauseous.

As I kneel down next to him, I check his pulse to find that it is strong and regular and an acceptable rate. I ask him to sit up so I can do a neuro-assessment on him. He attempts to do so with much difficulty. My partner and I then notice that he is only using his right side to move around. We pick him up and carry him to the gurney. He continues to show deficit to the left side. He can’t squeeze my hands on with his left side and he has no sensation to that area.

Realizing that this is indeed a critical call, we quickly put him on oxygen and apply the ECG leads before moving out the door. “Is he going to be ok?” His wife asks as we move towards their front door. “Ma’am I can’t predict how his outcome is going to be, but he’s alert and stable right now. We are going to take him to **** Hospital and find out what’s causing the weakness. Please drive safe, we will take good care of him”.

As we load the patient into the ambulance, his wife and kid kiss him goodbye and we shut the doors. “Way to bullshit my family” he says as I switch his oxygen over to our main tank. “Excuse me?” I reply. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that in a bad way. I meant to say thank you for keeping them calm even though you know how bad this is”. I took a moment to think of what to say and told him that we didn’t know how bad his condition was yet and that everything could be fine. “Look man, I’m a doctor and I know damn well that I’m having a bleed” He says. “You don’t know that yet. Let’s take this one step at a time and just focus on getting you to the hospital safely” I reply as I’m checking his blood sugar and starting his IV.

I made my radio report and told the patient that we are 10 minutes out from the hospital. “Thanks for everything you have done, but we both know this is the end of the road for me. Please let my wife and son come back to the ER with me…..I wan’t to say goodbye before it’s too late”. I defensively replied, “Don’t talk that man! Even if you have a bleed, I’m sure that we caught it in time. Your still alert and oriented, they may be able to get you to surgery and start relieving the pressure if that’s the case”. “Whatever you say kid” he says as he leans his head back and stares at the roof of the ambulance.

We have arrived at the ER. His wife and son follow us as we place him in his bed. I take caution to give my report to the nurse away from the family. When I returned to gather signatures I hear him telling his wife that he is going to die tonight and that he’s sorry he waited so long to get help. “Hey!” I interrupt. “Don’t talk like that! You haven’t even been evaluated by the ER doc yet. We are all here to do everything we can to make sure you don’t die!” He thanked me for taking good care of him and wished me a safe shift.

Several hours later I transported another patient to the same hospital. While I was outside cleaning the gurney and getting ready to clear, his wife comes up and informs me that he died an hour ago. I gave her a long hug and asked if there was anything she needed. “You already did everything. You took care of him and us……that’s all that matters”.


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And that's why I do this job

March 13, 2010 By 10 Comments

I just finished reading a great post on Jeramedic’s Blog about his first true save in the field. The whole time I was reading it, I couldn’t help but remember my first. Fortunately Jeremiah got to see the save right before his eyes. I had gotten pulses back in the field, but I knew (or thought) the downtime was to long for her to have any real neuro activity. I actually left the hospital sure that she wasn’t going to make it. That’s where this story gets good.

I was teaching an EMT class at the local college one night. The semester had just started and I having the students introduce themselves and explain why they want to become an EMT. After 20 minutes of the usual “I need this for my job” or “I want to be a firefighter”, a student asked to share a story if I didn’t mind. I encouraged him to take all the time he needs.

He walked up front and told the story of how he witnessed his mom collapse and go into cardiac arrest. He talked about how he didn’t know what to do and how scared he was. Then he started to explain what happened once the ambulance showed up. As his story went on, I started paying closer attention. This sounded familiar…..very familiar. After he told his story, I excused myself from the class for a minute and called a break. I made a call to my dispatch center and asked to reference the last name and see if any patient’s were run for a cardiac arrest in the last year. Just as I suspected, I ran his mom a little over a year ago. I was the paramedic that he was talking about.

Not quite sure how to approach this, I asked to speak to him in private. I thanked him for sharing the story and broke the news. He immediately teared up and gave me a big hug and thanked me over and over again. He went back in the class and announced to everyone that I was paramedic that saved his moms life. Everyone clapped for a good few minutes. I was full of emotion and didn’t really know how to act at that point. He went on to tell everyone that this is the very reason he wanted to become an EMT and eventually become a paramedic. I couldn’t believe it. I had inspired someone to do this job without even knowing.

He asked if I would be willing to share my side of the story, to which I did. I started from the point where we were dispatched an explained the series of events up until we reached the hospital. I watched tears come to everyones eyes and it wasn’t until that point that I truly understood why I do this job.


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What do I look like?

February 19, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Let’s rewind back a number of years to the first week of my paramedic internship. I thought I had it all figured out. 400 maybe 500 hours and I was going to be off to take my registry test and get my license. The first call of the day is a motorcycle down. My preceptor informs me that I am running the call alone. Its sink or swim time. “No problem, I got this” I say through the window tha seperates the cab from the patient compartment.

We get on scene to find an intoxicated biker standing in the roadway talking to law enforcement. They don’t want him to go by ambulance as they are arresting him for dui. The officer asks me to evaluate him and make sure he is ok to go by squad car. I walk up to the man and ask “what’s going on?”

“I got bit by a shark” he replies.

Sean – “very funny, are you hurt?”
Patient – “you tell me”
Sean – “are you having any pain?”
Patient – “am I getting billed for this?”
Sean – “only if you are transported”
Patient – “then I’m not going”
Sean – “do you know where you are?”
Patient – (he tells me the cross streets)
Sean – “what is the date today?”
Patient – (tells me a date that is off by a couple days)
Sean – “what does that man look like over there?”
Patient – “a cop”
Sean – “what do I look like?”
Patient – “a dumbass”
My preceptor – “well sounds like he’s alert and oriented to me!”


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