Saturday night, in the heat of a passionate venting session, I opened my big fat mouth and said “It’s not like I have been on any calls anyway.” Let me assure you, what you are thinking is exactly what happened.
The first tones went off about 7:30am. An elderly man was transported non-emergent to the hospital. Consequently, our backup squad was called to pick him up from the hospital as our first one was backing into the bay. Nice. Thankfully, that was not me who had to go pick him up and I enjoyed a nice breakfast with a friend (and sank an nice 18 on the first shot).
The second set went off about, oh I’d say half past inhaling my lunch. Damn. Off I go. Same campus, different facility. Again, I got out of transporting and instead did some paperwork that had been backlogged back at the station. I also discovered that our first responder unit was running solely on battery power as the alternator was d-e-d. As in, too late to call the priest, he’s already gone, dead.
After that debacle it was about dinner time. Off to a local establishment where I was enjoying my bacon cheeseburger and seasoned waffle fries. Finish that off with my ice cold coke. It was a little piece of heaven for a moment. Alas, call #3. Unknown medical. Apparently, they forgot the medical term for no pulse.
This call included:
1: “stretcher surfing” by yours truly, which I must say sucks. If you do intend to do this, do not raise the stretcher so high that the surfer has to stand on their tippy toes on a 2” rail. Good thing my mad gymnastic skillz from high school helped me maintain my balance.
2: Becoming the recipient of the largest bruise I have ever had which coincidentally now resides on my left butt cheek as that was the side that hit the doorway at mach-code.
3: Copious amount of vomit. Better yet, un-Earthly amounts of vomit which resembled tomato soup made with milk, with melted cheese and soggy saltine crackers. I am gagging as I type this.
4: A paramedic yelling “For the love of God, stop compressions.” See #3.
5: And of course, my first termination en-route to the hospital.
The termination is the tricky part. The family was insisting there were DNR orders. No bracelet and no paperwork = we work them. That is just the way it is. The facility denied any paperwork, the family (who were pissed as hell) were demanding that efforts be stopped. So through the chain of Guardian #2 to Guardian #1 to ER Doc to ER Nurse to paramedic it got relayed that we should cease and desist. And that we did. Needless to say, the family was PISSED that we even started. The ER doc took at least 30 minutes to explain to them state laws and DNR orders.
Just as I get home and turn on my shower, call #4 comes out. I have a little PSA to go with this, but that will be another time.
Needless to say, I now intend to carry a roll of duct tape with me at all times. I seriously need to learn to shut my mouth.
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