The challenges of emergency calls

Well thank goodness Christmas is over, sadly I missed it. My schedule had me working Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Which was kind of a shaft of a deal because everyone knows the holidays are crazy for EMS. On Friday I was called in to cover because the crew was going out on a transfer to another facility. So from like 3pm until 10 pm I was awake I quickly found a bed and left my parter awake and in charge of things. I slept about 3-4 hours then was back up again. I went home at around a little after 7AM. Nothing all day Saturday that needed my attention other then sleep. I woke up feeling well and rested. Good thing! Saturday night my partner and I get a call for an unresponsive patient who is breathing, and now alert. OKAY? We arrive on scene to find the location we hoped the patient was with it enough to walk to the cot. I had never been to the residence before and realizing the age of the house I knew from the outside that the halls would be narrow and the patient would hav...

Well I am several days post needing to post another blog. I don't think many are visiting if at all repeating to come back..... I am a bit dry I guess. Or maybe still to new in the EMS game to understand what people read and or like. Last week ran a few calls one of them was a female who woke up and was having trouble swallowing. I wasn't sure what it was all about. We got on location a few minutes later to find a middle aged woman sitting then standing in the kitchen. She appeared to be in no distress, color was good, she was kinda doing a hop around type of thing, she was trying to cough and holding her throat kinda like she wanted the heimlich maneuver but she was talking just fine. She has had a history of some sort of growth in the throat which was removed along with part of the thyroid, in that case she said it felt the same way as now, the mass was pushing her trachea from midline and it still has deviation. We quickly load her onto the cot where she is strapped ...

Well what can I say, the weekend wasn't that bad. Friday had a run to a nursing home for some congestion, not really an emergency and turned out to be nothing the way I understand. I think they just over-reacted. I think it might be part of the nursing home handbook or requirement to at one time or another to be proven to not exactly be the smartest. I have seen some of these nurses do things they think are so right when actually they are really trying and just don't have the tools to accomplish the task. I remember a few months ago a shortness of breath call, the patient has a history of like COPD and Emphezema if I remember right. They have the patient on a non-rebreather mask at 6 Liters. Why? Because the oxygen tank only went that high. The nurse states the patient had refused a breathing treatment, the patient says they didn't. So who do you trust, the nurse who has an education or the patient who is agitated because they can't breathe? Lung sounds are...

Welcome to another version of the bandagedOne blog. I know I may not have all the action in my blogs but I will try to cover what I can and go about it legally without revealing details that might ID a pt. or location. Another slow night, around 0530 the tones drop for a male patient with weakness in his legs and tingling in his arms, and unable to move lower extremities. We respond lights/sirens to the location as the snow continues to fall, nothing really measureable just a cold wind and some wet snow which appears to be melting. We find the pt in the back room of the house, we request a little assistance to get him out. Some officers stop by they happened to be not to far away. We manage to walk the patient to the cot. We slap the pt. on the monitor, nothing out of the ordinary, we obtain a BP little high, pt is complaining of a headache but has had this for some time since he had an injury. Little wierd. We transport the patient carefully to the hospital, due to the weather ...

The weekend is finally over. It always seems like holiday weekends drag on due to the fact that they just never want to end, doctors offices are closed, everyone is sick and needs taken to the hospital. This weekend was one of the wierd ones. Only went out once near shift end. Ended up being an elderly man who was little short of breath. Normally on O2 for some reason he decided to take it off when he became short of breath. O2 sat was in the 80's. What a wonderful fall morning, raining, cold and windy. We gave our report to the doctor when we arrived at the Emergency Department. The doctor seemed worried about the patient's Code Status. I guess that would be a nice thing to know if they guy had to be intubated which would likely happen. It is a shame you can't follow patients through their visits and transfers all the time. It would amaze you what happens as the patient makes a big recovery or a big slide from where you last saw them. The only way we learn somet...

I often have wondered if I could ever have the ability to write, or compose something. I can run on once I get to typing and it just comes easy since typing class in high school. I don't know how fast I type anymore but I could do up to 30-40 words a minute back then or faster. I am starting this blog to kinda show my life and log things that happen. I won't use any names or locations as that wouldn't be allowed by state/federal laws. I will do my best to keep the details together but sometimes they might sound totally crazy but it does happen. I work in EMS things are always crazy. Nothing goes totally as planned, nothing happens when you want it to, nothing is worth really going on about. I have been in EMS several years now and work in a mostly rural area with under 25,000 citizens. I never intended to stay in EMS let alone have a job in EMS. It was accidental. I hope you enjoy my life and stories and maybe get a laugh or two a week. Come again and I hope yo...