Where has time gone? 3 months since my last posting here. I guess time has just been buzzing around.
E.M.S. is killing me one day, the next day I love it. I haven't had anything worth really talking about too much lately. Just nursing homes and stuff like that.
I did run a call the other day which did get to me a bit, but these calls always do. I heard dispatch, send the fire department to a residential fire, with a subject outside the residence. I figured nothing of it, while I was in the bathroom taking a leak, sure enough the tones dropped. I responded with the typical acknowledgement for them to proceed with the dispatch. We rolled hot.
We arrive on scene the fire department has a womean who is breathing but is burned. I hate these calls. She is moaning. We roll towards the hospital and have a firefighter drive us in. Just before we loaded her, I had called the hospital and told them to have us a helicopter on the helipad when we arrived. We ended up leaving our jump bag on scene too. My partner attempted IV access and got one line. We ran in some Lactated Ringers. We couldn't get the monitor electrodes to stick due to the skin pealing, I couldn't get a pulse ox due to the skin on the fingers. I did manage to get a blood pressure. It wasn't bad at all. The patient was starting to get shallower and shallower breathing. We knew he was going to have to be intubated. I got the rollout for the medic. I started bagging her. He was fighting it. She spit some gray colored soot from his mouth, and we suctioned some. My partner had the ET tube and scope with blade. The medic explained to the patient that a tube needed to be put into her throat or she would stop breathing. She woke up even though she hadn't said anything or moaned in a while, and began to try and sit up on the cot. It was like a feeling of awe. Someone who had been through it all the burns, the flames they must have experienced, and then she is fighting not wanting to be intubated. We were only a 1/2 mile or less from the hospital so we continued to use the bag to help the patient breathe. We moved the patient over as we arrived at the hospital, it was a sigh of relief partly on my back.
We had the available staff we would need, we had our backup crew, respiratory therapy, x-ray, the ER doctor, the nurses, and also a CRNA. I began to get things that I could and knew we had to have back together for the truck, the monitor, and such. I cleaned the floor, including the flesh which had fallen off, it was only a small piece compared to what I had seen in the past which brought back some memories.
Once you smell burnt flesh you smell it for days. It brought back memories and I just had to talk to someone. I did manage after it was all over to talk with my partner and my supervisor about it, which did lift things off me a bit better. But that didn't cure my desire for sleep. I ended up sleeping after shift for nearly 16 hours. I hadn't slept well in a few weeks.
We had ran 5 calls that night. 3 of them back to back. First one was a call to the local ball field for a possible knee injury, while out on the field, we get paged for another call. A person who was unresponsive but is now responsive. We unload the first patient and then run on to the second. It is a male who has worked out in the heat roofing a house and has exhausted himself he has the heat cramps. He gets an IV, I could have swore he was having chest pain the way he was jumping all over the cot over that IV, I guess that you really get tender when you get the heat cramps. When we drop this patient off we get a call from the nursing home for a patient who is a bit alterted at the nursing home with a low Blood pressure. The nursing home is in a hurry like the guy is bad. They claim his BP is in the 90's systolic. We arrive on scene and find the guy in a lazyboy chair. They said they don't know how we can get him onto the cot, they decide they want to put him into a hoyer lift then move him over the cot. Okay so they have to lift up this 300lb+ guy and put a hoyer pad underneath thim. Some critical patient. Then we place him on our cot and roll out to the truck. We load him and he has a BP that is fine, it seems that the daughter thought the guy should have went out around 7pm here it is like 11pm. Either way we transport him to the hospital, seems pretty alert to me. ..... Same story, a nursing home lacking on its job.
I lost my partner a while back, seems like forever probably only been one month, he gave up his position here to go and fly in air ems. Not that I don't support him. It is just not the same not having a regular partner when you are used to it. This will be my 3rd regular partner that I have lost in the nearly 3 years I have been working here. I could complain more but I know other services have higher turnover rates than that.
Things haven't been that bad though. I have managed to get my life straightened out and my personal life hasn't been to bad, I have been able to lose sleep and live. I have played with my nephew, and enjoyed it. I have also been able to spend time with my girlfriend, and also got to take a few pleasure trips.
My license renewal is coming up in just under a year so I am going to have to start kicking some butt on my hours, I didn't work for the first 4 months of my license so I didn't have any continuing education, it wasn't until a few months past that that the continuing education was starting to be offered regularly every month by my employer. I guess it looks like I am going to have to pay and go to conferences and things this year. I am kinda hoping to leave EMS still. I heard there is also a chance of an upcoming Intermediate class which excites me a bit, but I don't know if I want to upgrade for anything. It would be more stress to deal with.
I have applied again for another railroad job a few hours away. Their jobs just keep popping up and I keep thinking that maybe one day a railroad will see me as a prospective good applicant. I heard through the grapevine the last guy that got hired for the railroad job I applied for nearby has quit already. He couldn't handle the hours, being on call 365 days a year..... that guy didn't even handle the job 3 months. He should try EMS a while. He would really enjoy it, he wouldn't even make half of what he was with the railroad and plus he wouldn't be on call all the time, but he would still have to dedicate a portion of his life to the job.
I started watching RescueMe on Netflix. I loved the first season. It is a great show which I feel compelled to talk about. I was not in EMS during September 11, 2001, I was just a few months post graduation and was in a just working type of state. I was shocked. I can't imagine how guys have to deal with things like that daily. Rescue Me seems to fit well what they probably are going through, it makes me think that people just don't think about how firefighters and others are affected by our work. We do have relationship problems, we are essentially the strongest families in America that aren't even related, but who cares. We care about each other., to Hell with the rest.
The lack of respect is amazing. I have started thanking my partners and giving them atta boys for their great work and I have been getting the same back. My medic partner bragged on me alot more then what I felt she should have the other day. She said without me she would have been lost, without my help we wouldn't have done it. I felt useless but those few words help pick me up and put me where I belonged. Thanks to her. I appreciate it but I am too modest to just accept them, I said I was just doing my job. ...... whatever that may be today... or any day..
God Bless
E.M.S. is killing me one day, the next day I love it. I haven't had anything worth really talking about too much lately. Just nursing homes and stuff like that.
I did run a call the other day which did get to me a bit, but these calls always do. I heard dispatch, send the fire department to a residential fire, with a subject outside the residence. I figured nothing of it, while I was in the bathroom taking a leak, sure enough the tones dropped. I responded with the typical acknowledgement for them to proceed with the dispatch. We rolled hot.
We arrive on scene the fire department has a womean who is breathing but is burned. I hate these calls. She is moaning. We roll towards the hospital and have a firefighter drive us in. Just before we loaded her, I had called the hospital and told them to have us a helicopter on the helipad when we arrived. We ended up leaving our jump bag on scene too. My partner attempted IV access and got one line. We ran in some Lactated Ringers. We couldn't get the monitor electrodes to stick due to the skin pealing, I couldn't get a pulse ox due to the skin on the fingers. I did manage to get a blood pressure. It wasn't bad at all. The patient was starting to get shallower and shallower breathing. We knew he was going to have to be intubated. I got the rollout for the medic. I started bagging her. He was fighting it. She spit some gray colored soot from his mouth, and we suctioned some. My partner had the ET tube and scope with blade. The medic explained to the patient that a tube needed to be put into her throat or she would stop breathing. She woke up even though she hadn't said anything or moaned in a while, and began to try and sit up on the cot. It was like a feeling of awe. Someone who had been through it all the burns, the flames they must have experienced, and then she is fighting not wanting to be intubated. We were only a 1/2 mile or less from the hospital so we continued to use the bag to help the patient breathe. We moved the patient over as we arrived at the hospital, it was a sigh of relief partly on my back.
We had the available staff we would need, we had our backup crew, respiratory therapy, x-ray, the ER doctor, the nurses, and also a CRNA. I began to get things that I could and knew we had to have back together for the truck, the monitor, and such. I cleaned the floor, including the flesh which had fallen off, it was only a small piece compared to what I had seen in the past which brought back some memories.
Once you smell burnt flesh you smell it for days. It brought back memories and I just had to talk to someone. I did manage after it was all over to talk with my partner and my supervisor about it, which did lift things off me a bit better. But that didn't cure my desire for sleep. I ended up sleeping after shift for nearly 16 hours. I hadn't slept well in a few weeks.
We had ran 5 calls that night. 3 of them back to back. First one was a call to the local ball field for a possible knee injury, while out on the field, we get paged for another call. A person who was unresponsive but is now responsive. We unload the first patient and then run on to the second. It is a male who has worked out in the heat roofing a house and has exhausted himself he has the heat cramps. He gets an IV, I could have swore he was having chest pain the way he was jumping all over the cot over that IV, I guess that you really get tender when you get the heat cramps. When we drop this patient off we get a call from the nursing home for a patient who is a bit alterted at the nursing home with a low Blood pressure. The nursing home is in a hurry like the guy is bad. They claim his BP is in the 90's systolic. We arrive on scene and find the guy in a lazyboy chair. They said they don't know how we can get him onto the cot, they decide they want to put him into a hoyer lift then move him over the cot. Okay so they have to lift up this 300lb+ guy and put a hoyer pad underneath thim. Some critical patient. Then we place him on our cot and roll out to the truck. We load him and he has a BP that is fine, it seems that the daughter thought the guy should have went out around 7pm here it is like 11pm. Either way we transport him to the hospital, seems pretty alert to me. ..... Same story, a nursing home lacking on its job.
I lost my partner a while back, seems like forever probably only been one month, he gave up his position here to go and fly in air ems. Not that I don't support him. It is just not the same not having a regular partner when you are used to it. This will be my 3rd regular partner that I have lost in the nearly 3 years I have been working here. I could complain more but I know other services have higher turnover rates than that.
Things haven't been that bad though. I have managed to get my life straightened out and my personal life hasn't been to bad, I have been able to lose sleep and live. I have played with my nephew, and enjoyed it. I have also been able to spend time with my girlfriend, and also got to take a few pleasure trips.
My license renewal is coming up in just under a year so I am going to have to start kicking some butt on my hours, I didn't work for the first 4 months of my license so I didn't have any continuing education, it wasn't until a few months past that that the continuing education was starting to be offered regularly every month by my employer. I guess it looks like I am going to have to pay and go to conferences and things this year. I am kinda hoping to leave EMS still. I heard there is also a chance of an upcoming Intermediate class which excites me a bit, but I don't know if I want to upgrade for anything. It would be more stress to deal with.
I have applied again for another railroad job a few hours away. Their jobs just keep popping up and I keep thinking that maybe one day a railroad will see me as a prospective good applicant. I heard through the grapevine the last guy that got hired for the railroad job I applied for nearby has quit already. He couldn't handle the hours, being on call 365 days a year..... that guy didn't even handle the job 3 months. He should try EMS a while. He would really enjoy it, he wouldn't even make half of what he was with the railroad and plus he wouldn't be on call all the time, but he would still have to dedicate a portion of his life to the job.
I started watching RescueMe on Netflix. I loved the first season. It is a great show which I feel compelled to talk about. I was not in EMS during September 11, 2001, I was just a few months post graduation and was in a just working type of state. I was shocked. I can't imagine how guys have to deal with things like that daily. Rescue Me seems to fit well what they probably are going through, it makes me think that people just don't think about how firefighters and others are affected by our work. We do have relationship problems, we are essentially the strongest families in America that aren't even related, but who cares. We care about each other., to Hell with the rest.
The lack of respect is amazing. I have started thanking my partners and giving them atta boys for their great work and I have been getting the same back. My medic partner bragged on me alot more then what I felt she should have the other day. She said without me she would have been lost, without my help we wouldn't have done it. I felt useless but those few words help pick me up and put me where I belonged. Thanks to her. I appreciate it but I am too modest to just accept them, I said I was just doing my job. ...... whatever that may be today... or any day..
God Bless