The challenges of emergency calls

There is an old tradition for the public to go totally wild during certain times of the month and year.  These typically involve a large white ball in the sky displayed during the night, as well as during any national holiday.   I had never really believed it until my first come times having the holiday effect.  There are some holidays which typically result in more EMS calls, such as Thanksgiving, and Easter, often due to heart issues.  Then you have the holidays and unofficial instances that cause police issues.  These are commonly Super Bowl Sunday, Saint Patrick's Day, and of course the 4th of July.  These are all a toss up for fights, alcohol poisoning, or a variety of other calls.  This holiday was no different.  We had a called in bar fight.  We had an over consumption of alcohol.  We had a fight at a convenience store.  It was a barrel of fun, not!

             This phrase seems to pop up quite often.  I found myself just this thing and actually laughing when an officer directed me to log an issue that a citizen advised him of. I had taken a 911 call for a possible intoxicated driver, a dark colored Camaro, driving 45 mph, with it's high beam headlights on and swerving all over the roadway.  I give this call to the county.  They later locate and stopped the suspect vehicle to find out the driver is not impaired, but having issues with the ball joints and its causing issues with steering and handling.   This situation is as dangerous as being intoxicated, its not safe to have a vehicle with such issues on the road knowing it has problems. So its mid week, and it started off rather calm.  They had already been dealing with an ongoing yearly issue.  Each year a farmer complains about people parking along his field which borders the city ball diamonds.  And each...

You know I told you last post that I said the word, one of many which is frowned upon, and almost a ritual to avoid, and well it happened.  Within a matter of about 20 minutes I ended up with 3 calls for service. 1st - caller is reporting that she heard someone messing around and beating on something.  She was inside a fenced in area smoking and heard it, so she yelled out and asked them what they were doing as she was attempting to see what they were doing and she saw someone run to a vehicle.  They jumped into a vehicle and left.  The caller did not know what they were messing with or if they had tampered with anything.  My officer responds and is unable to locate any vehicle matching the description given. 2nd - Caller is reporting that he got a call from a renter that about 2 hours prior someone he had told he would take some wood from, hauled the base of a tree over and dumped it in the ditch and then attempted to push it off the road with a van.  ...

So here we are another day of rather nothing.  I really intended to sit down and write something the other day when I posted a bunch of rants about the newbie.  It doesn't get any better than what is going on now.   Newbie has a family member who was pregnant, and it was not their first child.  They saw the need to make changes to the schedule and make trades to get the day off, obviously with no sick days to use, so they had to utilize a shift trade.  I think everyone here is has been down and morale is bad because of situations such as this.  We are now on the 4th new hire in the past 5 years.  I know this is nothing for some agencies who are what it appears as a rotating door. I at one point thought I would be writing out calls with generic details here, as well as "Live" tweeting calls as they came in.  But damn, I work at a slow agency.   Crap, I did it, something will happen now.  Just like in EMS, certain words were never to be...

I cannot express how busy my life has been, not a lot has changed.  I am still busy with work, like every other dispatch agency.  Its been over a year since I last posted, which is terrible and probably means that no one is still reading this blog, and that it is not being indexed as often as it could be. I have been contemplating the past week of writing.  I have been listening to podcasts while at work for entertainment, and was also thinking about "the book" I was writing at one time.  I have several pages of notes compiled into a document sitting on my desktop.  I buried it in another folder a few weeks ago thinking more about it.  I don't obviously have the several thousands required to get it published.  My only option will be hoping it will sell some copies on an E-book site. But back to the reason I haven't wrote anything.  I haven't been exactly open with my followers I prefer to be more anonymous.  But I am married and I have a...

I was sitting here packing up my personal belongings; my laptop, my charger, my cup and some notes of things for later in the day.  I remembered a time when I read blogs for enjoyment and slowly scanned for a few I remembered.  One of blogs I read basically just to be nosey about the writers life and no other reason is no more.  I realized as life changes or adapts we leave things idle in our life that were once almost ritual like.  Thinking back of social networks, email accounts and hobbies that have been lost and forgotten.  It could make your heart break at the struggles and longing for those hobbies and friends we left behind for other adventures be it a few days or months.  How long before we abandon that hobby and pile another one on the burned list?  Moving on to another topic, some people always wonder how someone obtains a job.  I have been asked and so have my family members on how I got my job.  I always tell them with my reputat...

I have very much missed blogging.  I have taken several months off, nearly 9 months blogger tells me.  I didn't abandon things here, I was confused, up somewhat distracted by other happenings.  I know a dedicated blogger sticks to it.  During last fall and winter I assisted on a little part time job a few days a month.  I am not sure where that money went, other than being spent, and nothing to really show for it, plus I am going to have to pay taxes on it later. I did experiment with Twitter, which I did find is easy for small rants, but I find difficulty in cramming my screams of attitude into the 120 characters.  Plus I feel shrinking down my words to jargon lose the affect of my actual rants and complaints. I am still alive, and dispatching.  I am still in it to retire, at least the rest of the year. I have had some real struggles that I have had to deal with this year.  I lost a family member which I took hard.  There have also bee...

When I first started working nights I always found something to do.  Maybe I was watching movies or reading magazines or watching stupid videos online.  As technology advances we become more bored by all our surroundings.  We want more, now and faster than before.  We have become a now and my way society as personalization and customization has taken leaps towards predicting our patterns and likes.  I find it hard to find hobbies which hold my interest.  But I always have something on my mind.  I can always sit down and type. 

I have worked shift work for a majority of my working life.  I have spent a majority of said time on 2nd and 3rd shifts.  I love the night, but the work volumes vary so much daily.  There is always something I can think of doing.  It does create ideas, but it creates issues.  When your mind wonders you get wild ideas to build things and do things which you might not normally do or suggest.  It might make some think you are insane or unusual.

Writing used to be something I was nearly regular on, and I do miss it.  The recent technology advancements for myself including a smartphone have left me busier and with less free time.  I am motivated into a few things right now, but I do stray now and then. I don't even know if anyone reads me, since no one ever comments or anything.  I am trying to get my book published.  It turns out there are online locations to assist you to publish online without the investment costs, and in ebook form such as amazon.   I really have wanted to get it out there.  I dont know if it will be of high enough quality to make much money but my hope is someone will enjoy it, learn about the EMS lifestyle and how it affects you.  Work has been, well I won't say it since that is a bad word here.  I cannot complain we will leave it at that.  I have started trying to improve on my dispacthing skills, obtaining more details that I know are important and that w...

So, I came up with a plan to be more annoying at work to let my co-workers, specifically a couple of the ones who complain about their workload, which is not that large most days.  I have figured out ways for me to be annoying and feel better myself, even of they don't know they are getting punked.  I am just annoyed at things like a desk full of pens and papers when I come in.  I come in to a desk with with food particles,coffee rings days old, dried food and dust.  I am not the cleanest person, but I clean up at work what I make dirty.  I cleaned the desk tonight will post pics if problems return.  I am tired of being the only one to replace the water bottle in the water cooler, so I stopped.  I figure everyone can take a turn or fifty before I do it again.  My co-workers freeze to death inside so they turn up the temp to the max we are allowed which still prevents overheating the equipment.  I come in and run it low and cold till my relief...

So this idiot calls 911 to complain that his fire which he had left unattended, from what I understood, was put out by the fire department during red flag drought conditions.  I don't think people get how bad wild fires could be and are not following the fires out West involving thousands of acres in multiple states.  There people are upsetting and normally the ones to ignore burn bans and cause an "accidental" fire.  I'm sorry but burning brush and trash can wait. This last month has not been without the normal silly stuff going on. We had a juvenile breaking up with someone call up asking for his property back from the girlfriend.  The officer contacted the ex-girlfriend and got the belongings. When he arrived to return the items the juvenile smelled of alcohol and was arrested. The planets must be aligned for perfect mental instability, we have handled several mental cases in the past two weeks.

I know the title is what drew you in on this one.  I can honestly say that I have had some very strange happenings in the past few months which I haven't been blogging about due to the fact no one seems, to be reading or commenting on my posts.  I find it like I am hidden as a blogger.  But I still write down things that will be used for later projects. I handled a call recently, in which a wife requested her husband who was drunk be removed from the residence.  The officers responded to the location, and found he was not around when they arrived.  She was fine with them leaving as they didn't know where he was and the issue had been resolved.  She calls back several hours later advising he had been hiding in the crawl space in the basement and had came upstairs, he was in the house when officers were there earlier.  And she wanted him removed, because he was trying to fight with her.  Then she called back again, to state he fell asleep on the co...

Don't get lost yet.  I know the title prbably threw you off.  I actually do alot of thinking.  Sometimes as I lay my head onto my pillow in the evening to sleep my mind runs full speed with ideas for blogs and things I should discuss, then I fall asleep and forget them.  The voices are like story tellers.  They are the guide to how I write, and things sound better in my head than they do in actual text sometime.  I stand in the shower washing my body after I wake, and ideas roll through my head like a ball rolling down a hill.  They flood me with ideas, and excitement for the potential increase in readers.  I just wish I would actually record or take notes on what I am thinking when I think it.  The last few weeks have been relatively nice.  The weather is nice and warm, and things haven't been too awful bad.  I have had a couple annoyances with a few repeat offenders.  These folks seem to call about the same thing over and o...

So, this is the new blog format, I find it strange and am not sure I like it yet.  I find it quite plain and don't like all the white background. As a dispatcher you spend a lot of time thinking.  Thinking about issues with equipment, issues that callers have had, and hoping things go well for them and their family.  You think about things, it just comes with the job.  Don't lose me here yet, I am not going off on a tangent of emotions associated with dispatching.  It takes a toll on you over time, but you get used to, or do you ever really get used to it?  I always go home and sleep, but that doesn't mean I don't think about how a call went or wondering how I could improve.  I think that is what makes a great dispatcher different from a good dispatcher.  I don't consider myself great.  I feel I am still learning after only a few years.  There comes a time when you cross a point where dispatching becomes just like any other job and you...

I was going over some old EMS techniques and situations, and realized that I have lost it.  I lost much of my knowledge of functioning in an EMS system.  I can recall certain things, but I forgot things such as lead placement for the cardiac monitor.  I know it is said every day, but the old saying you either use it or you lose it is true, believe me.  I don't know where I should start this blog.  There are some things in life that area for sure, such as the seasons will change, and if it can happen it will, especially when you least expect it.  I can always expect a call prior to severe weather from Charlie.  Charlie is a middle aged single male in about his 50's who resides in a mobile home, with local TV, a police scanner, and several family members.  Charlie always calls to see what we know about the weather and if their are any warnings out.  I can also always expect calls from Carolina, complaining about the kids playing basketball ...

So, while trying to fall asleep earlier this week I thought to myself how interesting it is to work in a smaller community.  I was thinking about how many times you interact with your friends, neighbors and family as we work.  We handle their calls for help and send the required services in the same amount of time we would with anyone elses' family, neighbors, and friends.  Although some would argue and complain that because you work in a small community you would show more favor in how you send a response to calls to those you know.  I am not going to say that metropolitan areas don't do their jobs, or do have a personal relationship with their callers, but they just don't have the same connection.  I think those that live in a rural community have many benefits they never think of, they know their emergency service personnel, their dispatchers, their police officers.  You may never see the same officer in larger cities.  Small communities know strugg...

I have so wanted to put something on here.  I have been doing some reading lately and neglecting my visitors to my blog, which I can see we are getting with nearly 100 views since I put up the tracking tool.  I don't know if these are unique views or just reloads, or people coming back to check again.  I have been slammed for several shifts.  I get through to about the down side and the last few hours beat my butt.  I have had calls come in at the same time and no units to handle the calls.  I hate that stress, but I can't make units from toothpicks or dust which we seem to have a lot of, which I found out a few nights ago.  I had to do some quick repairs and diagnostics and climbed under the desk, which is very dusty an dirty.  I found myself surrounded in dust, and debris.  I stood up and dusted myself off, shedding the dirt which I thought I had left from previous jobs for a desk job.  I guess I was mistaken.  But I enjoy doi...

I have had several things I wanted to sit down and write.  But, as always work, and life are busy and I probably forgot half of what I wanted to post.  I must be getting old if I cannot remember what happened 1 week ago.  Then again it could be the lack of sleep, or nothing. I guess it wasn't that important, or I would have remembered.  

I was doubting myself and my views of my blog.  But it appears I have got about 10 or so in the last week.  I hope that can increase as I have added it to many search engines.  I am feeling a little more up now.  I enjoyed a few days off and now back to the grind stone.  I am often confused by things which once seemed easy to understand.  I find myself stopping and thinking about them longer, and studying things which I once knew off the top of my head to make sure I understand them properly.  The days of flying by the seat of my pants are gone, as I have emerged as an older version of myself. I was thining over the weekend, what am I going to write about this week, what will become the highlight of the blog, of the world, of news in general?  I did have one topic come up and I thought it was worth a good paragraph or so.  When I was an EMT fresh out of school and within a few months hired by a paid service I trained on the day shift for a ...