The ups and downs of the job

It has been several weeks since I have written anything and this is kind of an old story but oh well. We went out for a middle aged woman at work who was just not feeling well, said a possible CVA. We arrive and find her in the lunch room sitting down and very upset. She states she has had a TIA before and thinks she has had another one. We go over our assessment. (Skipping a lot to get to the point) Anyways she was very upset and crying, I stood by her side and calmly talked to her as my partner continued to treat for. I just continued to assure her that we would get her to the hospital and they would take care of her. Once at the hospital her family arrived and were in the room with her, my partner and I finished the report, I had to go back into the room and get her signature. (What happened next I will never forget) We started joking with eachother and put smiles on one anothers faces. She just looked at me and asked if I was married, I said no...single and looking I laughed... Without hesitation she said well this is Jennifer, as she looked at her beautiful single daughter, I blushed the brightest red possible and had a big smirk on my face. Her daughter also laughing and blushing in the corner. I had to tell my partner about this. He just laughs and says "Like your going to do anything Mr. Shy" he was right. I would joke about wanting her number but be to shy to get it. This really but an upbeat to my day and made me enjoy my job even more. Of course this would all be ruined by the drunk guy later that night. 0230 its 25degrees out and windy. Called for an unknown for the police dept. Arrive to find a drunk combative male lying in the gravel parking lot not more than a block from our station. He is bleeding from the head and cant tell us what happened or if anything is bothering him. Of course once we get there the police leave. To cold for them. So we backboarded c collared him and hauled him to the ER. This of course did ruin my night.

First Full Arrest

Its been about 1yr and 7months since I got my EMT certification, and Ive been on a primary 911 truck for around 10months now. The other day I had my first full arrest. The day started out kind of funny because I was not with my normal partner. Some how we were working different shifts. I was on the number 2 truck so we would get the 2nd run. But for some reason our dispatcher was messing up. Call came in for a 90y/o male unresponsive at a dialysis center. My partner and I jump in the truck and take off, im running it through my head the possibilities for unresponsive at a dialysis center. (Low BP, Diabetic, etc....) We arrive on scene and head in with all of our gear, as we enter the center they have the patient behind a curtain and you can hear the nurses talking to the patient. Im now thinking ok the patient is responsive now. WRONG! We come around the curtain patient is on the floor nurses performing cpr and they have shocked him 3 times. My partner applies the quick pads and the monitor shows vfib. He shocks him as I grab the epi and atropine, after pushing the drugs I get the intubation kit out and prepare to intubate. The Fire Dept shows up and we move the patient to the backboard and onto the cot. After several more shocks and 4 rounds of cardiac drugs the patient keeps bouncing from PEA to Vfib. Patient is intubated, and its a quick 2min trip to the ER. Minutes later he is pronounced. 

I kind of made the story shorter than what actually all happened. In total we shocked about 8 times between us and the nurses. 

I guess that always waiting on your first full arrest you expect more and things to be harder. But on this one everything went smooth and I did what I was taught and trained to do. We gave it our best shot. I asked my partner later how I did and he said I did a great job. More less I was sitting there asking myself did I fuck up? And making sure that I did not forget anything. Amazingly I didnt! Full arrests are a cluster fuck in their own. Death is just a part of this job and I do not feel bad when people die, its part of life. I like to be able to look at the calls and evaluate what was done. In the end I would never change what I did on a call. Just learn, grow and do it differently if needed.

Later that day I called my full time partner to joke with him and say that he doesnt have to worry about my first arrest anymore. Since he has became a medic in his short time he has seen just about everything under the sun and done a great job with them. I wouldnt want to have anyone else to work with or to learn from.

Volunteer Fire vs. Private EMS

So I just had a very interesting run in with the Volunteer Fire dept that handles my area where I live at. Let it be know that in my area there are 2 competing EMS companies. 1 of which I work for.
Im coming home from my parents house and notice a small collection of volunteer fire trucks up the road, I also notice a car way out in the feild. This is the road I have to go down to get to my place. I pull up and do not see a Squad there yet. Being that im an EMT-I and knowing that this department has nothing above an EMT-B I stop to help.
Grabbing my jump bag with a few gloves I approach 1 of the vehicles occupied twice. The other vehichle involved in the crash just happens to be a volunteer firefighter. Lets paint the picture for you. I assume that the other vehicles people are ok as they are up and walking around pretty much not wanting anyone to touch them. The other vehicle which is in the feild has severe front end damage, and deployed airbags and this is a 55mph zone. There are so many firefighters around this vehicle it is hard to see anything. I voice that I am an EMT-I and I am here to help. As I attempt to take control of the patients a firefighter quickly yells at me asking who I am. I once again state im an EMT-I, and say you want to see my cards? He quietly shutsup and I go back to work. One group of firefighters are working on the driver a female and all they are doing is putting on a vacuum splint to her arm. They are not taking C-spine precaution, she denies back or neck pain was restrained, only c/c is knee and arm pain. The passenger who im working on has neck, back and knee pain, he was restrained. The firefighters are actually holding cspine. I quickly as for a ccollar and continue working as the squad finally pulls up. It just happens to be the competing EMS squad. The whole time I am working I continually have firefighters asking who I am, and it is really getting annoying as I am asking my patient questions and trying to get information.

At this point I am getting very upset and decide to step back and talk to the EMTs from the squad. I quickly snap a few pictures of damage done to the car to give them to the ER. But just as soon as I do this, (I think he was some kind of Fire chief or whatnot) jumps down my throat yelling not to be taking pictures of his scene, who am I, what am I doing and on and on. Yells for my to leave his scene and asks for one of the sheriff deputies to come over. Ironically being one that I know. Technically by law im not allowed to leave, being abandonment and all. Of course he didnt want to hear this. So I calmly left and said no more.

Guess I forgot to mention that they never backboarded the driver and had only 1 squad there. This private company is really slipping in its health care.

Not really an EMS issue

This really isnt an EMS issue rather a personal flaw of mine I guess. To say a little more about myself im kind of a lonely single 24yr old EMT. Trust me I hate being single, and at times it can make me and emotional wreck. Actually I think what makes me an emotional wreck is some of the women I allow into my lifes. More times than none I get hurt and unfortunatly it seems to be the same girl hurting me every time. I know I know you ask why do I continue to let her hurt me.

A little back story, this is a girl ive known since I was little. While I was away in the Navy she grew up, huh who would have guessed? I started liking her and we caught up on all the happenings of our lifes and became really close. The down side she had a boyfriend, and wow what a looser he was. Well all of the guys she has dated were loosers and she never really admitted it till they finally broke up. So counting all the loosers she has dated its been 4 in 2 yrs. It seems every time that she has a problem with them she comes running to me. Yup im the guy that treats her nice and right and in the end gets my heart broke. I even got a tattoo the one time she broke my heart, its even a broken heart tattoo. But after a few weeks of her attention another magically appears and takes her away from me. This last time I chalked up my broken heart as me letting it happen. I wish I could say that I wont let it happen again. Seems so hard to let her go though. Advice???

Another subject about her, every time that I bring a subject up to her about breaking my heart she gets all upset and says "Oh its not my fault" or "Whatever". Im seriously tired of burying my feelings for her, forgetting about her and then she pushes her way back into my life. Ive told her many times I cant be just her friend because my feelings for her are to strong. And when we are together we dont act like just friends IE. cuddling, making out, etc. No Sex though. We've never dated and I think that is what the problem is, that we have never triend and failed. But who knows. I just am sick of being so emotional over her. Enough about her, any advice is appriciated though.

So onto the single subject. I hate it! Being an EMT I should have no problem finding a girl right? WRONG! My stupid ass is to shy to let that happen. All the good looking nurses and such, and well all my bad luck. I really hate being lonely.

Enough of my sorry story for now. Eventually I will write in here about my Hurricane Ike experience.

Catching up

So I really havent been keeping on up my blog posts and in need of back dating a few of them. Ive kind of been out of service for a month now, September didnt start out to good for me. It all started when I got MRSA. I was sitting at the station one day looking at my left arm wondering what this zit looking spot was on my arm. A few of the guys at the station said it looked like a spider bite. Great just what I needed, well it started to swell more and began to hurt. Went into the ER that night and asked one of the RNs what she thought it was. With out hesitation she said MRSA. With this confirmed we went over to minor care and had the MD look at it. She picked and squeezed at it, took a culture and sent me home with some Bactrim. Later that night the swelling got real bad and I couldnt straighten my arm out. I went back into the ER and this time they decided to cut my arm open and let it drain. After some Demerol and Phenergan I was feeling no pain and on cloud 9. To make a long story short the Bactrim wasnt doing its job and the infection spread up my arm. I got admitted to the Hospital and underwent several dosages of Vancomycin. This helped a lot and boy was I glad because it hurt really bad and well just looked bad one arm swelled up. Let me tell you being off of work for over 2 weeks was a drag. I was so bored and ready to get back to work. To make things worse my room mate was in Texas helping with Hurricane relief and making big $ to boot. After the 2 weeks my wound finally healed up and wasnt draining anymore, I was released to return to work. Just in time to head to Texas with my company for Hurricane Ike. More about that later.

Warning!

So I guess I need to catch up a little on here, I decided to change the name of my blog so I need to fill you in on everything that has happened over the last few months.

Firstly I will warn you that some times I seem to ramble on and not fully explain a subject that I am talking about. If I do that just comment and ask a question and I will fill you in a little more. And then some times I just go really out there in my typing and loose track of what I am talking about. So be warned!

If you dont like what I have to say, well then get bent!

EMS Rookie

So I got to thinking, my full time partner and house mate has been posting on here for years. I continually read what he has to say and take things to heart. With him being in EMS for many years and myself new to the career I thought I might write about how I see things.

About myself, im 24 and an EMT Advanced. Just got my advanced back in March and been in EMS for little over 1yr now. I started my EMS career on a transport truck for a private company. The months that I spent toating grandma around town really helped me learn a lot about EMS and how to handle things. Dont get me wrong I am still learning new and exciting things every day.

Once I finally moved up to a primary 911 truck for my hometown, it was a real eye opener. Ive spent my entire life in this city and still find new streets all the time. I havent really seen to much of the terrible stuff. Like they say 90% is BS and 10% is actual emergencies. Last week my partner and I assisted another crew on a bad motorcycle accident. This was really my first bad accident I have been to. We occasionally get a few good ones but never anything serious like this. I really dont want to go into detail about it. But afterwards I looked at my partner and jokinly told him he is like Obi Wan Kenobi to me. He always has advice and I always take it to heart.

So with all this being said, I thought it might be a little interesting to write about how I see things. And heck it gives me something to do on the slow days.