Service Car

Well today was my first day back on the streets I guess you could say. I've been off from work since the middle of April after being crushed by a 400+ pound patient (that should have been a medicar call). Yesterday was my official day back, but I shuffled papers and took an ambulance out of state that needed to be fixed at the dealership.

The day started out pretty well. I was rather interested in what I would be doing. My supervisor told me I was going to be an "escort." Of course with this dirty little mind I have, I harassed him about giving me such a job. In the end, I was quite basically a taxi driver.

I got my rig, nextel, keys, pager....all the good stuff. I had no idea what I was doing so I asked if I needed to do any paperwork and how I was supposed to go up in service and such. One of the supervisors told me I needed to do paperwork, so I brought some with. That was all good.

I go up in service and I felt ridiculous calling up as a medicar. My dispatcher gave me a ton of crap because our nextels have been acting up after the recent storms and I can't understand him half of the time, I kept saying "huh? Can you say that again?" He kept shooting stuff back at me about the fact that I'm in critical care and I can't even function as a "courtesy van."

I must say it was still quite interesting. I know one thing I'm not good at-trying to figure out the damn lift on the side for wheelchairs. I read the directions. I had the parking break on. I got it down and got my first patient into the rig, then I got the lift up....and I couldn't get it to fold into the rig. I couldn't figure out for the life of me why it wasn't working (besides that I have absolutely NO training with it), so I kept keying up my dispatcher and he's talking me through it, speaking slowly just to imply how ridiculous I sound. I was getting flustered because I still have this lady staring at me from the seat wondering what the hell is wrong with me. So, I kicked the lift with one foot and pushed it up with my right arm and "BAM!" I got it up. Good times.

I did quite a few psych returns. I think those were my favorite today because the ones I had bickered and cussed at each other the whole time. I was amused. I basically went in circles around the city, ending up way out on the west side of the city by the days end, and stuck in rush hour traffic. I was supposed to be off at 1600....I didn't make it to base until 1830.

I'm back on tomorrow at 0800. Let's see what the day brings....