Tequila

Did an unresponsive with a probable subdural and a fall with leg pain...

Then a couple of ALS calls for lets see...fever, fever, ALS request but no ALS skills....yeah.

I actually got away without doing any psychs today, which is extremely unusual.

We ran most of the day. Mostly south of my area. 

Our last call was for chest pain. It was at an acute care clinic (that really isn't even open anymore) for a 40-something guy with chest pain. He actually looked like he was in pain. Once we got him in the rig he said, "Good." He didn't speak much English, but we had just given him a nitro, so I assume it worked. He actually started talking in broken English on the way to the hospital. He was laughing a lot, and then he kept saying, "No more tequila, no more margaritas for me." In his Spanish accent. It was pretty funny. We were all laughing by the time we were walking into the ER. He was quite funny, in that drunk-disruptive kind of way. At least he was a happy drunk. The staff at the ER even got a kick out of him.

Good times.

Shocked

First call of the day was for a 35 y/o man that got electrocuted. We were called to an occupational health clinic to pick him up. The guy said he was working and hit a live wire that was hooked up to a transformer. The wire carries 100,000 volts of electricity. His partner unplugged his hedge trimmer, which he couldn't let go of because of the electricity. He goes to his boss and tells him what happens. His boss tells him to drive himself up to occ health and take a whiz quiz. So, he does. In the mean time, he has chest pain, dizziness, pain in his arm, etc. He drove almost 25 miles to get to the clinic, sat in the clinic for over an hour before they decided to call us, and then we had to take him. He was still clammy and looked like crap when we took him. That's going to be a nice lawsuit.

We did a priority for shortness of breath, only to find out once we were on scene that they lady was not short of breath, and had no complaints. The RN said she had crackles in her lungs. They were clear and diminished at the bases. She was fine.

We did a BLS return to a nursing home s/p hip fracture.

An ALS transfer for cardiac surgery.

Another priority for hypertension and kidney stones. The lady just screamed the entire time and was actually hypotensive. Nice. By the time we got to the hospital I was screaming with her. (I was driving). I think she actually got a kick out of it. 

We just got cancelled off of a chest pain that walked out of a clinic. Hopefully the night won't be too bad :)

Road Trip

I finally broke down and did it. I made a road trip to Michigan to visit my best friend from high school. It was only about 215 miles; about 2 1/2 hours to get here. Not too shabby. I am having the time of my life so far. We have lots of catching up to do. I did run into a guy from AMR ambulance and they make much more here than I do in Chicago...hmph.

Lost

Another day full of psychs. The only one that really sticks out in my mind was in the afternoon. We were taking her back to a nursing facility. We got to the hospital, and when I checked the room she was supposed to be in, it was empty. One of the docs asked if she could help us with something (unusual, I know) and I asked her if she knew where our patient was. She said that she saw her wandering in the halls for the past couple of hours, and she would look for her. Yeah...she found her. 2 blocks from the hospital! The cops brought her back in and we had an uneventful trip to the nursing facility. Good times.

Recovery

Today was my day of recovery. Well, it should have been. I thought I would be sick, after last night, but I was actually good to go. I was a lazy bum for most of the day. I worked in the evening. Nothing too good; a 2 year old with trouble breathing and a woman with numbness in her arm.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Today is my birthday. I hung out with some friends and had dinner with my mom during the day. Then I went out clubbing with some girls from work. We had an absolute blast. You only turn 21 once you know....

Dazed and Confused

Today was a bit of an odd day. When I got to work I learned that my normal partner had taken a personal day and I was working with someone else. Not a big deal, just different. Sunday is usually a hit or miss day. Either we are extremely busy or we sleep all day. Today was busy.

Our first call was a priority out of a home address for dizziness. We got on scene in a ritzy area and headed inside. The lady was downstairs in the basement. She had woken up feeling dizzy around 0630 and it still hadn't gone away. No biggie, right? We got the stair chair and headed back down to get her out to the rig. We were getting ready to move her over, and her son points to the stair chair and was like, "Um...isn't that supposed to be connected to something?" I looked and sure enough, part of the chair had come undone and one of the front legs wasn't connected to the seat. Great. Then, after moving her over, I go to pup one of the straps across her chest and the seatbelt clip came off. Needless to say, I couldn't get it back on, and we had to tie the straps together. This was quite embarassing, especially because of the standards of living in that area. We got her out to the rig and onto the stretcher. We did all of our care, and headed towards the hospital. I was chatting with the patient and an IV bag came flying out of the cabinet and fell on her shoulder. It didn't hurt her, but all I could do was repeatedly apologize. (I could have sworn that I closed that cabinet!). The ride was bumpy, and I was just waiting for something else to go wrong.

We cleared up from there and were sent on a priority for severe abdominal pain. Of course, the lady weighed almost 400 pounds and was about 5 feet tall. She stated 10/10 pain and that she had a history of gall stones. She looked like she was in pain. It took forever to get her out to the rig, but we finally made it. Her vitals were stable. She writhed and screamed in pain when I started the IV, so I began to think that she had an extremely low pain tolerance. She stated she only wanted to go to one hospital. It wasn't the closest, but the second closest, so I told her that we would talk to medical control and find out what we were going to do. I was on the phone with tele and I told them that, "....hospital is the closest with an ETA of 9 minutes, we have an ETA to your facility of 17." The patient yelled, I will not go to that other hospital, I only want to go to ...hospital. The RN on tele asked me to get another pain rating, and the patient said it was down to a 2. They allowed the longer transport. I think the lady only said that so that she could go to the hospital she wanted, but in the process, downgraded it to no lights/sirens. Oh well.

We did a kid with a ruptured spleen to a Children's hospital. And a few BLS calls.