Day Two...and then some. or why incompetance isnt for EMS
Well I just got in from my second day as a paramedic.. and the second day at ERS. Right now its about 1440hrs, and my shift was supposed to end at 0700. Rule one of EMS, dont ever expect to get off work on time. I got to work yesterday at 0640, early as usual, to get my rig checked out and get organized for the day. My partner for today was pat, a fellow family member. (if you dont understand, then you arent meant to ) This day dragged on and on and on. No calls.. listening to everyone else go out.. made me itch to get something. So I decide to lay down. BINGO! as soon as I did.. the phone rang.. priority one.. for abdominal pain. I ran to the truck.. fired it up.. and went tearing off to save another life. We get to the location ( a nasty lookin chickin shack )and went to walk in, and as I did a guy walked out. "Im you're guy, ive got kidney stones" I asked him how he was sure, and he said this was his ninth time having them. He took a puff on his cigarette on his way out to the ambulance. "what hospital do you want to go to?" i ask him. He looks at me deadpan and says "Oh, the VA, down in ann arbor" heh. And I like a new car for free. Yes, ann arbor, an hour drive on a good day. I hope he is joking.. but he isnt. I tell him he has three choices and he picks Genesys. SO pat hops in back with him.. and we go to Genesys. We are standing outside while talking to another crew and 15 min after we get the patient to his room, he comes walking back outside.. cigarette in hand. "they discharged you already?" i ask him. "nope" he says, "they just take too long.. man needs his fix" 'Welcome to Flint' I think, as I walk to the truck shaking my head.
At 2000hrs, i get a new partner, Jerry. A 30something guy with three kids, and a fiance and one botched marriage. He seems cool enough at first, and so eager to talk about where else he is looking for employment. Doesnt surprise me. EMS is so high turnover, im surprised he lasted till his second shift. Funny... its my second shift too. But I am going nowhere. We go to get some food. He gets coffee, and watches me while I eat. We go back to the station. I decided to lay down, and the phone rings. (made that number one mistake.. I got comfortable) Its our dispatcher, telling us we have a guy seizing a couple blocks away. We hop in the truck, and i hand jerry the map book while I get the address from the dispatcher. He looks up the location fairly quickly and tells me to head out and to the right. I ask him if he knows where he is going. "Oh yeah, been in flint for a while" so I trust him .. and we head out. Im driving, and driving and driving while he says over and over.. its the next street... then.. its the NEXT street, Im pretty sure, or maybe the next after that. After about a 4 mile drive, I know we have gone to far. I say this outloud, and he agrees with me, so I do a U turn and head south again, sirens screaming as I try to make up for lost time. As we approach the area the call should be in, he admits he doesnt know where we are at.. or where this call is. Ugh.... i wanted to kick him out of the window head first. Rule number two, if you dont know where you're going.. you stop and figure it out. He just broke that rule, along with good ol' number three. YOU DONT LIE TO ME ABOUT STUPID SHIT.. OR SHIT PERIOD. Exasperated, I pull into the Kmart a half a mile from our station, where we started, and yanked the map book from his hands. I find the street, and want to kick him again for being stupid, and realize this should have taken three minutes to get to topps.. and now 10 minutes have passed since we called enroute to the call. We find where we are going, and pull up, hoping that we havent taken long enough to kill someone. I walk into the house, and find our patient all ready to go.. coat and all. His caregivers hand me the paperwork for our patient, Ronald, who has been having seizures all day, but hasnt had one in about an hour. We help ronald, who has some sort of a mental impairement, over to our ambulance. I hop in back with him, and start assessing him. He will be fine for now, but I start and IV in case he decides to have another seizure on the way. For good measure I put him on the heart monitor, and give him some oxygen, and off to Hurley we go. I made sure to have a LITTLE chat with my partner about the importance of not being a fuckhead on the way back to the station. I layed down again ( knowing full well what this could mean) and closed my eyes. I opened them again at 0630, just in time to get dressed.. and GO HOME! Heh.. thats what i thought. I got asked by my supervisor to stay over until noon. Yeah no problemo I thought. Well.. everything was fine, till we got our call. My partner, a blond paramedic whos name is nowhere to be found in my head, gets me to the complex of where our call is, but cant find the actual street... i think she was pulling ideas out of her ass... "turn here.. oh wait.. this is a dead end.. no.. then turn here..oh this isnt it.. I know where its at.. I judt dont know where its at!" Well we find the call finally. Our patient, who also has had a seizure, is on the upstairs bedroom floor, and postictal from having a seizure. We are trying to decide how to get him downstairs, when she decides to dissapear and get the stairchair. She comes back, and cant get it to work.. because she doesnt know how to use it, and disappears for 10 more minutes, and comes back. So I decide we are just going to carry him downstairs under his arms and legs. So she dissappears once again, this time god knows for what, and reappears, telling me she actually did something useful. 'Yeah! finally!' i think. So we lift this guy down to the cot she placed downstairs during her most recent dissappearing act, and we strap him in and toss him in the truck. He is having abdominal pain on top of being out of it from his seizure. I started looking for an IV while she set up my IV. I strap the touraquet on the patient, and he promptly leans over the railing, on the other side of the cot from me ( thank god) and begins to puke all over my ambulance. Wonderful. Not only does it look nice and juicey, but it smells just as good. So i start my IV and take him to hurley, and start typing my report while my partner cleans up after me (hehehehe). Well, as I am typing I notice the lights are getting dim in the ambulance. I tell my partner to shut of the batteries to the ambulance, so they dont go dead. She tells me they go off on their own. Now, mind you, I've been working on ambulances since before I could drive. I have NEVER seen an ambulance that shuts them off on its own, especially by DIMMING them till they go out. So tell her to shut them off again, but she blew me off. She is retarded anyways. So we get ready to leave the ER, and I hop in the truck, and battery is STILL on. So i turn the key, and NOTHING HAPPENS. The urge to kick my partner returns, but I fight it off.. and call security to have it jump started. So 20 minutes later, we were on our way to the station. I got to the station, and when my relief got there.. I was gone like my partners' common sense :-) More to come later... stay tuned!
At 2000hrs, i get a new partner, Jerry. A 30something guy with three kids, and a fiance and one botched marriage. He seems cool enough at first, and so eager to talk about where else he is looking for employment. Doesnt surprise me. EMS is so high turnover, im surprised he lasted till his second shift. Funny... its my second shift too. But I am going nowhere. We go to get some food. He gets coffee, and watches me while I eat. We go back to the station. I decided to lay down, and the phone rings. (made that number one mistake.. I got comfortable) Its our dispatcher, telling us we have a guy seizing a couple blocks away. We hop in the truck, and i hand jerry the map book while I get the address from the dispatcher. He looks up the location fairly quickly and tells me to head out and to the right. I ask him if he knows where he is going. "Oh yeah, been in flint for a while" so I trust him .. and we head out. Im driving, and driving and driving while he says over and over.. its the next street... then.. its the NEXT street, Im pretty sure, or maybe the next after that. After about a 4 mile drive, I know we have gone to far. I say this outloud, and he agrees with me, so I do a U turn and head south again, sirens screaming as I try to make up for lost time. As we approach the area the call should be in, he admits he doesnt know where we are at.. or where this call is. Ugh.... i wanted to kick him out of the window head first. Rule number two, if you dont know where you're going.. you stop and figure it out. He just broke that rule, along with good ol' number three. YOU DONT LIE TO ME ABOUT STUPID SHIT.. OR SHIT PERIOD. Exasperated, I pull into the Kmart a half a mile from our station, where we started, and yanked the map book from his hands. I find the street, and want to kick him again for being stupid, and realize this should have taken three minutes to get to topps.. and now 10 minutes have passed since we called enroute to the call. We find where we are going, and pull up, hoping that we havent taken long enough to kill someone. I walk into the house, and find our patient all ready to go.. coat and all. His caregivers hand me the paperwork for our patient, Ronald, who has been having seizures all day, but hasnt had one in about an hour. We help ronald, who has some sort of a mental impairement, over to our ambulance. I hop in back with him, and start assessing him. He will be fine for now, but I start and IV in case he decides to have another seizure on the way. For good measure I put him on the heart monitor, and give him some oxygen, and off to Hurley we go. I made sure to have a LITTLE chat with my partner about the importance of not being a fuckhead on the way back to the station. I layed down again ( knowing full well what this could mean) and closed my eyes. I opened them again at 0630, just in time to get dressed.. and GO HOME! Heh.. thats what i thought. I got asked by my supervisor to stay over until noon. Yeah no problemo I thought. Well.. everything was fine, till we got our call. My partner, a blond paramedic whos name is nowhere to be found in my head, gets me to the complex of where our call is, but cant find the actual street... i think she was pulling ideas out of her ass... "turn here.. oh wait.. this is a dead end.. no.. then turn here..oh this isnt it.. I know where its at.. I judt dont know where its at!" Well we find the call finally. Our patient, who also has had a seizure, is on the upstairs bedroom floor, and postictal from having a seizure. We are trying to decide how to get him downstairs, when she decides to dissapear and get the stairchair. She comes back, and cant get it to work.. because she doesnt know how to use it, and disappears for 10 more minutes, and comes back. So I decide we are just going to carry him downstairs under his arms and legs. So she dissappears once again, this time god knows for what, and reappears, telling me she actually did something useful. 'Yeah! finally!' i think. So we lift this guy down to the cot she placed downstairs during her most recent dissappearing act, and we strap him in and toss him in the truck. He is having abdominal pain on top of being out of it from his seizure. I started looking for an IV while she set up my IV. I strap the touraquet on the patient, and he promptly leans over the railing, on the other side of the cot from me ( thank god) and begins to puke all over my ambulance. Wonderful. Not only does it look nice and juicey, but it smells just as good. So i start my IV and take him to hurley, and start typing my report while my partner cleans up after me (hehehehe). Well, as I am typing I notice the lights are getting dim in the ambulance. I tell my partner to shut of the batteries to the ambulance, so they dont go dead. She tells me they go off on their own. Now, mind you, I've been working on ambulances since before I could drive. I have NEVER seen an ambulance that shuts them off on its own, especially by DIMMING them till they go out. So tell her to shut them off again, but she blew me off. She is retarded anyways. So we get ready to leave the ER, and I hop in the truck, and battery is STILL on. So i turn the key, and NOTHING HAPPENS. The urge to kick my partner returns, but I fight it off.. and call security to have it jump started. So 20 minutes later, we were on our way to the station. I got to the station, and when my relief got there.. I was gone like my partners' common sense :-) More to come later... stay tuned!