ems or cop? which is it?
so this weekend was a bit insane. as usual i worked my 24 hour shift on friday. i should have known it was going to be a bit unusual because i was not working with my usual partner, penny. penny, had taken the day off to go to the cities for the weekend. i worked with dj, who is an emt. that always makes it a bit interesting just because i'm pretty much guaranteed to have to take all the calls. since we are an als service their has to be a medic in the back with the patient even if it's a bls call. it's also nice to have a paramedic partner to back you up if the patient crashes on you. thankfully that didn't happen. however, dj made a fatal mistake that morning. we went up to the er to check our supply cabinet and make sure it was stocked up. while there we stopped in and visited with the er staff. well, dj, made the mistake of using the "S" word. he made the comment that things were SLOW in the er. a few words/phrases you never use in ems "slow" "quiet" "i'm gonna get some sleep" "let's go eat". yes, it's superstitious and silly, but why mess with it? literally five minutes after dj used the word that shall not be named we got called out on back to back runs. they were pretty routine, no big deal. later on in the day we got called out to a more serious run. i seriously thought the guy was gonna go into cardiac arrest right there in front of his entire family. thankfully, for his families sake, he waited until after he was in the hospital for a couple of hours to go into cardiac arrest and die. sounds kinda cold, i know, but trust me, if it all possible you don't want the family to witness all that happens when you try to resuscitate someone. it can be very traumatic. however, the insanity hadn't even come close to starting yet. things quieted down for much of the evening and we were able to watch most of season 4 of the office on dvd. that's the good thing about working with dj he has a pretty extensive dvd collection and is a big fan of the office. i finally went to bed at about 11pm. well, at about 2am we were woken up by that oh so familiar, yet still dreadful sound of the phone ringing. we were called out to a fight up by the college that involved knives. we were told by dispatch that officers were on scene, which is supposed to mean that the scene is secure and it's safe for us to go in. so we pull up to the scene and there are about 4 cops and about 20 people. i'm thinking "oh man, this does not look good." i go up to the nearest officer and ask where our patient is. "he's sitting in his car", says the officer. so i tell the kid (yep he was only 16!!) to get out of the car and come with me. no way are we staying in the middle of that crowd to assess this kid. as i'm walking back toward the ambulance there's a girl standing off to the side on her cellphone telling people to come down there. i yell, "get off your phone now!! you don't need to be calling more people down here!" so the kid has a bloody nose and fat lip and as we are about to get in the rig to check him out three other guys come up and say they need to be with him. i tell them they can't only the patient is allowed in the rig. they get a bit upset and tell us the kid is going with them. one of the guys states that he's his legal guardian. so i'm like, "well that's a refusal. we're out of here." however, my partner decides we need to stick around a bit longer. did i mention that, dj is also a cop? so he wants to see if this is going to turn into a full blown brawl. dj's excuse, "well, they're going to need us if it turns into a fight and someone gets hurt." "then, they can call us back after the scene is secure." finally, dj, decides to listen to me and we start to leave. just then the original patient comes back over to us with a cop, wanting to be checked out. at the same time our pagers go off for second crew to respond to a drug overdose. well, there was only one emt on second call. so we decide the kid who got his butt kicked doesn't need an ambulance to go to the er and we're going to respond to the od call. on the way there i try to call travis to let him know we will respond to the od call and he can go back to bed. however, in my cellphone i have a couple different travis's listed. unfortunately, i called my friend travis and not my co-worker, travis. i didnt' realize the mistake until after i asked him twice if he was responding. oops!! my only comfort in waking my friends at such a ridiculous hour is that travis used to be a mortician and country coroner so he's used to be called in the middle of the night. as far as i know the od patient lived.
so all that stuff occurred friday. now my question to dj is are you a cop or are you ems? when you're working with me you're ems and i am in charge. when i say leave a scene, we leave a scene.
as if that wasn't enough excitement. sunday night there was a mixed martial arts fight at the rec center that we had to do stand-by at. first off they fights were scheduled at 7pm. at 5:55 pm i get a call from a co-worker saying that they just got a call from the promoters wanting to know where we were at. the promoters felt it necessary that we be there an hour before the fights started. i'm still not sure why. so we hustled and got there at 6:20. so we sat there for nearly an hour before they finally started the fights. the fights themselves were pretty boring. i mean the longest one only lasted 5 minutes. most of them were over within a minute. well, one of the fighters dislocated his shoulder. one of the commissioners came up to us and asked for a sling. he wanted a sling like you get from the doctor's office. we don't carry slings like that. also if we were going to put him in a sling then he needed to go to the hospital with us. otherwise there's a liability issue. well, the commissioner was extremely rude making comments like, "wow!! you're an ambulance and you don't have slings??? ridiculous!!" i tried to tell the guy a few times that we could stabilize the shoulder with gauze wrap and a triangle bandage. but after his comments i just handed him the gauze wrap and said that's the best we can do and let him and the ring doctor handle it. i pretty much decided then and there that i would not sign up to work another event like that. i will not be talked to like that.
so after that fun little chat the fights continue. did i mention that they were serving alcohol at the event? no? i guess i assumed one would assume that beer would be sold at such an event. so anyway, one guy up in the stands by were the promoters had us stationed was obviously intoxicated and being pretty belligerent and yelling obscenities the whole time. he starts to get into a verbal altercation with another guy in the crowd. i went to security and told them to watch those two guys because there was a good chance it was gonna turn physical as soon as the event was over. "security", and i use the term in the loosest sense possible, told the guys to sit down. of course they didn't comply and "security" just stood there and did nothing. if it were me i would have escorted both those guys out of the building. well the event ends and the individual comes down out of the stands and is still yelling at the other guy. meantime he's walking backwards not looking where he's going and comes straight at us. we put our hands up to keep him from falling on us. the guy turns around and grabs my partner by the shoulder and smacks him in the chest with an open hand then as he's walking away he slaps my partner in the face knocking his glasses askew. i immediately jump up and yell to security and a couple of actual cops that were standing there to grab him because he just assaulted my partner. which they do. the guy was arrested. he's facing a felony assault charge because he assaulted and on-duty ems worker. that's one good thing i can think of that came out of sept 11, 2001. after that tragedy a law was passed that any assault on an ems worker (which also includes doctors, nurses, and firefighters) is now a c-felony. so this guy is looking at a max fine of $20,000 and 5 years in prison. all because he got drunk and thought he was a big, tough guy.
well, i think that was the first and last mma fight to be held in dickinson. they require an ambulance to stand-by and i can pretty much guarantee that no one on the ambulance service will sign up to work that event again.
so what did we learn this weekend kids?
1. when you're working ems you are not a cop and the medic is in control of the call and you need to listen to him/her.
2. slapping an emt is a big no-no, unless you enjoy prison.
3. don't use the "s" word ever when on-shift!!!
so all that stuff occurred friday. now my question to dj is are you a cop or are you ems? when you're working with me you're ems and i am in charge. when i say leave a scene, we leave a scene.
as if that wasn't enough excitement. sunday night there was a mixed martial arts fight at the rec center that we had to do stand-by at. first off they fights were scheduled at 7pm. at 5:55 pm i get a call from a co-worker saying that they just got a call from the promoters wanting to know where we were at. the promoters felt it necessary that we be there an hour before the fights started. i'm still not sure why. so we hustled and got there at 6:20. so we sat there for nearly an hour before they finally started the fights. the fights themselves were pretty boring. i mean the longest one only lasted 5 minutes. most of them were over within a minute. well, one of the fighters dislocated his shoulder. one of the commissioners came up to us and asked for a sling. he wanted a sling like you get from the doctor's office. we don't carry slings like that. also if we were going to put him in a sling then he needed to go to the hospital with us. otherwise there's a liability issue. well, the commissioner was extremely rude making comments like, "wow!! you're an ambulance and you don't have slings??? ridiculous!!" i tried to tell the guy a few times that we could stabilize the shoulder with gauze wrap and a triangle bandage. but after his comments i just handed him the gauze wrap and said that's the best we can do and let him and the ring doctor handle it. i pretty much decided then and there that i would not sign up to work another event like that. i will not be talked to like that.
so after that fun little chat the fights continue. did i mention that they were serving alcohol at the event? no? i guess i assumed one would assume that beer would be sold at such an event. so anyway, one guy up in the stands by were the promoters had us stationed was obviously intoxicated and being pretty belligerent and yelling obscenities the whole time. he starts to get into a verbal altercation with another guy in the crowd. i went to security and told them to watch those two guys because there was a good chance it was gonna turn physical as soon as the event was over. "security", and i use the term in the loosest sense possible, told the guys to sit down. of course they didn't comply and "security" just stood there and did nothing. if it were me i would have escorted both those guys out of the building. well the event ends and the individual comes down out of the stands and is still yelling at the other guy. meantime he's walking backwards not looking where he's going and comes straight at us. we put our hands up to keep him from falling on us. the guy turns around and grabs my partner by the shoulder and smacks him in the chest with an open hand then as he's walking away he slaps my partner in the face knocking his glasses askew. i immediately jump up and yell to security and a couple of actual cops that were standing there to grab him because he just assaulted my partner. which they do. the guy was arrested. he's facing a felony assault charge because he assaulted and on-duty ems worker. that's one good thing i can think of that came out of sept 11, 2001. after that tragedy a law was passed that any assault on an ems worker (which also includes doctors, nurses, and firefighters) is now a c-felony. so this guy is looking at a max fine of $20,000 and 5 years in prison. all because he got drunk and thought he was a big, tough guy.
well, i think that was the first and last mma fight to be held in dickinson. they require an ambulance to stand-by and i can pretty much guarantee that no one on the ambulance service will sign up to work that event again.
so what did we learn this weekend kids?
1. when you're working ems you are not a cop and the medic is in control of the call and you need to listen to him/her.
2. slapping an emt is a big no-no, unless you enjoy prison.
3. don't use the "s" word ever when on-shift!!!