blizzard 2006
What a "day". As many of you have probably heard, Colorado got hit with a whopper of a blizzard... Infact Governer Owens declared a state of emergency yesterday around two o'clock, and the National Gaurd came out to help evacuate people who were stuck on the roads... (morons, we've known this storm was comming since Saturday, and they still tried to go to the mall in their camery's and geo metros). I went to work early, brought my asthma meds, and other necessary overnight meds, my sleeping bag, and a pillow... and thank god I did. I ended up working from eight yesterday morning to about eight this evening... woot forced 36 hr shifts! At seven PM we were still posted at SMC (an hour after our off time), and the dispatcher said, "no you guys are staying on tonight" uh... ok, first time I've heard this... so he put my boss, E. on the phone who said "no, I told you when you were at OHQ getting chains on your ambulance" uh, no you said 'i hope you brought a blanket'. Now, to me that says 'i hope you can keep warm' not 'you are working tonight'. He said that it was not safe to send us home, so he may as well pay us to stay. Ok... so... it's not safe to send us home, but it's safe to send us on bs hospital discharges up into the mountais all night? with a combative patient who decked me? (oh yeah, patient got combative on me, decked me, we restrained him, he got out of his restraints grabbed my arm and held on to me with a death grip... had to restrain him again, was NO WAY PD could get to us because it was 4 AM in the middle of BFE.
Then we had to stay on and work our normal shift today, luckily they gave us 6 hrs of down time this morning to sleep and take a shower etc... (six of us were caught at station 9). Then I broke down when we had a patient, luckily I was driving... thought I was going to have to stay at quarters again tonight... no way I can get my car out, no way I could get home on the roads anyway... LUCKILY: I called dispatch, they got one of the ambulances to bring me home for the night, and one is going to pick me up in the morning and bring me back into work. so that's good. and I'm home, and it's over, and that's good.
Then we had to stay on and work our normal shift today, luckily they gave us 6 hrs of down time this morning to sleep and take a shower etc... (six of us were caught at station 9). Then I broke down when we had a patient, luckily I was driving... thought I was going to have to stay at quarters again tonight... no way I can get my car out, no way I could get home on the roads anyway... LUCKILY: I called dispatch, they got one of the ambulances to bring me home for the night, and one is going to pick me up in the morning and bring me back into work. so that's good. and I'm home, and it's over, and that's good.