Asleep

I'm working the Tuesday overnight into Wednesday afternoon. I got here last night, butt tired. I didn't get a chance to nap on Tuesday. I got the narc keys from the day medic, switched into my ambulance, checked my gear, then went right back to the bunkroom and crashed.

12:30 the tones go off, and I am on my way to a racing heart call. Like I always say when I work the overnight, I'm never doing this again. I am too old. I stare out in a daze at the headlights illuminating the night road.

The call is BS. A woman with chest pain for two weeks, feels like a muscle pull. Nothing significant for a cardiac event. Still we take her in. Better safe than sorry.

As we go down the Avenue, my partner calls back, "Seven minutes out."

That's his reminder I need to patch to the hospital. I tell the patient, I'll be right back while I call the hospital. In our ambulance, the radio is in between the driver's section and the back. I sit in the captain's chair, pick up the mike and call the hospital. From where I sit, the patient cannot see me nor I the patient. I just see the back of the stretcher and the patient's head. I ask for a patch to the hospital. I hear the dispatcher say something that sounds like "Stand By."

The next thing I know we are pulling into the hospital, and I am still holding the radio. I look up and I'm on the main channel."Did they give me a med channel?" I ask my partner.

"I don't know, they said stand by."

I don't know what happened, whether they gave me a channel and said stand by or just said stand by. If they gave me a channel, I didn't go to it. They would have announced that the hospital was on, but I didn't hear it because I was still standing by on the main channel. The truth is, I think I fell asleep holding the mike.

I came back, got in bed, and didn't wake up till 7:15.

Thank you EMS Gods for a quiet night outside of that one call. I don't think I could have made it through the day if I was up all night.

I'm still on the tired side. I do need a few days off where I am doing nothing but resting. I wish I could lie on a beach somewhere hot.

***

Did one call later in the day.

Dispatch tells us the nurse says she thinks the patient is having a heart attack, but we shouldn't use lights and sirens. We use them anyway, then we get an update from the EMD dispatcher and they say no lights and sirens, it's a routine transport. We shut down. We get there, the nurse tells us the patient is having pain similar to when she had an MI. She is cold and clammy.

***

I came across this story about a guy called dead, who wasn't dead. Whenever I presume someone dead, I also worry about them waking up, even if they are cold and stiff. This is a story of someone who did.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050211/ap_on_re_us/not_dead_yet_1