Emergencies

Well, start of a new month. I just looked back over the last month. I did 120 calls. Not all of them emergencies.

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My EMT teacher taught me that the emergency ends when you arrive and it really is true. We continue to be sent to emergencies only to arrive and find, there is no real emergency.

Sent for not breathing today at a doctor's office. Got there, patient was breathing. No emergency.

Did two calls at a nursing home, One for chest pain, one for difficulty breathing. The chest pain was nothing and the dsypnea was for desaturation. In other words, the pulse oximieter was getting crazy readings, but the patient was okay. Pilse oximeters monitor a patient's oxygen saturation in their blood. They are handy gadgets, but sometimes they don't read right. A good score is 95-100. A bad score is less than 90. If someone is reading 43, they shouldn't really be alert and pink in the face. They should be blue and having someone start CPR. This lady was talking. Her sat wasn't really 43. Machine error. A lot of unneccesary trips to the ER due to pulse oximiters.

The call list. Chest pain, dsypnea, lift assist, not breathing but really breathing, motor vehicle, and abdominal pain.