Company Man

Rainy, rainy day in a rainy, rainy week.

Started off with a diabetic. 25 year old man at work in a factory. Sitting there, skin cool, clammy, nonverbal. Pretty straightforward call. Sugar was 40, gave him an amp of D50. He came around, and admited he had neglected to eat breakfast. He refused transport, his foreman gave him some OJ and brought him a sandwich. We rechecked his sugar. It was 240. He signed a refusal. His foreman agreed to call us back if there was any change in his condition.

We responded for a 2-year old who fell through a glass table and cut his head. We get there and the fire department has already wrapped it. They say it is a good sized gash. The kid is in his mother's arms and is wailing away. We transport the mother, kid and his three year old brother. The mother is Indian. She is holding the crying boy, and she says. "Numba two baby, you give me so much trouble, but don't worry, mother loves numba two baby, no matter what trouble you give me. " And she kisses him. It was cute.

Then we got the best call we could hope for on a day of pouring rain(the worst call is a multicar MVA). A long distance VA transfer, taking a drunk down to detox. We get there and they have two drunks, so I say, hey what not? we'll take them both. And we do. It makes no sense to send a second ambulance. Both drunks agree not to bicker and the staff at the VA thinks they will be fine together. My partner calls me a company man. Since it is a BLS transport, my partner has to sit in the back with them -- and one of them does have a bit of an odor problem. I get to drive. It is a 40 mile trip, which is excellent for my driving score. 40 highway miles without a violation always helps bring up your score. Most months I am above the standard line. I'm not certain what the standard is set at. You get points deducted for speed violations, sudden decelerations or too heavy gravity turns and also backing up without someone pushing the spotter button. Deductions are divided by miles driven or vice versa. Pretty much all my violations are backing violations. If it's pouring rain, and my partner and I are in the front seat, company man or no company man, if I think I can back up safely, I back up without asking him to get out in the rain to push the button. So what if I lose a point? I already got my DVD player as raffle winner for Safe Driver of the Month last November.

Speaking of company men, I know of only one other medic beside me-- there may be more -- who laid down the $2500 a few months back to buy into the company. We own only a measly piece, but we were joking the other day about the "riffraft" in the union who are taking a hardline with the company in the current labor negotiations, trying to eat into our dividends. Nevertheless I believe we both voted against the intitial company contract proposal, which was turned down 120-3. They were having more negotiations today and at lunch we got an update that things seemed to be going better. The big hangup is health insurance. In the past, the union has been relatively weak in the face of the company's negotiators, but this year they seem to have formed a stronger front. I think pay is pay, but health insurance is a person's family and it illicits a much stronger response. I know health costs are skyrocketing, but people need to be assured that if they get sick or someone in their family is sick, they won't be wiped out. There were a lot of questions about the company's health care proposal that seem to be getting answered, and people seem to be saying, maybe the plan, which the company has now apparently modified, is not as unreasonable as initially thought. There are many other issues on the table that need to be resolved, but I am hopeful a public confrontation can be avoided. There is nothing wrong with hardball play at contract time -- that's good business (both for the union and the company). In the end I hope both sides can settle on something that works for everyone. While I am a company man, if ever forced to chose, I have to stand on the side of the people who work the streets.

Our last call was for a lethargic woman -- a 92 year old lady with severe dementia, whose son said she was just not acting right. It turns out she was in a rapid afib at 170. I gave her some Cardizem and her rate came right down to the 80's.

While at the hospital I saw one of our newer medics. I think she has been a medic maybe 2 or 3 years, after being an EMT for several before that. A nice, smart, well- meaning middle-aged woman -- who cares about being good at her job. She told me she was going to go part-time (I guess she's going back to her old sales job part-time), and she seemed sort of beatup. I don't know whether it is the job, the union negotiations, or all the routine crap that each profession and workplace has, and which sometimes can be onerous in this one, but she seemed tired and disspirited. It made me sad. You hate to see people who care leave, even if it is just to go part-time.

I guess the next negotiating session will be Sunday night. If it is, I will be there. I give a lot of respect to the people who are active in the union. They take a lot of crap -- from their fellow employees and from the company, and they do it without pay, and it always seems to beat them up. I will be there to support them.