"For the Unconscious"

Crazy day. It seems like every call we were dispatched to was an “unconscious” or “cardiac arrest” and the location was on the other side of the city from where we were.

Signed on in the morning and was sent for a sick person in the north end. While enroute, we were switched to "the unconscious" at the train station. Got there and could find no one so we cleared no patient. Later we were sent "for the unconscious" also in the north end, possible drug overdose and no one was there. In the afternoon, we were sent "for the the unconscious" in the height of rush hour. Arrived to find a man slumped over at a bus stop. He was just drunk.

Earlier we were sent for fall at a chicken restaurant in another town. We found a man lying on the ground writing in pain. He said his knee hurt. He had fallen earlier in the day at a senior center – that man was 90 – felt okay, then went about his way. While eating chicken, the pain became so unbearable he thought he was going to pass out. His knee did look a little deformed, but then so did his other knee. Only a little pain on palpation. His pressure was 93/60 – he said he usually had low pressure. He said he felt dizzy like he was going to pass out. We took him to the hospital – it was very odd – he looked terrible, but said the pain in his knee wasn’t as bad. The one problem with the call for me was he was hard of hearing and he had the most foul breath – it was so foul – it made me think there was something wrong with his insides. I had to lean forward to shout at him, and then he would answer before I could pull my head away and I’d get hit with a toxic plume of breath. Very unpleasant. We finally get him in the room at the hospital, and then he starts to puke. He fills up three emesis basins with thick food like emesis.

I was writing up my run form, when I heard on the radio of one of our fly car medics in a suburban town that there was a cardiac arrest there. Both fly medics were at the hospital writing there run forms up. I got a page then asking any available car to clear, so my partner and I cleared and we sent to the cardiac arrest.

It turns out it wasn’t a cardiac arrest, but was very interesting. A forty year old woman, who had had a cardiac arrest a couple months ago and had an implanted defibrillator was mowing the lawn when the thing went off, knocking her on her back. It went off three more times. She was extremely anxious when we got there and worried she was about to die. It was the first time it had ever gone off. I did what I could to reassure her, as well as giving her some Versed to ease her anxiety and take away some of the pain should the defib go off again. Her kids who were with her when it went off were all bawling and we had to try to calm them down as well.

Toward the end of the day we were sent "for the unconscious" man in a car. Enroute we get an update from one of the fly car medics that the man is in his car in the garage with the engine running. Then before we can get there we get cancelled. I am guessing the fire department got him out and the medic called him dead.

Not two minutes go by before we are sent "for the unconscious" – a woman in a car outside a medical building. We arrive first and a woman directs us to a car where I can see someone sitting in the front seat. I knocked on the glass she says, but she wouldn’t move. The door is open. The woman is elderly, head slumped forward. She is cool and not breathing, but still limber. I shout to my partner that it is a code, and then I pull her out onto the board and do CPR as we wheel her to the stretcher. One of our supervisors has arrived and then the fly car medic.. She was asystole. It was nice having two medics with me. All I had to do was hold out my hand and they would hand me the ET tube or drawn up drugs. She had the tiniest chords. I was just barely able to get a 7.0 through them. We transported her to a local hospital, but we didn’t get anything back. If she had died at home I would have worked her twenty minutes, then called her, but here the twenty minutes wasn’t up until we were reaching the hospital.

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Also did a couple transfers and a refusal for a baby who choked on his mother’s milk.

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One funny or not so funny from the day was when we arrived at the scene of the drunk at the bus stop. We pulled in to the bus stop opposite traffic so only my partner could see the patient. I got out the passenger door, grabbed the blue bag from the side of the ambulance, then went around the back, thinking my partner had gone directly to the patient. As I’m walking around the rear, the back door catches me face on, as my partner is pulling out the stretcher. I gave him a hard time about it. I was lucky I had my arm in front of me holding the strap of the blue bag slung over my shoulder. Otherwise my partner would have had to have requested another ambulance "for the unconcious."

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Food highlight of the day was chicken empanadas at a Spanish restaurant. We went there late and the empanadas they had in the window were a little dried out so they offered to cook us some fresh ones. Delicious – right out of the oven – light, crispy, juicy. Only $1.25 each.