Shock

Went to a nursing home for the unresponsive. The nurse explained the man was dying of lung cancer and was a full code and had no family. He was awake now, she said, but she had to sent him in because he was a full code. The man was fully alert and had no pain and good vitals. I think he was just sleeping.

Today was the Memorial Parade and the ambulance was supposed to be in it -- all three of our ambulances. I was glad when we got a call. I'm just not a parade kind of guy. The call was for a man's defibrillator going off.

When we arrived, it had gone off four times already. I put him on the monitor and it looked like V-tack.

Then all of a sudden, his whole body convulsed in pain and he cried out. The artifact was caused by the wires moving as his body convulsed with in pain.

It shocked him once more before I could get the line in and start giving him some 150 mg of Amiodarone over 10 minutes.

Here's the initial 12-Lead:

Shocking is incredibly painful. This guy, who even though he was diaphoretic, was joking with us, and then when the defibrillator went off, his whole body winced in pain, and he started cussing at me to hurry up and give him the medicine. I also gave him some Versed, and then hung an Amio drip at 30 mg/hr. He didn't get shocked again and felt much better.

His final rhythm was hard to determine. It was still very funky, but his rate slowed from the 150s to 100 and he was perfusing better. It was irregular. His wife said he only had 1/3 of a functioning heart.

In the hospital his rate was down in the 80's and showed his pacemaker kicking in.

He was better and thankful to his defibrillator and to us. We missed the parade and I was thankful to him.

Last call was at the same nursing home for the unresponsive diabetic with a CVA history and a blood sugar of 150 according to the home. We took her out to the ambulance and checked it. 28. Fixed that.