Stretcher

I worked ten hours in the city with my preceptee. Normally he rides as a third, but it was just the two of us. We were cranking all day, but didn't do one ALS call. We did a psych, a fall at the new convention center, an old woman who cut her finger, a severe abdominal pain from the clinic across the street from the hospital, who was a direct admit, a nursing home abdominal pain, a transfer and we were on our way to another call when the transmission started slipping, so we had to be cancelled off that call. We did another call, but I can't remember what it was.

I almost left the stretcher at the hospital one time. I'm not used to being the person who takes care of the stretcher. I left it in the hallway outside the room while I talked to somebody, then went and got something to eat. I was standing outside the ER when the guy who normally uses the ambulance we were in (he was there working for another service,) opened the back of the ambulance, presumably to see if we were keeping it clean for him(he had sealed all of the cabinets with the brakeoff ties), when I noticed there was no stretcher in the back, so I quickly went and got it. That would have been embarrasing.

I drove halfway to one call with the sirens on, but no lights. Once we'd switched ambulances, the controls to turn the lights on are different. The first ambulance, you just hit the emergency master, the second, you had to hit the mastwer and thenb the individual light buttons, and since they don't light up on the inside, you can't tell if they are on. I only noticed I didn't have the lights on beacuse cars were looking confused and not reacting properly to us.

The day wore me down all the driving and carting the stretcher around, plus the pollen continues to be terrible.

No chance to use capnography today.

I'm off tomorrow.