No Where

In the suburban town where I work several days a week there are four full-time medics, three ambulances and two sets of ALS bags, one LifePack 12. Each medic is assigned an ambulance. I share an ambulance with the other day medic, as well as the same set of ALS gear. I come in in the morning, check my gear, and then don't have to worry about it for the rest of my week as I am the only medic using it. What I do do each morning is switch the narcatics into my ambulance along with the Life Pac 12, the pedibox and the spare drug box. This week, the mechanics came early in the morning, woke us up and said they needed to take one of the ambulances. I took the gear out of the ambulance, but by mistake I left the other medic's ALS bag in the ambulance they took down to the garage so when he came in that night, he had to use my bag. This morning they brought the other ambulance back. I switched the narcs, the Life pack 12, the pedi box and the spare drug kit.

Our first call was for a minor motor vehicle that was going to be a refusal until at the last moment the man balked at signing the refusal and said, hell, he might as well go to the hospital. My partner, who is new because my regular partner is away this week, set up the stretcher, and then we took a nice ride in. Later in the day, we were sent for dsypnea at a cardiologist's office. After we pulled in, I glanced in back to see if all the gear was on the stretcher. Guess what? Where's the ALS bag? No where.

I threw the spare house bag and the spare drug kit on the stretcher and prayed that the patient would not need to be intubated. It turned out all right. He just needed a treatment and I was able to get a nebulizer off the shelf along with atrovent and albuterol from the spare drug kit. Still. A close one.

It wasn't the first time I have forgotten something. See : The Stretcher

We drove back to the base, got the ALS kit, only to discover we had the patient's cane. We took the cane back to the hospital and realized we had left our 02 tank at the hospital when we saw it sitting orphaned in the hallway. Then I went back to the ambulance and found my wallet had fallen into the doorway, and was half-in/half-out of the rig. What a day.

Last call was for a woman at a charity benefit with abdominal pain. It was right lower quadrant pain, dull and crampy, sudden onset. Did not increase with movement. I thought it might be kidney stones. The pain came and went. She was related to someone because two doctors met her at triage and started examining her there, much to the annoyance of the triage nurse. She didn't know the older doctor who was spouting possible diagnoses. The other doctor, an ER resident, looked apologetic and mouthed she was asked to examine the patient.