Unconcious

Just one call today. It comes in as a man unconcious in the driveway. My partner recognizes it as an address he responded to a couple weeks before. "He's a drunk," he says.

We find the man laying on his side a few feet away from the car. He has a suturable lac above his right eye. He is as my partner guessed -- drunk. His wife says he drove home, got out of the car and fell down -- same thing as happened two weeks before. He has no idea where he is or how he got there. He admits to having a few beers. As we c-spine him I think about the call the previous day where the bystander appeared upset that I hadn't c-spined the boy at the country club and here I am now c-spining this drunk in a poorer section of town. Why? Well, it is indicated for him. He is impaired, the boy wasn't.

We have a nice chat on the way to the hospital. He is angry at his wife because she called 911 and the police came and took his licence away(He isn't arrested -- he just will have to go to the motor vehicles department and get re-tested). I tell him she saved him from being arrested for drunk driving. He agrees she might not be too bad after all. he says he has to pee. I ask him to wait. He managed to hold it until we got to the hospital, but then when I bring the run form back to the place in the hall where they have him on a cot, I see he has already gone. He is still asking to pee, unaware that he has already gone now at least once. After calls I often debvate what i should and shouldn't have done. How is this for a dilemna -- should I have helped him with a urinal? Yeah, maybe I should have, but while I resolve to try to be a more humane medic the next time, and while it does trouble me slightly, I soon forget about it.

My relief comes in two hours early so i can get to the airport -- I am headed the Ohio to serve on a committee for the National registry looking into paramedics competencies -- whatever that means. I will soon find out.

The flight is on time, but the plane is small and rattles when the landing gear drops. I catch the shuttle to a Marriot Hotel and have a steak dinner and two beers and then head back to my room to watch SAVED. (More about the show in a later post).

I'm supposed to meet someone from the registry in the lobby at 8:30 the next morning.