Day 2
Saturday, September 11, 2010
“You said you would do the paper work…”
So I woke up at 6am… then 8am… then 10:30. WHOOPS!!!! We were supposed to take off for Post 41 at 1100. Yeah…. That didn’t happen. So we get out of our apt complex parking lot at like 11:15. Pulled into Post 41 right at 11:43. Moa ran. I figured we made it on time. *shrugs. So I walk up and find out I am on truck 57. Sweet. So I go to it and find the Basic that is Candace’s partner, Gina is there. She invites me right on up into the rig and starts talking and chatting with me. She is a real good driver. : P So we get all of our gear check it, get our narcs. Ask and find out why Diphenhydramine is in the controlled substance box. Apparently a Paramedic and his wife (both worked for EMSA) not sure if she was a Basic or worked in Materials or what, but they had stolen a ton… Like a CRAP ton of Benadryl and they got caught, fired, and it got put in the narc box. Some people!!!!
So we head out of Post 41 right at 12:15. WOOT!!!! On time. I hear the call go out to another rig for a Cardiac Arrest and I tell Candace ‘ooo…. Maybe we can get one of those today!!!!’ She looks at me and says ‘only if you do the paper work’. I said I would do it gladly. : P We laughed and promptly get called to a hand injury. 21 y/o M who was putting another hole in his son’s belt and slipped. FD had it all bandaged when we got there, so we didn’t see it til we got to the ER. It was maybe ¾ of an inch long and maybe… MAYBE 2 mm deep. I didn’t think it needed stitches, but he was in a medical assisting program and thought he knew it ALL!!! So he just knew he needed that free ride to the ER we were gonna give him. After the ER nurses were pissed because we brought him in, we were headed to post 24. I was stoked!!!! That post is at the best hole in the wall donut shop in OKC, according to several Medics and Basics I met yesterday.
So we are pulling in the parking lot we are there, the donut’s are in sight…. And we get a call. MVC-2 vehicles involved. I was upset… but oh, well. It was an MVC!!!! I saw my first starred windshield and a crack whore, who just so happened to use her head to star the windshield. She wasn’t the driver, and she refused transport, probably had a head injury and I tried my best to convince her to come with us, but refused saying her mom would take her. The driver of the same little Ford POS refused transport and had what looked like a fracture to the 3rd metacarpal of her left hand. OUCH!!! I know what that feels like. Hurts like a some beach!!! The car they hit was carrying a young man stationed at the Air Force Base down the road, so there were more good looking men in uniform standing around wanting to help in whatever way that could than any one woman would know what to do with. : P He had some neck and left arm pain. So he got the board. He unfortunately was not a very fortunate looking young man. We transported him.
So we putter around and get thrown from post to post like we are the ball in a pin-ball game, when we are called to respond to capsized boat at Lake Hefner. They dubbed it a ‘major incident’. So we find the boat and it is still in the middle of the lake. See 2 people get in another sailboat and then the police search and rescue boat gets on the water and we hear of a missing 45 y/o M still in the water. Then there are 2 missing people then back to one… took about 30 minutes before PD would confirm whether there were 3 or 4 people on the boat when it went down. There were 4 and 3 were picked up in a sailboat. Well the boat gets to shore and has a life jacket attached to it and according to the people on the boat at the time of its capsize the missing 45 y/o M wasn’t wearing a life-jacket. We are pretty sure none of them were wearing life-jackets, but that’s beside the point. So the chopper comes to the rescue and starts going around the lake looking. Here are the pictures I took with my phone.
 |
| Almost there... |
 |
| Got it!!!! |
 |
| Can you see the fourth victims life-vest hanging on the boat by a carabiner!!! |
 |
| The OKC PD helicopter looking for the 4th victim. |
We are on-scene about 40 minutes, when we get word that PD has found the 4th victim and he was on a pier so we get the rig turned around and head screaming behind the patrol car that was leading us there. So I am figuring he was about a 130 lb small framed healthy guy (picture painted by the report given to PD from rescued victims), so he swam and was found…. Right?? WRONG!!!!! I know my prediction is hinky when Gina says and I quote “Oh shit… They are doing chest compressions!!!!!!” Which to you common folk means CPR… He has no pulse… He is dead. So I hop out of the back grab the cot (which has everything on it) and run down the the dock where this poor man is. Their compressions and bagging were effective his color was getting better and I thought he looked a bit cyanotic.
So I am given the tube… ahhhhh… The heavens, parted angels are singing, and God is shining down on me, showering blessings on my head!!!! My first in the field tube!!!! Second day on my internship, first pt to need a tube and I get it!!!! ‘Tube’ is an endotracheal intubation which goes into the pt’s trachea and secures their airway. It is a big deal to be handed the tube on your second day as an intern!!!! So I get my handle and Mac blade…. My light is white, tight and bright… I kneel on the concrete dock to go down to visualize and cords… and the light is reflecting back at me from all the water coming out with compressions. SUCTION!!!!!! It gets there I suction, lay on my belly to get a better view see the cords am about to put in the tube and a fire fighter thinks I am about to fall off the deck or something and grabs my legs… Startles me, I lose em… Look again and can’t see em… so a Fire Fighter/Paramedic takes the tube. Grrrrrr!!!!!!!!!! We get him on the backboard and start to wheel him off the ramp and almost loose the brand new LifePac 15 in the water, then on the ground when we are loading him up in the rig. We never got any rhythm from him after 5 rounds of epi, 3 of atropine and 50 of Bicarb. We transport with a FF doing compressions, me on airway and Candace on meds. His lungs were so full of water that it kept shorting out our ETCO2 detector. We get him to the ER and after confirming tube placement and doing an ultrasound of his heart, they called it. The story made the local news. Here is the link.
After giving report and starting to clean up and restock the truck and the bags, Candace comes out of the hospital starts handing me the computer and says ‘You said you would do the paper work.’ Gina and I got a kick out of that. I was taking it out of her hands saying, ‘You will have to show me how.’ She just smiled and laughed and went to go and do it. While Gina and I were cleaning out the truck she told me I did really well. I told her I was terrified and felt like I had no clue what I was doing. She said she couldn’t tell. Later I asked Candace how I could have done better and she said ‘Hell, I barely knew where I was or what I was doing much less what you were doing!!!’ We all laughed. I told her she needed to pay better attention next time, so that I can get some feedback. She just smiled.
After being forced to clear the hospital because the system was on level 0 (no available trucks on the roads), we get a call, then get swapped calls twice and end up with a 90 y/o F choking on a piece of BBQ beef. As we pulled up, I thought to myself ‘If this lady codes, Candace is never gonna let me back on her truck… ever.’ It had become a joke that the code and all the bad things on calls that were happening that day was because of me. The code, Gina getting a refusal from a minor w/o a parent signature, getting ping-ponged around from post to post… All me. It was fine though, I didn’t mind being the scapegoat. XD So we get to this poor old lady who wants us to suction this BBQ out of her throat. None of us wanted to catch vomit, so we didn’t. She wasn’t very pleased, but was transported without incident. We are on our way to post and decided many, MANY hours earlier that we wanted ice cream. So we stop off at Chic-Fil-A and Candace and I got milkshakes… YUM! Did you know that on duty EMS and fire get 50% discount at Chic-Fil-A in OKC??? Well you do now. I was stoked. Gina wanted her Coffee Ice Cream drink from Sonic, so we stopped there…
The last call of the day was a pretty good one. Psychiatric PT. 69 y/o M Hallucinating. He was mad at every one and was seeing people pulling out his insides and all sorts of crazy-ness. He screams all the way through the nursing home cause we are killing him (has a broken tailbone and we moved him). and we get out to the truck and he calms down a bit until I try to put the PulseOx on his finger. He is screaming that it is going to hurt. So I put it on my finger and he says how is that not hurting you, your hand is covered in your insides. I take off my glove and explain that it was my glove not blood and he still won’t let me put it on his finger. So about 3 minutes later Candace asks if I can put it on his finger and he lets me. Then she asks me to get a blood sugar with a finger stick. I clean his finger, explaining what is going on and then I tell him it is going to hurt when I poke him, but it will only last a couple of seconds. He says no, but is holding my hand so I take the lancet and poke him really quick. Get the drop of blood, get the BGL. The Pt then hands me something that only he can see (he had been doing that since before he left the nursing home), so I “take” it and “set” it down on the bench. He looks me dead in the throws out a string of profanities and tells me to shove that (whatever he just handed me) as far up my ass as it will go, the crooked pointy end first. Candace fell out of her chair laughing. We send him off and get back to post then we are sent home. WOOOT!!!!
So...no tube? Girl, that totally sucks! Stinkin people who go startling others. I seems like you are totally loving it there, though!! J-E-A-L-O-U-S.
ReplyDelete