Long day at the station...

Spent the first half of the president's day volunteering bonanza on the BLS unit. Got relocated to a station on the outskirts of our county expecting a great heaping pile of NOTHING. I guess it was one of those feast or famine kinda days, because i had just finished my 3rd set in the gym when we get toned out to an accident with injury, possibly trapped. Head on Pickup truck vs. sedan. The two in the Pickup are totally greentag, the lady in the car is slightly more than a few ouchies, infact shes almost medic worthy but we do a quasi-KED quasi-Rapid extraction on her, get her out of the car with the help from the guys on the rescue squad. Man i love that piece, its gotta be hella fun to ride a rescue. We get her out and in just enough time to hand her off to the newly arrived ALS unit, so we can go attend to the 2 greenies from the pickup, nothing more than some pre-existing neck pain and a little tiny laceration on the other dude's finger. Predictably both sign refusals, the creme de la creme of modern society these two.

We head back to our detail station, sit for another couple minutes and the tones drop again, we're off to another accident with injury possibly trapped. The kicker was its all the way back in our home area (2nd due actually) an EASY 15 minute response time in good weather in mid day traffic. We get waved off literally 500 feet from the accident. No one requesting transport, man i was amped up for that one.

oh well!!! We get back from the lunch shop and the in house medic is back at the detail station so we call our uniformed duty officer and let them know we're headed back "home". Quiet for the rest of the day. But two SOLID calls especially for teh BLS side of things in our jurisdiction. We wait for our volunteer relief to get there andi switch over to the ALS unit for the night.

Here's where things get interesting. Not too exciting for the first hour or so but then we're just settling in and getting ready to set up my bunk when HONK HONK BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP! Toned out on a good call. All my training paid off last night, helped save a truly sick person. Sick in the head and sick in her body. We were sitting around and goofin' on each other because some of the guys found out i'm making a baby blanket for my best friend and his wife. Yes by hand, i know how to knit. and somehow i earned the nickname snuggles, must be something about joking around in the firehouse....lol.But, i digress. About 930 last night the tones drop in the station and we get banged out on an overdose, which en route becomes upgraded to suicide attempt. Seems this address has a LOOOOOONG history of domestic disturbance calls, previous overdoses and suicide attempts. Well long story short, we show up Engine, Medic, and Ambulance just in case. Get into the house and there's a frantic husband, thank god the police are there, and the house reeks of natural gas. One of the guys off the engine gets the meter and says we must be crazy the air is fine. Lady is out COLD in her bed. Empty pill bottles all over the bathroom. Too many for me to remember even if i could tell you. One HELL of a sternal rub later (a sternal rub is when you take your balled up knuckles and give someone a "noogie" on your breastbone, trust me it hurst like a flaming motherfucker) and still nothing, hook her up to O2 and get a quick set of vitals, pinpoint pupils (which would suggest opiate overdose, but none were found) and posturing great shes been down for a while too, last time anybody saw or talked to her was 3pm....6 hours earlier. We get her in the back of the medic unit, get a TINY IV, and there's really nothing we can do except supportive care, O2, monitoring, trying to get her to come out of it. My officer tells me to expose the patient, first time with a female (choke up on the scissors and just get it done, get over your modesty issues later!!!). Get a good 12 lead, odd, she looks really good for someone who took half a fuckin' pharmacy and went to bed. Odd, slightly depressed heartrate, normalish BP, slow sonorous (snoring) breathing, hell i'd have thought she was asleep if it wasnt for the posturing and pupils. Drop her off to the docs at the hospital, they do exactly what we think they will, give NARCAN( the antidote for opiates like heroin or opium...man do they HATE it when we ruin their heroin binge) that didnt work because she hasnt taken any Opiates, but "doctor knows best". Long story short, she bought a tube, for the short term shes on life support in a medically induced coma (partially of her own doing). If we hadnt gotten to her when we did shed have probably asphyxiated and been dead in a matter of an hour. I'm not sure if this counts as "saving a patient" but she stands a chance if she can survive the blood tylenol level of 172 , the only thing we're sure of at this point is her liver is FUCKED.She may or may not wake up, but at least we gave her the chance to possibly survive.

Get her all situated at the hospital and get back to the Firehouse at about 11:30 and turn in for the night, i'm sleepinglike a baby, then the tones have me bolt upright not 2 hours later. We get dispatched to our 2nd due for an ALS emergency. Seizure activity, young woman, been seizing for approximately 20 minutes. and i mean GETTIN' IT, good solid clonic seizure activity. When we arrive on scene the engine medics are already there, prepping drugs and whatnot, its early in the morning tempers are a little high and our medics come in and probably step on a few toes getting things done fast. Not the worst part butstill not great. The hardest part about this patient was that the friends/girlfriend/boyfriend refuse to really leave the room, and with a little EToH on board they're none too helpful at all, in fact our driver is thinking of dosing HER with the versed to keep her quiet (her = definitely NOT the patient). We get her on dosed and on the reeves to get out to the unit, to get her out and down the stairs in the cramped townhome i pop open the adjacent bedroom door, next words heard in the hallway "OH CRAP! BIG DOG!" The "friend's" big ol' chocolate lab was locked away in the room, now i know that dog would have done nothing more threatening than licking and loving on my partner. But still, not too comforting you don't know how the pup is going to react, and it was BIG! I grab the bottom of the reeves so he can scoot out of the room and close the door. We get the patient outside and shes STILL seizing, wierd part is shes completely coherent through the entire thing, when shes not tensed up and seizing shes CAOx3. Textbook distonic reaction to me. Probably the new med shes on. But what do i know, not my job to dianose, just to treat what we can and get her to a diagnostician. Shes a wonderful girl, she calms down when we get her in the unit and shes only worried that shes trapped in this seizing body and crying about how she's afraid which is to be expected. I really kinda fealt bad for her, shed stress herself out so much she'd trigger another seizure every time we tried to even take a blood pressure, finally i held her hand while the cuff did its thing and the monitor checked her out. Get her on some O2 and move out to the hospital. I'm getting better at this ALS assist thing, slowly but surely, i don't feel i was in the way this time which is a step in teh right direction.

Shes at the hospital, STILL SEIZING, still completely aware throughout, oddest thing i've seen in a while. Can't really do much but reassure her and talk her though her seizures.

Get home around 3:30 and get a decent night's sleep for being woken up twice. Could have been worse, lots of good experience last night.

Now if i can only get off my butt and get over tot he postoffice and mail off Sam's letter like i've been intending to do for a week.