I intentionally took a break from the blogosphere, i was letting things start to irritate me. Its never a good sign. But now I'm back, yippee whoohoo and all that jazz.
A lot has happened since my last post.
I'm only a couple days away from being released as ambulance officer, I've taken my EVOC operators courses (spent last night driving our ALS unit). And i've been accepted to the Fire Academy... yeah me! Ok well back to the important stuff.
I'm encouraged to write this post more as a vent and purge than anything else, so i appologize for the lack of Medic 61 style panache, or the humor of Epijunky. its just not gonna happen with this one. Think of it as a cyber post traumatic stress debriefing....the LITE version. So, as usualy i do my thursday night at the station. Luckily i get there early enough to chip in for dinner, the engine driver on B-shift is one hell of a cook. We got pepper crusted london broil with bernaise sauce, cooked carrots, green beans and rice pilaf. So good!!! Well thats where the fun for the evening ends.
Our usual medic Lieutenant leaves on annual leave like he usually does, and we get in a new guy. New guy seems pretty chill so i keep on the unit. Unfortunately the next 2 hours are spent switching over the unit from a reserve to our normal frontline medic. Thats a hell of a task, 400 some odd items, all need to be checked, cleaned and switched from the county reserve to our normal POS. BUT, the career driver actually threw me the keys and said, you're the one in training, you drive!
I was flabberghasted. First, new guy in the seat, who's he know me from? I mean to trust me with the keys and to drive them around, pretty cool. I know for those out there who are either career or work private thats not a big deal. But to work as a volunteer and to finally breech the career volunteer divide (more on that later) ispretty cool.
Get back to the station in one piece without paperwork which must mean my driving wasnt that bad. And just as we're settling in to hit the hay a call comes out for a lady with a broken ankle, we add on our BLS ambulance and actually wind up turning the call over to them. It was a patient that our engine and medic had seen earlier that day. She had a double fracture of the ankle. The hospital had fixed her up and sent her home, she got overzealous and tried to walk/hobble to the bathroom and fell. re"broke" her ankle, and was in some pretty serious pain. FINALLY, some sleep, crawl into bed just in time for the BLS guys to get back, the tones drop for them again. 85YOM general "feel me bad" nastified cold symptoms, productive cough, ronchii and rails. Then just as they are getting back for the second time, the tones drop for a house fire.
Video here....
0430 -- the house is 4 blocks from the station, 40 second en route time. So in the time it took to call 911, dispatch us, and the 40 second transit, the house was fully involved, 40' flames etc. We were informed via CAD that there were victims trapped, 2 of them were out of the house within a couple minutes of our arrival. We set up to wait for another victim. the mutual aide unit from the city gets to the door and all i hear is that magic word on the radio Victim. Victim coming out side alpha through the front door. shes out and up on our cot, pulseless and apneic. Shes got burns to her nostrils, burns to her lips. We get her in the back of the med unit get a line, get a monitor on her, nothing...... CPR....still nothing...4 or 5 stacks and they pronounce. Shes not workable. there was nothing but pure asystole, not even a jump.
We wind up with the code 4 transport into another county because our local morgue is on body reroute, the fridge is all full up.
Get back to the fire scene in time to jump over to the volunteer canteen and keep the guys watered and fed for the duration of the incident.
Well i figure since i'm not making much sense anyways, i'll just cut it off here for now with.... as much as it pains me to lose a patient, it pains me even more to know that little things make such a big difference, and to know that she died probably trying to save her loved ones and her dog. Well she didnt die in vain. It's still hard though .
Yeah i'm making about as much sense as a japanese art noire film while on peyote, so i'm going to sign off.
I'll blog more once our PIO has cleared the total info packet and even post some pics.
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5 comments:
I'm so sorry you had to go through that, it's never easy. I am glad you're back, though, and I look forward to reading more from you.
p.s.--I'm so sorry for being such an awful pen pal, but when I moved, I lost your address (I'm sure the letter is somewhere in all these boxes, I just don't know where). If you're interested in trying to re-pen pal, send me an email?
p.p.s.--Thanks for saying I have panache!
First of all, welcome back, and congrats on being accepted to the Fire Academy.
You've been missed.
I've never been on the scene of a fire, but I have been in the presence of the unworkable patient and it can be a horrible feeling that sticks with you for awhile. I hope that if you need to talk, you have the opportunity to do that.
sam,
sent you an email!
epi,
Oh, we had our Post Traumatic Incident Debriefing for our medic crew. It helped. Like i said just a few circumstances that made it harder than the usual unworkable patient.
LATER!
Odie, I didn't mean to insinuate it was the typical unworkable patient... I'm so sorry if I came across that way. I didn't read the details until after I posted my comment.
My thoughts are with you and your coworkers, and the family involved.
not at all epi... i think i misspoke that time around!
its all good in the hood sista'
well on from the fires and into the uncontrolled diarrhea, thats more like it!
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