Edited 5/21: I try and de-identify calls as much as possible, but I'm not sure I did a good enough job the first time, so I've trimmed this one down a bit...
I've come to believe that bad calls don't just stick to individual EMTs, but to trucks too. Lately, my truck has become the ambulance OF DOOM. If this truck shows up, you are in deep trouble. Rollover accident ends up with C-spine fracture. Gunshot to the head ends up as not quite dead yet with EMTs trying to save your life. Chest pain ends up being something serious, heart attack, broken ribs with lung laceration. Difficulty breathing ends up with an intubated patient (or two). Thankfully, not all of these are my calls, but enough that I'm probably on a downhill slide for crappy calls too.
The latest fun was an overdose dispatch which actually said multiple patients were involved, and they still only dispatched 1 ambulance and 1 engine. We brought the stretcher, O2 and first-in bag up with us to the fourth floor, FD brought their oxygen. A cardiac arrest and an unresponsive patient in a tiny bedroom where most available area is taken up by the bed and dresser. Everyone in sight denying drug use, everyone having mysterious matching puncture wounds in their arms. Nobody brought up a defibrillator or cardiac monitor and no first-line cardiac arrest drugs were available upstairs either, pretty much a worst case scenario for patient care.
After the giant hassle of getting the unresponsive patient out of the room, I head out with the paramedic from the second ambulance (because the unresponsive patient was mine) and leave the second EMT with my partner. Stretcher doesn't fit in the elevator, so we have to stand the backboard up and I take a second elevator with the stretcher and meet up downstairs. We head to the more distant hospital, my partner heads to the closer hospital in town.
Cardiac arrest patient died. Unresponsive patient woke up with some Narcan. Nobody was willing to discuss what had caused the mysterious wounds and PD is following up.
2 comments:
lol, can you say cluster?! That sucks. I love the "multiple patients, one ambulance" deal. Makes me feel not as bad about my crappy ass dispatch system.
Sort of reminds me of the night I covered for Corbin and worked with you and we ended up being the ultimate in shit magnets. I think that was on me because at that time I had "big black cloud" tattooed on my forehead...
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