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Sunday, October 11, 2009

Fast Food Frenzy

We were simultaneously toned out with station 1 for EMS calls at fast food restaurants. They went to Taco Bell while we headed to McDonald's (I found out later that both calls were for the same thing...funny how that happens).
http://indianaintellectualproperty.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/mcdonalds.jpg
We were dispatched for a man having a seizure. It's amazing to me how rarely we get to a call like this and find the patient actually having a seizure. This time was no exception. When we arrived on scene, PD already there (maybe for a late breakfast??), we found our patient laying on the bench seat of one of the tables. He was a 17 year old "kid" that was there having breakfast with his dad. The father noticed his son having a seizure so he quickly grabbed him and lay him down. Up till now I'm thinking so far so good...easy call. The dad then informs me that his son has Autism and doesn't speak. The son does however understand things fairly well. This proved to be overly optimistic. As I checked on my patient I found that he was acting normally (I had to check with the father about this). My patient was very skittish at first and didn't like us trying to check out his vitals. After talking to him for a little bit and with his dad's help we were able to check him out. He even let me prick his finger to check his blood sugar, which came back a little low (seizure activity can use up sugar stores in the blood leaving the person with low blood sugar levels). Once again with dad's help we had our patient suck down some glucose paste (no it doesn't taste as good as it sounds). The dad also informed us that this is the second time in as many weeks that his son has had siezures. His son is currently undergoing tests to try to figure out why they suddenly started. My patient has no other medical history, no allergies, and is taking no medications. When we have the AMR crew bring over the gurney to take him to the hospital my patient flips out and makes a break for it. He pushes right past me, swims past my Captain and tries to get by the other firefighter, where he was stopped. After about a minute the father was able to calm his son down. My patient would flip out at the first sign that we were trying to get him into the ambulance.

Now here's my question to my readers. What would you do to get your patient to the hospital? You have all kinds of resources, drugs, cops, ambulance, fire engine, restraints and probably some that I never thought of. What would you do, for your patient, to make sure he got the evaluation at the hospital he needs (the father completely agrees that his son needs to be seen in the ER and, for the sake of this question, is willing to go along with whatever you come up with)?

On a side note, the crew from station 1 had transient that had a seizure and was very noncooperative. Funny how many similarities there were.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'd offer him a ride in a cop car or fire engine. That failing, I'd see if his dad could take him and I'd follow. Worse comes to worse I'd knock him out with drugs.

Anonymous said...

I agree -- give him a ride to the hospital in the fire engine, or knock him out.

Quest said...

I'd get him a Happy Meal. Ha!

Seriously though I'd probably knock him out.

Firefighter/Paramedic said...

The AMR medic came up with the idea of letting him ride in his dad's car while the ambulance followed. That way if something went wrong they would be right there and once they got to the hospital they could go straight into the ER instead of the waiting room. We didn't want to have to sedate him or wrestle him into restraints if we didn't have to.

I never thought about a happy meal. My bad.

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