Sleazy Motel

Anyone that has a cheap motel in their district knows that they are good for all types of calls. Anything from AAA (abdominal Aortic Aneurysm) to Zygote Intrafallopian Transfer (infertility). Ok. I looked up medical conditions and picked the first and last one alphabetically. But there really is a wide variety of calls at places like this.

The tones went off about 10 minutes after I had drifted off to sleep. We were toned out to the E-Z 8 Motel for a man having a seizure.

We arrived on scene to find the girlfriend waiting for us outside her second floor room. When I walked in I found my patient laying on the floor, almost unresponsive. The woman told us that her boyfriend had had a seizure that lasted about 2 minutes. Evidently he just sort of slid to the floor so there was no trauma.

We gave the patient some oxygen to help bring him around while we continued our assessment. After a few minutes he was able to tell me his name but was still a little fuzzy on any other details. A few minutes later we were trying to get him to go to the hospital. He was now probably as alert and oriented as ever. As soon as he figured out that we were trying to take him to the hospital he tried to tell me that he was just sleeping. That's when I tossed the proverbial BS flag.

I asked him if he thought I had just become a medic yesterday. He looked me up and down and shook his head, "No, I guess not." So I asked him why he was trying to sell me that line about sleeping. He sheepishly agreed that it wasn't a smart thing to do. He still didn't want to go to the hospital.

I ended up making him a deal. I'd let him sign out AMA but if I had to come back that night he was going in without so much as a whimper.

Thankfully, I slept the rest of that night.