`Tis The Season

We were dispatched for a slip and fall. Nice and generic. I've been on "slip and fall" calls ranging from a person needing a hand to get up to a person on the third story roof that had a stroke and fell, and a lot of stuff in between.

This time we pulled up to find a waver. Someone, usually a family member, that is panicked and is out in the middle of the street to wave us in. Potentially a bad sign. In front of the one story house there was a ladder. Someone had been hanging Christmas lights. My patient, a man in his early 70's, lost his balance and took the fast way to the ground.

From 5 feet up he landed on the cement driveway but not before his head came into contact with the brick wall on the side of the driveway. He was alert and oriented and had some minor bleeding from the back of his head. His family, in a near state hysteria, explained that their father had been knocked unconscious when he fell.

We grabbed c-spine and applied a neck collar. We also placed some 4x4's over the wounds on the back of his head. The trauma assessment revealed that he had a couple of skin tears on his arm as well. Other than that and his head lacerations he appeared to be in stable condition.

The guys at AMR helped up package the patient onto a backboard. The last thing I remember after loading the old man into the ambulance was one of the sons complaining that he had told his dad to let him hang the lights.