Big Sick Or Psych Sick?

We arrived on scene to find several family members waiting for us. As they ushered us to the back bedroom they kept saying that he wasn't acting right. Come to find out the dad in the family was having periods of apparent unresponsiveness.

Once at his bedside I was able to see for myself that he wasn't acting quite right. He was a little slow to answer questions. Then he went unresponsive on me (how dare he right?). I called his name, shook him and caused a little bit of pain all trying to elicit a response. There was none.

So we started to try to figure out what was causing him to be altered. After a couple of minutes, the patient came around but was still confused. He was also being fairly aggressive. His sugar was 113, BP 140/88, heart rate of 90. All the rest of his vitals were good as well.

The guy had a history of high blood pressure but no history of seizures, stroke or psychological problems. No history of alcohol or drug abuse and he had been with his family all day. It kind of seemed like a possible absence seizure but there was something off about the situation.

Eventually AMR showed up and the man had calmed down. We loaded him up onto the gurney and let AMR take him away. I just hope that he behaved in the back of the ambulance or else he was going to get sedated.