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Tuesday, April 16, 2013

I Didn't Know What To Do

I love good calls. One where someone actually needed help and we were able to provide it in a timely manner. This was one suck call.


The call interrupted our morning workout. We ran down the stairs to the apparatus bay and donned our bunker pants. As I hopped onto the rig the bay doors finished opening. Out in front of the station the morning traffic came to a stop leaving the "Do Not Block" area in front of our driveway open. As the doors closed behind us my engineer hit the siren.

Several blocks away an 8 year old boy was having trouble breathing. We found him upstairs in his house. His mother told us that he had been having some difficulty breathing for the last two day but today he was sent home from school. The young man had had several puffs on his inhaler and had taken a couple of nebulizer treatments without any relief. His mother said that she had tried everything and now didn't know what to do.

Fortunately she did the best thing for her kid. She called 911.

After an assessment we gave the little guy one of our breathing treatments. Not only do we have higher concentrations of albuterol but we also have other medications as well. By the time AMR showed up we had the boy breathing easier.

While AMR loaded the boy into the ambulance the mom approached us and actually apologized for having called 911. Can you believe that?! We assured her that this was exactly why we were hear and that she didn't have to wait so long in the future to call.

I love calls where we can make a difference.
© FireMedic and Firefighter/Paramedic Stories, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to FireMedic and Firefighter/Paramedic Stories with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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