Done With Life

The call came in as a wellness check. We were dispatched along with PD to the house of a single elderly woman. Her brother had talked to her on the phone and he didn't think she sounded ok. When he hung up the phone he called 911.

PD arrived first. When they knocked on the front door there was no answer. As they went around to the side of the house they heard moaning. They went back to the front door and kicked it in (in the past they've waited for us assuming incorrectly that we would do something different).

Inside they found that it was a hoarder house. Piles of trash, papers, boxes.....just stuff all over the place. There were trails leading to the different rooms. They followed the path that led to what would have been a living room. There on the floor they found the patient. They decided to wait for us before doing anything else.

My patient was an 80 year old woman. She was alert and oriented. She said that she was sore from laying on the ground in the same spot for so long but other than that had no real medical complaint. She did say that she was just tired of living.

Since she was done with life she curled up next to a space heater (which amazingly didn't catch the house on fire) and didn't move. She had been there for over 2 days.

The old lady let me check her vitals which weren't horrible for the circumstances. After a little talk we informed her that the police were putting her on a psychiatric hold and that she had to go to the hospital. She was amazingly compliant.

We helped her onto the gurney and sent her off to the hospital. Hopefully she gets the help she needs.