Um...There's A Brush Fire Down on the Center Divider

Once again we were out in front of our station when several vehicles pulled up to let us know about the fire down the highway. I'm not sure how to get people to realize that there is a simple phone number that they can call to report such things as fires! Anyways, we quickly jumped into our brush gear and tore down the Morongo Grade. Once he got to the bottom we were canceled by Riverside county engine 37. We found out that the fire had been started and extinguished by some CalTrans workers. Oh well. There's your tax dollars at work.

Diabetic Problems

After a long night we were awakened by the tones just before 0700. We were toned out of a person down with diabetic problems. This is usually a fairly easy call to run. All you have to do is a quick assessment and check their blood sugar level. If it's low, start a line and give them some sugar.

We arrive on scene and the patient is laying on his bed. He does try to open his eyes when I call his name. His roommate lets me know that he does have a history of diabetes and that he hasn't checked his sugar this morning. I have him put on high flow oxygen and get one of my firefighters started on vitals while I check his sugar. Much to my surprise his sugar is fine! My first thought was, "Ooohh what fun. It's not a simple hypoglycemic patient!" I quickly start to dig a little deeper with my assessment. The way the patient is acting (a little out of it but starting to come around slowly) makes me think of a postictal seizure patient but the roommate didn't say anything about a history of seizures. I ask roommate one more time and he tells me that the patient was shaking when he first came in the room. And that the patient has been having seizures for the last 2 weeks. I start my line and monitor the patient. He continues to slowly come around. Once MBA showed up we loaded him and sent him on his way.

Chip

Casey shipped his tooth on a coupling while unrolling a stick of 2 1/2 inch hose.

SVT at 0200

We got toned out at 0100 for a person feeling ill on the side of the highway with SO (Sheriffs Officer) on scene. This usually means someone is starting to have chest pains because they don't want to go to jail. When we arrive on scene I'm greeted by the SO and a tall man in his forties. The man explains to me that he is in SVT at a rate of about 186. He states that he has a history of SVT and that this time it won't go away with any of the valsalva maneuvers that he has tried. He let me know that he almost always converts with 6mg of Adenosine and if he doesn't, 12mg has always worked. This was one of the easiest patient assessments ever! I hooked him up to the monitor just to confirm what he was telling me and then started a line on him. While I was doing this I had him try another valsalva maneuver which didn't work. I then pushed the 6 mg of Adenosine which didn't slow him down at all. After that his heart rate went up to about 210. When I pushed the 12mg of Adenosine I carefully watched the monitor. Adenosine can do some fun things to heart rhythms. This time my patient went from SVT to Ventricular Tachycardia, a life threateneing rhythm. Luckily he stayed in it for about two seconds (literally) and then converted to a sinus rhythm at about 120. He could tell that he converted to a better rhythm as well. About that time MBA showed up and we loaded him up. And the reason that he was with SO is that his wife was driving him to the hospital when they saw the deputy do they decided to stop and ask for help. I told them next time to just call 911. It's faster.

SOB x 2

We got a call for shortness of breath. Turns out to be the same old lady that we've been on several times. She told us that she was having an asthma attack and that her inhaler was out. Amazing since it was out last week when we came out too. I think I can see a pattern here. We gave her a breathing treatment and then she signed out AMA

The next day we got another call for shortness of breath. This time it was another one of our more frequent callers. This patient has a history of CHF, an MI, and she just got out of the hospital after getting her 12 stints put in. I started a line on her and gave her some oxygen. After that I treated her with some nitroglycerin. None of which seemed to help. MBA finally showed up and we sent her down to the hospital.