Child With a Facial Injury

The day before Halloween we got a call for a child with a head injury. When we got on scene we found a 2 year old girl that had fallen in the bath tub and gave herself a cut to the orbit of her left eye. By the time that we got there she had stopped bleeding. The dad admitted that he freaked out a little when he saw the blood in the bath water. Once I determined that my patient was more scared than anything I had Grant get some basic vitals while I went out to the engine. I grabbed one of the teddy bears that we have for pediatric patients and went back in. I gave her the bear and calmed her down. The parents ended up signing her out AMA and going down to the ER in their own vehicle. Their daughter started to cry when they tried to leave without her new bear. The next day they were among the first people to come by the station trick or treating. She hadn't needed any stitches after all.

Busy Day

The call came in just before noon for a woman laying in the dirt behind the All American gas station. We arrived to find the patient sitting on a bench in front of the gas station. She appeared to be about 40 years old and in much need of a shower. She also smelled of alcohol. We started talking to her and asking her questions. We soon discovered that she had no idea where she was at or what day it was. We got a quick set of vitals and checked her blood sugar. It was 36. Bingo. That's why she's confused. I quickly started a line on her and gave her an amp of D50W (IV sugar). By this time MBA was on scene and we loaded her up. Her next sugar check it was 236. Much better. According to the medic that transported her down to the hospital she started coming around nicely once we got the sugar levels up.

That afternoon we got toned out for a possible illegal burn. We found the house where the owner was burning some brush. He and his buddy had some conflicting stories about why they were doing it but they finally decided to go with the story that it was a BBQ fire. So Eric asked him why he was burning brush? Was is for the smoked flavor? Some people aren't too bright. We had the state engine come down and they ended up just giving them a verbal warning. While we were on scene for that call dispatch called us, "MedicEngine 461, we have a medical aid in your area, are you available for the call?" Off we go.

This call was for one of our more frequent flyer's. She has had some pretty major surgery on her digestive tract and often has abdominal pain with nausea and vomiting. She told us that it was the same thing as the last 7 times I've been to her place and that she would like to go down the hill to another hospital since her regular one is starting to get a little upset at her. Once MBA showed up we got her on her way. As we were putting the gurney into the ambulance dispatch called us again, "MedicEngine 461, we have another medical aid in your area, are you available to take the call?" Off we go, again.

This time it was for an unresponsive patient. We arrive to find the patient laying on her left side in bed in a very small trailer. She had a bunch of prescriptions that should have had more pills in them and she had multiple Fentanyl patches on her. She was only breathing about 8 times a minute with snoring respiration's. She also had pin point pupils. I had Tim drop in an OPA and start bagging her. I gave her 4 milligrams of Narcan IM and started a line. By then we had MBA on scene so we loaded her up and sent her to the hospital. This time we sent Tim along to help out. The transporting medic ended up intubating the patient. Damn it. Why can't I do that!!?! Oh yeah. I get to start the treatments and then go back home to dinner. I guess there is a trade off. I had to see if the Narcan was going to bring her out of it. All it did was bring her gag reflex back.

Drive Time

Grant and I both are getting some drive time under our belts before we go test for our class B license. For the most part this involves driving around our district from location to location as indicated by our engineer. Unfortunately for Grant, he usually sits in the back and I do the mapping on calls so he is neither familiar with the map or the area. This led to some fun for me and Eric. Eric would "tone" him out to a garage fire at an address across town. Then we would give Grant a hard time if he took too long getting us there, or if he got lost. We figure that by the end of the morning he had burned down several homes and killed a few patients since we couldn't get there in time. His driving is pretty good though.

Turkey Day

On Thanksgiving day we decided to have our families come up for dinner. Before they got here we were toned out for a TC up the highway. Side note, I'm working on getting my Class B license and my engineer is letting me drive now...this was my first time driving the engine code 3...hehehe. As we approached the scene we could see a black pick up was perpendicular to traffic blocking the southbound lanes. There was a second vehicle that was over on the shoulder. The accident wasn't that bad but there were a total of 7 patients. A mom and dad in the truck with their three kids and an elderly couple in car. Everyone signed out AMA but that left me with a lot of paperwork for one call.

That afternoon we had a great dinner with all of our families. Eric made everything but the carrots (which Katie made). We had all the usual stuff from turkey to stuffing to green bean casserole. I've decided it's not so bad to have to get payed to have a great Thanksgiving meal with your family.

ALOC at 0100

Every once in a while we stay up later than we should. This time it was one in the morning and we were in the middle of another game of domino's. We then got toned out for an unresponsive person. We arrived on scene to be greeted by an 18 year old kid who drove up to visit his grandma. When he got there he found her on the floor of the bathroom unconscious. She was breathing alright and had a good pulse but that was about all. Her left pupil was blown, she was incontinent, and completely unresponsive. We checked her blood sugar, which was 148, and placed her on a backboard and in a cervical collar. We found out from the grandson that the patient has a history of strokes and high blood pressure. Everything pointed towards her having had another stroke. She also had a prescription for some narcotics. I started a line on her and then sent her on her way with MBA. Not much I could do.

Later on the medic from MBA was questioning why I didn't push Narcan (the "cure" for a narcotics overdose). Some medics like to push Narcan on unresponsive patients since there are no bad side effects to it. I only like to push medications that are clinically indicated (such as respiratory depression for Narcan) and I don't like to push meds just to see if it might help. There are all types of medics.