Ice Skating Rink

The call came out as a leg injury at the public ice skating rink. When we get there we find an 8 year old boy that was crushed beneath a 300 pound section of rod iron fence that was leaning up against the wall. Bystanders had already pull the section of fence off the kid. The boys upper leg was bent at a point where there are no joints. We place the screaming kid on a back board and then apply the traction splint to the broken femur. We get him into a position that he says is OK and transport. While on our was to the hospital my partner tries to get an IV. The kid screamed more about the needle than he did about his leg. My partner ended up not getting it and decided not to try again. As we wheeled him into the pediatric ER at Harbor UCLA a swarm of MD's come rushing in to see him. One of them told me it had been a slow day so everyone wanted to be in on the femur fracture case. I guess doctors need their excitement too.

Technical Rescue

The call comes out, "station 1, station 3, station 5, station 6, rescue. Battalion 91, truck 91, engine 93, rescue 93, air and lighting, USAR, respond to a man trapped beneath a load of cement."

That's one way to get a paramedic excited. A minute or two later we all learned that the man was not actually trapped. When we got there we found that the man had a several hundred pound slab of concrete that had fallen on his legs. Afraid that more might be coming down on him he crawled under his delivery truck. That is right where we found him. We had to climb under the truck in order to splint his leg and place him in c-spine precautions. I started a line on him and we gave him some morphine. He still complained that it hurt but what can you expect. I love trauma calls.

Elk Grove Community Service District (CSD) Fire Department

I'm spending a lot of time and money recently applying to the Elk Grove Community Service District Fire Department (EGCSDFD? That's a little long to put on a hat!). Today I had my Captains oral review. There was a panel of 3 captains and 2 civilians. The interview lasted about 35 minutes. Theey asked questions ranging from "tell us about yourself" to "tell us of a difficult situation where you handled it poorly."Overall I think that the interview went well. I was the first of all the candidates to be interviewwd. I don't know if that has anything to do with my ranking but I would like to think so. I'll find out in about 10 days if I passed. The next step is the chief's oral review. I think that it's the same thing but with higher ranking officers.

Letting your license lapse.

One of the paramedics I worked with let his paramedic license lapse. He couldn't work for almost two weeks until the state came through with his license (sounds familiar). Since I am always concerned with the well being of my fellow medics I decided to start collecting applications to jobs that did not require a paramedic license. He ended up getting several fast food and delivery driver applications. He did get a kick out of it when he got them all.

Never bring a paramedic your woes!

At least not while he is at work. Today, the operation manager at my company, had his fairly new Ford F-350 4x4 pick up stolen from the driveway of his house.To make matters worse there was thousands of dollars worth of equipment (new radios, tools, brush jackets, etc.) in the truck at the time. So as consolation, my partner and I bought our manager a copy of Truck Trader (for those who don't know it's a magazine that has local trucks for sale). We of course thought that this was hilarious but it only got us a dirty look.

Oh well. I think that our manager will someday be able to look back on this and laugh. Someday.