3rd Day on Shift

[xrsm002]

I work on a transport service so I have a different partner every shift, The partner I had the other day she and I had never worked together and was our first time to meet each other. We were on a call and at the hospital about to go in and pick our patient up. I back the truck up and she gets out and starts unloading the stretcher and forgets how close we parked to those concrete barriers, and the stretcher has an O2 tank at the foot of it, so goes to pull it out and forgot the pole was behind her. Well the stretcher and O2 tank hit her stomach and knock the breath out of her. When she said she felt like she was gonna black out I was like great the ER will have another patient. lol. She was ok after resting and laying down for a few minutes. Then during all that my belt holding my "action/adventure" pants, snapped and was not repairable. So the only thing I could find on the truck was some oxygen tubing so I pulled it off the NRB mask and run it through my belt loops and tie it at the front then cut the ends of so I can attempt to hide it. After we completed the call we went and got me a new belt!! My partner that day and I both cracked up the entire shift. Good thing we only had that one call the entire 12 hr shift.

 

[lex]

When you can look back at the day and laugh you know it must have been an okay kind of day!

And I can assure you you are not the first person to have had to find creative ways of holding up your pants mid-call. Though I think the best I've seen was a chain of tourniquets tied together, very creative pulling out the oxygen tubing!

 

[Epi-do]

It could have been worse...

A few years ago, my partner & I went to move a patient and suddenly we heard a loud rrrriiiiiipppp! My partner ripped out his pants. Fortunately he had his jacket on and was able to tie it around his waist. Because of where his pants had ripped though, he had to have the jacket hanging across his lap, like an apron. We also delivered our patient & quickly went across the street to the uniform shop so he could get a new pair.

 

[johnrsemt]

Thanks Epi, I had forgotten about that one.

needed a good laugh today. I have never ripped a pair of EMS pants on a call somewhere that can be repaired like a seam..

 

[ZombieEMT]

Nothing beats falling on a patient, kind of funny that it happened, not funny that I fell on a patient. In our agency we sometimes have ambulances running with four EMTs, which is the Duty Cheif, staff EMT, and two trainees. So already crammed ambulance. In addition we had two medics respond, which in NJ are staffed by hospital rather than being on the truck, and then a patient. All together seven people once ambulance, did not work very well. I got stuck at the foot of the stretcher, standing. Needless to say, our crazy duty cheif hit a bump a little to fast and I fell. Amazingly the patient was pretty cool with it, I guess having an MI made me falling on her rather insignificant.

 

[cmetalbend]

Twice during my EMT ride alongs our unit stuck curbs(hard) the first I was in the back sitting beside the patient and thought My hip had just gotten dislocated,,, it blew the far right tire. the second me and a medic were repositioning the rig after a call and another medic was driving. As we left the hospital he cut the turn alttle too close, and wammmmy I was tossed to the other side. He yelled "Curb check" and I was inclined to say "IT CHECKED OUT FINE"....lol I love this job.