Ever Forget Your Stretcher???

mm505

mm505

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Don't know if covered or not, but how many times have you had that "deer in headlights" look when you opened the back doors of your truck and realized, "Hmmmm, isn't there supposed to be a stretcher back here?"
 
Once I assumed my driver had loaded the ambulance litter after washing the unit, he assumed someone else would do it, and we wound up using a Ferno folding stretcher to move the pt.
 
Oxygen yes, stretcher no. I've heard many stories about units leaving stuff behind.
 
Me and my partner this last shift made it ten miles from the hopsital (a third of the way back to station) when we realized our gurney was in the hallway at the ER.. Heh the city crews gave us hell for it when I walked in to get it.
 
me personally? no.

but i do know of several crews who did that once. usually it only happens once in a career. personally i can't understand how it happens, but it does happen.

radios, oxygen bottles, jump kits, the have all been left somewhere. but a stretcher?
 
Last year a dispatcher leaving base came across an MVA right outside and called 911 and then our dispatch to send an ambulance. One of the on-duty dispatchers ran out, grabbed another guy that had just got off shift and hopped in the ambulance closet to the door to respond. Unfortunately that ambulance's stretcher was having maintenance done to it. Must have been kind of embarrassing when the city EMS showed up.
 
DrParasite said:
me personally? no.

but i do know of several crews who did that once. usually it only happens once in a career. personally i can't understand how it happens, but it does happen.

radios, oxygen bottles, jump kits, the have all been left somewhere. but a stretcher?
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I'd always said that too... but we were at hour 28 of a standing 24... My partner thought I loaded it, I thought she loaded it
 
Yes. I assumed my Partner returned it. He didn't.
 
After 24 hours on duty nothing surprises me. I guess as long as there's not a patient in it your ok though.
 
Isn't there some sort of convention where the person who rides the call writes the report and the person who drives returns the truck to service?

I have never worked anywhere that was not the case.
 
I've never left the stretcher behind, but I have opened the back of the ambulance to find it missing because the off-going crew left it behind.
 
Not too long ago there was a neighboring BLS had a call. After they got on scene, they requested a paramedic assist. When this happens one of our paramedics normally responds with a response vehicle. A short time later we were paged out to the same address. Enroute we were wondering what was happening because a BLS unit and paramedic were on the scene. We loaded the patient in our rig and transported. Later, we found out the BLS unit did not have a cot in it.
 
One of our other crews on duty on one of my shifts left our cot at the hospital lol. Never let em live it down either.
 
I know of a crew that got tapped out for a cardiac arrest while they were washing the truck. Not only did they forget the stretcher, but they forgot the first-in bag and life-pak 12, too (on the stretcher).
 
Veneficus said:
Isn't there some sort of convention where the person who rides the call writes the report and the person who drives returns the truck to service?

I have never worked anywhere that was not the case.
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This ball gets dropped sometimes. One medic I work with is such an *** that his basic partners will not deal with his messes in the truck.

It's very helpful.

The worst thing I ever did was accidentally leave the first in bag (with the airway kit) on the scene of a traffic accident when we were transporting a critically ill trauma patient. Fortunately, all she needed was BLS airway management and we had NPAs and BVMs in the cabinet. The intubation stuff was back on the scene.

Oops!
 
Never the stretcher.

I did leave the monitor at hospital once. Nightshift....zombie tired. Went back to bed and didn't realise until the day shift pointed it out in the morning. I was mortified because we'd been to a pretty sick sounding chest pain in between but were thankfully cancelled before arrival for a closer unit.

Left one of the bags at seen once. Nursing home called our bosses, bosses sent us an embarrassing page. :P

Left a few bits and pieces at pts houses once or twice. Collars, sharps container etc.
 
Even worse....my partner and I were about to head across the street for shift change but he got out to grab some supplies from the station...I was dead tired and so was he so when someone in uniform climbed in the back I called out"Hey im heading across"...no response...so I headed out only to hear my partner come over the radio wondering why his partner was leaving him....my thinking was"That's funny...Kevin is in the back...but I don't hear him talking into the portable.....wait a sec....Kevin doesn't have tattoos.....oh :censored::censored::censored::censored: that's not Kevin"Yeah...another medic half asleep had decided to hitch a rid"....He held a grudge for a whiiile.lol
 
I left a pt at the Ed once, does that count :P
 
Yeah.... It was with a transport company that did both gurney and wheelchair transports in the same unit. If it was a wheelchair call you would leave the gurney at the station.... One day we got a gurney transport out of a hospital about 30 min. away from the station. We got on scene, looked in the back and FML.

".............." -Partner
"...........F**k." -Me
 
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