First Code today

[MedJPavlo]

Wow, that sounds familiar. My first on was about 15 min into my first clinical. Second was on my next clinical, which was my hospital clinical.

But congrats on the save.

same with me. 1st call as emt-b student we had a 500+ lb lady who coded. I did cpr for 30 mins switching with my medic preceptor before an er doctor pulled us off and pronounced her. He pulled me aside and told me, "That is one of the worst calls you will ever get. So take in the emotions u feel now and decided whether or not you wanna continue in this field." Im still here and havent had another since...but now as i write this i feel as though im jinxing myself...oh well

 

[b2dragun]

Codes are becoming my favorite call to get, free exercise in the form of compressions. 3 weeks ago I had one 4 shifts in a row followed by one every other shift. Before that we had 2 weeks of a 419's. Needless to say my partner and I have quite the cloud happening. On our last code we walked into the hospital with multiple crews there, no one could believe we got another one. We now have what we call our code shift...waiting to see if it pans out this week. If so we should get one Thursday and Saturday night...fingers are crossed.

 

[lampnyter]

Codes are becoming my favorite call to get, free exercise in the form of compressions. 3 weeks ago I had one 4 shifts in a row followed by one every other shift. Before that we had 2 weeks of a 419's. Needless to say my partner and I have quite the cloud happening. On our last code we walked into the hospital with multiple crews there, no one could believe we got another one. We now have what we call our code shift...waiting to see if it pans out this week. If so we should get one Thursday and Saturday night...fingers are crossed.

Were any of your codes saves?

 

[abckidsmom]

same with me. 1st call as emt-b student we had a 500+ lb lady who coded. I did cpr for 30 mins switching with my medic preceptor before an er doctor pulled us off and pronounced her. He pulled me aside and told me, "That is one of the worst calls you will ever get. So take in the emotions u feel now and decided whether or not you wanna continue in this field." Im still here and havent had another since...but now as i write this i feel as though im jinxing myself...oh well

I would disagree with him. One of the most physically difficult, but emotionally, I think that calls where you have to deal with what results from people treating each other like crap, especially kids or elderly, are the most difficult.

But there's not much more physically demanding than a 500 lb dead person you have to carry out of the back bedroom.

Ugh.

 

[b2dragun]

Were any of your codes saves?

Most no. 3 in the field, one I got back on compressions alone (after the facility "faked" compressions for a round or two), the other two were saved with fancy medic education. One the hospital got back then died in the cath lab after they called a STEMI.

 

[lampnyter]

Do you guys use autopulses or you do manual compressions?

 

[b2dragun]

Do you guys use autopulses or you do manual compressions?

Depends on who is first on scene, we have a dual response with private/FD. I prefer manual, I have seen auto's placed wrong, compress too hard, puncture lungs. I will say they have their place. I like them for high rise codes, actually codes on any floor above the first floor. Other then that I would much rather do the compressions, as stated before it is also a good opportunity for some cardio. I guess in the end I like being able to control it, look at the monitor and I know what I am doing. I know I am pressing in the right spot, I can feel what is happening.

 

[MedJPavlo]

Do you guys use autopulses or you do manual compressions?

i wish we had a thumper. i did that 30 mins old fashioned style

 

[legion1202]

I have a question.. How long was the PT down before giving biocarbonate. I was just told in school you dont push that untill about 10mins from them going down. I`m not writing this as i`m tell you what to do just testing my self really.. Giving biocarb to early could put them into achlyosis(base) (spelling) right?

 

[Madmedic780]

So far each of my shifts hand our unit either a bad trauma call or a code.