First night!

[xgpt]

Word just got back that I'm finally finished with all of my prerequisite tests (HazMat is only offered once a month! I've had to wait! UGH!) today!

Tonight is my crew's duty too! Which means it's my first night riding as a third on the Ambulance!

I'm so excited! Any tips/hints/encouragement/discouragement for me?!

:lol:

 

[piranah]

......don't kill anyone....

 

[ah2388]

......don't kill anyone....

strong work

 

[Epi-do]

......don't kill anyone....

You just won't let anyone have any fun, will you?!?! What a killjoy....

 

[piranah]

it was a joke everybody...just open your ears and shut the mouth...best advice anyone ever gave to me.

 

[xgpt]

My first night summarized in bulletpoints

I'm still here until 0600 Tuesday, but since 1800 on Monday I've had a pretty interesting night:

*Woman was swimming and experienced nearly immobilizing back pain. Walked onto the scene and found her sitting in a chair by the poolside not moving. We couldn't move her to the ambulance on a stretcher because the elevator was too small and there was a set of stairs. We called an engine to come help us move her onto the transport. I used a reeves stretcher for the first time helping to carry a PT that could probably stand to lose a few pounds. (This is pure motivation for me to lose weight) I learned how to get into the ED at the hospital and had to change the sheets on the stretcher. (I was taught a little trick. Place a towel at the head end of the stretcher when you're making it up so you can tell which side is "up" without a second glance)

*Called to a *-mart for an assault. A woman had lacerations on her face and her thumb was bleeding. She refused transport. A bystander who was helping had a shallow laceration of 1" to 2" on his right forearm. The police who had already cleared the scene had already given him a band-aid. He came up to the truck asking for us to just look at it. I was amazed at the amount of information we had to get from him before we let him go for a little cut like that. Ridiculous. Although it's for his safety and ours that we got that information.

*This is the big call, the medevac!

*A man was hit by a bus
*two rear axles, had been run over by the front tires, the first set of rear tires, and was trapped underneath the most rear tire. RIGHT IN BETWEEN THE TWO SETS OF TIRES! He had been dragged for ~20-30ft before the bus had come to a stop. It was filled with middle schoolers coming up to DC for the cherry blossoms or something from Florida. The first thing I saw was the man's legs, just twisted in a way that I didn't think was possible. It didn't realy bother me, looked sort of like the wicked witch's legs in the Wizard of Oz. But bloodier. His legs were torn to shreds, I couldn't tell what was fat and what was muscle. I realy need to look at getting an A&P class under my belt, would have made this so much more productive. Anyway, The people extracting him ended up using MAST pants just to keep his insides inside and his legs in mostly one piece. It was insane. One of the guys in my crew said something about never having to use the MAST pants. I'm so happy this happened on my first night. Anyway, we didn't transport him to the hospital since he got helicoptered out. But we did transport the bus driver. She was absolutely freaking out. That was pretty interesting, looking at someone who just ran someone else over like that. It was entirely unintentional, probably unaviodable knowing this area, he was wearing black and grey on a poorly lit road with heavy traffic. It was crazy, hollywood actors actually do a pretty damn good job portraying people in shock. I always thought it was just overdramatic bull:censored::censored::censored::censored:, until I saw it right there in front of me. She wasn't initially rational at all. She kept wanting to go out and help. It took convincing to talk her into staying in the ambulance. So trippy. Being right there. She didn't want to go to the hospital either, we ended up convincing her to go when we pointed out that her company was probably going to make her to go the hospital anyway to be drug tested. Getting her there was a pretty calm experience to be honest. She wanted a smoke before she went into the ER though, I really don't blame her. We broke protocol and let her have a smoke.

Sorry for the poor grammar, I've had a nasty headache...likely from dehydration and it's 0344 in the morning!

Anyway, What a first night huh?

 

[piranah]

See there you go....having a good experience...(not good as in what happened to the pt)...as long as you had a good productive night....

 

[xgpt]

That was so crazy there at the end.

There were two engines, a tower, what I think is called a "collapse" unit, three Ambulances, and at the end a helicopter.

How often do people see calls like this?

 

[piranah]

ive never had to airlift someone yet...usually ground transport is faster due to time of pre-flight prep then the response time..

 

[RescueYou]

That was so crazy there at the end.

There were two engines, a tower, what I think is called a "collapse" unit, three Ambulances, and at the end a helicopter.

How often do people see calls like this?

Here, a ladder and 2 engines and fire-medic and an ambulance respond to anything not just medical...which, here, it means they come quite often. We air lift about once a month.

 

[xgpt]

ive never had to airlift someone yet...usually ground transport is faster due to time of pre-flight prep then the response time..

I think they called a heli because they needed to get this guy to better trauma unit out in fairfax. He probably wouldn't have survived the drive-time

 

[Anu]

He was alive when he got airlifted out of scene? Do you know if he ultimately survived?

 

[xgpt]

naah, I just googled him. (this was a newsworthy call)

didn't make it. I didn't really expect him to either...

 

[joeshmoe]

Word to the wise. Be careful when talking about patients you encountered on a call. Too much detail could lead to trouble if the wrong set of eyes or ears takes notice. I'm not trying to be a killjoy, just something to keep in mind, nothing will get someone kicked out of class quicker than a pt confidentiality issue. Not that I'm saying you did that, but for future reference.

 

[xgpt]

So...my understanding on patient confidentiality...

I'm allowed to say I had a child/young adult/middle aged/older boy/girl/man/woman PT who suffered this/that/or the other right?

I'm just not allowed to say (and this doesn't exist) an 18 year old male PT named billy bob got into a car accident and needed a band-aid.

Right?

 

[joeshmoe]

So...my understanding on patient confidentiality...

I'm allowed to say I had a child/young adult/middle aged/older boy/girl/man/woman PT who suffered this/that/or the other right?

I'm just not allowed to say (and this doesn't exist) an 18 year old male PT named billy bob got into a car accident and needed a band-aid.

Right?

It can go beyond just using names, especially if you operate in a rural area or smaller town where everyone knows everyone, or the incident you are speaking of was reported in the media.

Any information that could potentially identify the patient could get you in trouble. If you say went to this call at this house next to the old mine shaft up on the hill, well, you just identified the pt. If you point to a newspaper article that identifies the pt and say I was on that call and go into what happened, well you just violated that patients right to privacy.

Lets say you're in a restaurant describing a call with a college kid who fell off a balcony last night, and there are some college kids the next table over who know someone who fell off a deck last night, or heard about it, well you just violated that patients right to privacy.

 

[xgpt]

It can go beyond just using names, especially if you operate in a rural area or smaller town where everyone knows everyone, or the incident you are speaking of was reported in the media.

Any information that could potentially identify the patient could get you in trouble. If you say went to this call at this house next to the old mine shaft up on the hill, well, you just identified the pt. If you point to a newspaper article that identifies the pt and say I was on that call and go into what happened, well you just violated that patients right to privacy.

Lets say you're in a restaurant describing a call with a college kid who fell off a balcony last night, and there are some college kids the next table over who know someone who fell off a deck last night, or heard about it, well you just violated that patients right to privacy.

So, just make it unrecognizably vague. Gotcha!