Bombera

I think it would be funnier if there was more time on the clock because then they would have more time to squirm lol

Sounds like an excellent ADHD song. lmao That happens to me all the time and I'm only 27. You can't put something down when you are thinking about something else....well atleast if you intend on remember where you put it.

lol In the first one, I thought for sure that the nurse was going to come back with a body bag.

Seriously though, why did I study so damn hard just to end up driving the world's most expensive taxi ride to the hospital. They should have just taught me to take vital signs. When will I even use the traction splint, huh????? Why DO we have a sharps container???? Remind me. Anyway, you gotta love BLS.....or not. lmao, Bombera

Why is it that when someone tells you that something smells bad and hands it to you, that you smell it? If it smells bad, then why would you want to smell it too?

Yes, if the acid in your stomach is strong enough to disolve a razor blade, than what is with all the corn-on-a-log????? Is corn stronger than a razor blade?

A man and his wife were sitting in the living room and the man said to his wife, "I never want to live in a vegetative state, dependent on some machine and fluids from a bottle. If that ever happens, just pull the plug." His wife got up, unplugged the TV and threw out the wine.

Well, one guy ignored us when he found out that we were asking for Grey Poupon and some teenagers walking on the street offered to give us some if we pulled over, but everyone else just laughed. One guy laughed for about two and a half blocks! My partner and I were laughing so hard that we were crying! It was a excellent way to lighten the day. I wouldn't recommend it though if you get a partner that is not funny. There are only a few of them in the business, probably because if you're not funny in this business, you won't be here for long, but nevertheless there are a few. Well, have fun and laugh hard. I will share any unique responses that I get. Take care, Bombera

Okay, if you're reading this, you probably remember the old commercial from the 80's where one guy in a limo asks the other guy in the other limo while they are at the light for some Grey Poupon so he can put it on his sandwhich. Anyway, my partner and I decided that it would be funny to ask people for Grey Poupon in the ambulance and.......it was! It's funny because when you say, "Pardon me....", everyone gets this look like they're ready to be heros and help the ambulance people with something and so when you finish your thought and ask them for Grey Poupon, it is great because you can see it making their day and yours at the same time and plus it is really funny and you will laugh until you cry! Hopefully that was almost as funny in writing as it was in person. Take care and laugh hard, Bombera

Yeah! I want a medic too and I hope that she's both smart and sexy. More important that she's smart than sexy though because brains generally last longer than sexiness.

I always try to sell THEM something! One time, a local newspaper contacted me trying to sell me the newspaper. I said that I didn't need news. She said that everyone needs to know what's going on in the world and I said that I already knew what was going to happen. Then she said that there were great coupons in the paper and I said that I didn't need coupons because I didn't buy anything. She asked me if I atleast bought soap and I said no (I was a kid and my mom bought the soap). I this time, she too decided that I didn't need a newspaper! On other occasions, I would just keep saying over and over, "This is an apartment. People who live in apartments don't have any money." hahahaha Nothing like messing with the telemarketers if you have a free moment!

In California, there is a helmet law not just for motorcycles, but also for minors on bicycles. It used to piss me off when I was a kid, but now that I have eaten shit a few times on my bike, I wouldn't go anywhere without one. My debate about safety is usually whether or not I should wear my jacket or not. I have gone to work in 90° weather with my jacket on for safety's sake and also because people can't drive here. I agree that your best defense when it comes to your actual safety is paying attention to the damn road and the numerous idiots around you, but being in EMS, I know as well as you do that shit happens and I would rather be ready for it. I have had a compression skull fracture and I know that it sucks to screw up your brain and it takes a long time to recover if you recover at all and I would rather atleast attempt to save my brain from further damage. I know that I will probably die if I crash at high speeds or at the very least have a pnuemothorax and bi-lat femur fx, but anyone who's ever riden knows that motorcycles are the least stable when they are going slow and a helmet has half a chance at slow speeds. I don't think that the helmet law is likely to have too many people that disobey it because it is pretty obvious if you on a motorcycle without a helmet whereas a cop can't always see if you are wearing a seatbelt or not from behind you or even from the side in some cars. Having said all that, it's cool that there are so many of us out there that ride. See you on the road. Take care, Bombera

hahahahahahahaha that's a good one.

OMG! We go on atleast one call a day for diff. breathing and you find an elderly patient gasping for air with retractions and all and if the patient has been particularly lucky, you will find them on O2 at 2lpm via n/c supine in bed! The other thing that you will sometimes find is a person who is clearly in hypovolemic shock due to a GI bleed or what have you and they have waited 5 hours to call EMS and then they don't even call 911, they call our damn non-emergency BLS service. What the hell is wrong with these nurses? Call to top all horrible calls...we respond to a con home for a poss. CVA. Pt was found 2 hours ago without the ability to speak or move half of her body when she is normally both active and verbal. When did they decide to call EMS? After she remained that way for 2 hours! Needless to say, we called medics and they ended up taking her. I was so pissed off that they didn't call 911 in the first place that I said something to the lady that I thought was a nurse a low and behold she wasn't and not only that, but she had been ordered not to call 911 for this pt because the pt was on hospice. The pt only had a DNR refusing compressions! The lady that I talked to was actually upset because she knew that she needed to call 911, but she would have had to risk her job for disobeying direct orders. That's one job that I would have risked. Anyway, my partner and I are in the process of writing the con home up since this pt only had a DNR prohibiting compressions. Anyway, when any of my family gets old, they are going to my country to get cared for because they will not be cared for here in a con home!

Orange County sucks for EMT's because you are basically like a first responder there. You don't get to give any of the meds that we have been trained to give. We don't even have AED's on the units that I run on. It sucks. Other areas, like San Bernardino and Riverside counties let you do more, but I'm not sure just how much. I have heard rumors that San Bernardino County lets us drop combi tubes, but I don't work for them yet so I don't know. Fire is always cool just because, well, we have a lot of fires here, but it is very competitive so good luck with that. EMS pay sucks here like everywhere else. It's amazing that if you learn to throw a ball really well, that they will pay you millions to do that when it doesn't save anyone's life. It is entertaining though. If you actually have the possibility, however small that possibility might be, of saving someone's actual, physical life, they pay you crap and a lot of doctors treat you like some kind of idiot, but nevertheless, we want to make a possitive impact on people's lives and so we continue on.... Take care, Bombera

Something that helps me in patient care is remembering that I am transporting a person. They may not even be A/O x 2 and I have had some sort of conversation with them. Also, for some of our elderly patients who have been in a con home for God knows how long, we may be some of the only people that actually have to oportunity to listen to them for a few minutes. We may be the some of the last people to really listen to them before they die. Their families may not visit them. The con home staff may only come in briefly to attend to them and we may be the longest human contact that they have had in quite some time. Studies have shown that people need interaction with other people and our jobs, even if it's yet another dialysis patient, give us the perfect oportunity to touch someone's life in a positive way whether we end up saving their lives or just brightening their day. I know it's hard when you are on your 8th call in the last 4 hours, but we didn't get into this business to sit on our asses but to help people and another form of helping people is listening to them and caring, atleast a little bit. We didn't go through hard exams in our EMT class and the weird national registry exam to just find another job that pisses us off, we went through all that to care for patients and that's what we should do no matter how many calls we have had without a break to eat. Bring a snack. Remember people don't care how much you know unless they know how much you care. The only thing you can do in this profession is to put yourself aside when you are with your patients and then, if you must, you can laugh and bitch about it later. After all, that is how we get through the day, especially on those tough calls. Anyway, as far as saving lives, you don't always get to see the effect that you've had on people, but if you are nice to other people, you never know who's life you have saved without even knowing it. Take care, Bombera

Someday

We rolled on a drunk in public. Basically a "you go with the police or to the hospital case". When I tried to put a n/c on this guy, he swung at me so we restrained him for transport. When we got to the hospital, I was waiting with him, while my partner found out which bed he was going to and then he realized that I was a girl and decided to flirt with me by saying that he was so strong that he could get free from the restraints. He pulled and pulled on the wrist restraints until his dislodged the IV that the fire medics had placed and his blood went everywhere and of course he did not get himself free from the restraints! hahaha Patients can be really hilarious and I am looking forward to any really funny stories that anyone has.

Yeah and I am a very impatient driver. I only have patients in the ambulance. hahaha I am usually the only one laughing at this pun unless I am amoung EMS personnel. Thanks for the laughs. Bombera

ERDoc, you have a real point. The last time I saw someone's heart beat that fast, I had to do CPR because the guy was in V-Tach. I would like to see a 12 lead on this girl right away and get her transported like yesterday.

Does this guy have a script for nitro? If so, let's give it to him. His BP is a little low so and it has dropped since our arrival on scene so I don't know if medical control will authorize nitro or not but if they do, then let's give him some. I'm with Ruffems. I think it's an MI. Let's get this guy on the road and to an ER.

More questions: Is this young lady bleeding from her vagina? Is she using a tampon? Has she been throwing up lately? If so, was there hematemesis? Has she had any diarrhea? Is she hydrated? What does the ECG look like? Does her SpO2 improve with the O2 via NRB? Has she recently had an infection of any sort? I would want to transport this girl quickly as she seems to be showing some signs of shock of some sort. Take care, Bombera

Well, the first thing that strikes me is that this girl is stressing out, but wisdom says to never assume a psychological cause without eliminated any physiological causes. What are her vitals? A&O? Respirations? Pulse? BP? Skin signs? Pulse ox? Pupils? Does she have any other signs and symptoms? Is she allergic to anything? Are there any signs of an allergic reaction? Could be the first case of a school and test allergy. Is she taking any medications? Does she have any kind of pertinent past medical history? What was the last thing she ate? Was there anything else that happened when the difficulty breathing started? Does anything make it better or worse? How exactly does she describe how she's feeling besides not being able to breathe? Is it a crushing pain? Stabbing pain? Tightness? Where is the feeling located and does it radiate anywhere? On a scale of 1 to 10, how bad is it? At what time did the difficulty breathing start? Is she a smoker? Illicit drugs? Huffing? Let's see if that narrows down the dx a little. :-) Take care, Bombera

I would transport this guy and then see if I can get him on a 72 hour hold unless there seems to be some other medical reason for his insanity. If he need to get to the hospital for the lunch special, then he should get in a car or a bus like a normal person and get there. Also, if he knew in advance about this lunch special, why didn't he start earlier to get there. This is absolutely weird and that is why I would transport him and have him 5150'ed at the ER. Just my thoughts and I am no professional yet. Take care, Bombera

What about this guy's skin? Color? Moisture? Temp.? Does anything make his chest pain or his DIB better or worse? Does the feeling radiate anywhere else? I'm not a paramedic yet, but I would want to put this guy on a 12 lead because he is presenting with atypical signs of an MI. I would also like to know if this guy is a smoker. Has he experienced this kind of thing before? If so, what was the dx? Is he overwieght? Is he coughing at all? If so, it is a productive cough? What color is the sputum? What about lung sounds? Does the pt have JVD? How about edema? That should help narrow things down. Take care, Bombera