JollyMon

Ditto to DD's last comment. Have a degree BEFORE your knees, back and brain have had enough of the street.

I can't honestly remember my first non-viable patient. Over the years there have been plenty. But I do remember the first patient that died in my unit. I was still a basic and my partner was an I. He was having a lot of trouble breathing and he crashed on the short ride to our nearest er. I remember seeing him drop the EOA in the rearview mirror. I can't say it bothered me (no more than it would bother any human being, you know what I mean) until two days later. I was working with the same guy and a woman walked up to us while we were getting a soft drink at a convenience store and asked if we knew who brought Mr. (can't remember the name) from (can't remember the address) to the hospital. I just stood there like a deer in the headlights wondering if we should just run like hell when Timmy said, "Ma'am, it was us". She burst into tears and threw her arms around Timmy and thanked us for being with her Daddy when he died. THAT I didn't know how to handle. I mean, we lost him and this lady is thanking us just for being there. As far as burn patients are concerned, the only call that ever gave me real trouble was a burn patient. Six in the morning, house fire stand by while FD handled it. Nothing unusual and we were getting off in an hour. Then the firefighter stepped out of the house screaming inaudibly from behind his mask clutching something limp to his chest. It was a six month old boy and he wasn't breathing. I tubed him, got an IO in his leg and between my partner and I managed to push some epi when would ya believe it we got a pulse back, ST on the monitor. We were getting ready to head out when the back doors opened and another firefighter dropped a four year old on my bench seat, also not breathing. The firefighter rode with me and we worked both of the kids as well as we could but the four year old never responded to anything. The baby lived for about 72 hours in ICU. I was fine until I turned the kids over to the er staff, then I sat down, the "patients" suddenly became "children" and I couldn't stop crying. The debriefing helped a great deal. A lot of the firefighters had problems over that one, too. The entire family of five was found inside before it was over. One of the other units got the dad back, but he only lived for a few hours. It has been years but when I see or hear about something that brings it back it is pretty vivid. Talking about it relly helps and that is what I would suggest to anyone who has trouble with something like that. Keeping it inside will do you nothing but damage.

LP for me! 16 years of 'em and they are like a Timex. Takes quite a bit to knock one out of service. There are two Zolls that I have experience with. One at a part time job street job and one at a local college where I teach part time. They are finicky and for some reason one of them destroys batteries as fast as we can buy them. They do, however, make fine paperweights. :wink: