rat115

Gutter??? Thought that was the normal avenue around here. I'm still around. Running in so many different directions that I've not been on as often as I should. Trying to deal with a shitty 2012 and get 2013 to be a much better year. Now, if the psycho stalker ex would follow through on his suicide threats, I'd be golden. I saw that I missed Mike coming through CO. Dang!!! Would have been a blast to meet you, Mike, if you'd have come through SE of eyedawn. Eyedawn, I've got to stop in an see you one of these times I'm through your area because of a meeting with the psycho ex.

This is becoming an all to often tradegy. Prayers for the family, friends and coworkers of these EMS providers. It's scarey becuase of the report out of OK of the HEMS that went down there. Thank goodness that that pilot was able to bring them in with injuries and no deaths.

My ex-husband had an injury similar to this. His came from twisting while lifting a soil density gage. He ended up with a diskectomy and was placed on a 20-30 lbs lift restriction. He, then, pulled a "brainless" and jumped off a platform that was 6 feet in the air. He re-extruded the L5-S1 disk and ended up with compression fx of the L3 & L4 vertebrae. You will have to work hard to overcome the injury and strengthen your back to be able to return to work without further complication. Start with the exercises that you have been given and work with a therapist to build and strengthen. Good luck!

I don't see a problem with accepting food/drink from a bystander in a situation IF (1) things are safe for bystanders, (2) the scene is properly supervised, and (3) there is a time on scene where there is a wait time either for LEO to process the scene or for wreckers to get there to transport the vehicles. You have to look at the service rules and, if the service allowes it, the situation. I had a family give me a gift certificate for a local pizza resturant a few years ago after I transported the wife for higher level of care for possible cardiac problem. The card with it said that they wanted me to use the gift to take my family to dinner as this family's way of thanking them for sharing me with the community (we are a volunteer service). I took the card and gift certificate into the EMS director and asked him about it before I used it. His response was that it was a wonderful sentiment and to enjoy dinner out with my kids. It really touched me because I knew the family outside of EMS and they knew that I was going through a divorce and couldn't afford to take my kids out to dinner because of my financial situation at that time.

You guys forgot to mention the reemergence of Whooping Cough. That's another one. I still don't understand that because it's one that can be vaccinated against. Unfortunately, there is no way to keep any illness in one area of the world with the way travel is. I live right off a major interstate. It's amazing what we see between those traveling through by car and, especially, those who get off of Greyhound.

Taking the risk of having someone bitch, I'm going to ask. Does your partner have a hearing loss or tinitus? There are those (even young) who don't realize that they have these issues or figure it's "normal" because it's all that they've known. Where they don't normally cause a problem, they can in high stress situations. I have a person on our service that I can't get to understand the simple thing of DON'T THROW STUFF AT ME. I have lazy eye and don't have the depth perception to catch something small thrown at me. Because of this person throwing a pulse ox and expecting me to catch it, I was trying to reach over an unconscious pt when our driver gave a massive disel bolus and threw me into the back door causing me to mess up my knee to the point that I required surgery. The person who threw the pulse ox STILL doesn't believe that he wasn't being a team player. I have been told that I'm too exacting in areas. Two of my major areas are cleaning the ambo and restocking. It pisses me off when I get into a rig and either something's not there or I find trash from previous crews that hasn't been cleaned up. Where we're a volly crew, we don't do the checks at the start of our shifts like would be done on a paid service, so this stuff isn't caught until you're needing the ambulance. It just pisses me off. I, also, refuse to change that. I've told people, "Sorry... Deal with it.... When you reach for something and it's not there, you'll understand where I'm coming from."

I have to agree with Island EMT. I prefer the higher temps. If you're smart, you can avoid the risks of the environmental extremes easier. (Plus, I really don't like the cold. LOL) I find keeping a cooler of water bottles handy helps. Keep away from caffine. (Yeah, I know. I'm talking to EMS people.) Having at least 1 change of clothes in case you get put in a situation where you're sweating badly. Keep the a/c going in the ambo. Here, we have the extremes ranging from 107 F temps in the summer to blizzards in the winter. Right now, we're watching major fires that the closest are about 100 miles away and fighting spot fires from combines and fools dropping cigarettes.

Hard to believe that you had this happen and you're running calls this soon. Most places, you loose you DL for up to a year for a seizure so that it's proven that the anti-seizure meds are effective. Only time I've heard of a seizure pt not losing his DL was a PNES pt, and he should STILL lose it IMO. Either way, you need to seek professional help dealing with issues.

We have a strap seat that attaches to our cot for kids. I agree with some of the others that I prefer to have an infant/toddler in a full carseat attached to the cot if I can. If there are reasons to remove them, I will readily. We do leave those in a full carseat with padding around them if we need to spinal immobilize and there are no other reasons to remove them. It keeps the kiddo more comfy and you know that it's already fitted to them.

Mobey, you have put an excellent post here!!! You are doing a great thing for yourself and your family by sitting down and looking at things like you did. You have made some great points and plans. Thanks for sharing. I didn't realize how much I needed to read something like this right now. There are a few folks here that know, but I'm just coming back from a bit over 2 weeks off after my mother was killed in a DUI accident. She was about 4 miles outside my response area (rural area) where she was ejected and killed. I'm looking at what I need right now, in the way of counseling, because of this and the other stressers in my life. Your post touched me deeply. Thanks!!!! Herbie1, you've got some good point here too. Thanks to you too! I hope that you've found the help that you need.

Enjoy your time there!

I addressed the rules for Cub Scouts. Boy Scouts and Venturing Scouts, address this by having patrol leaders who are responsible for the boys in their group and it would be an issue of having patrol leaders step up and take care of camp duties. If it were another group, I would think it were something more like a church group. In any situation where you have to leave kids unattended or minimally attended, you have to factor in their age and maturity level. Who can be left in a situation like this and be trusted to do what's needed and not get in trouble? Who do you need to keep a close eye on because they have a strong tendency to not listen to those in their peer group who are placed in a position of leadership? Who can or can not handle what looks to be an intense 6 mile hike? (Remember, tying up these kids or duct taping them is not an option. Kidding on even thinking of the idea because it's been a crappy day here & I needed a chuckle.) This is where an adult leader of any group has to weigh the welfare of all of the kids under his/her supervision. I agree with your comment in an earlier post about finding some of the older kids to stay with younger ones if you can. You may have to take the whole lot of them and do a solid job of marking the trail if you can't leave any of them unattended. This is all going to depend on the group of kids that you have and will change from group to group. Sorry, I don't see a definite solution as to what to do with the kids who are at camp because I feel that the final decision depends on the kids themselves. *insert Shrugging smilie here*

OK.... I'm going to start by pointing out why this should NEVER happen. I was a Cub Scout leader for almost 10 years, so I see protocal that was not followed. Cub Scouts are not allowed to camp with just 2 adults. There is the rule that it is manditory to have a minimum of 2 leader and youth protection trained adults at any and all functions (2 deep leadership). When Cubs go camping, it is manditory for there to be a parent or guardian (or person who the parent/guardian signs a waiver to be there in the place of that parent/guardian) for each Cub. This is because Cubs are in the age group where they still act before thinking, and it's important to have those extra adults around to supervise. Therefore, the scenerio that you put here should never be for Cub Scouts, and the leader will be removed by the District Executive after the incident and not be allowed to reapply as a leader. Looking at the scenero and what we've taught the Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts that I've worked with here's my comments on what to take. The best things to take in are going to be a tarp (there should be at least one under each tent so take your pick), a sleeping bag, the jump kit, rope, twine if you have it, a big towel or sheet, and a team of the boys that are picked for endurance and physical shape. Make sure 2 of your boys are tagged to mark the trail so SAR can follow the trail into the area (and you can follow it out). The rest of your team is responsible for helping look for 2 thick branches that are as close as possible in length to the injured boy's height and some smaller reasonablly straight sticks for splints. I agree with the earlier post that you're likely to need SAR for a technical rescue depending on how deep the ravine is so be prepared to spend time talking to the kiddo while SAR gets there. If you are able to get to the kiddo, you can use the towel for a c-collar if there isn't one in your jump kit. Splint what's needed with sticks and the towel or triangle bandage. Make a litter with the big sticks, tarp and twine or rope. Get the child into the sleeping bag and then zip it closed around him. Pull the sleeping bag onto the litter. Then, you work as a team with the other boys to get the injuried boy from the scene to the camp. Try to have a couple of extra boys to swap out those who get tired or stop and rest if you need and keep checking the boy as you go.

Asys, I'm so sorry that you had a hard time with Rob's death. It hit me hard too. I know how many times I wanted to tell Dust he was a total jerk, but he definately made me rethink things. I hope you find a way to honor Dust in the future and that things are going better for you.

Such sad news. Such a loss for the EMS community as a whole.

Sorry, been juggling stuff. Mike's heart cath was done at a pedi facility. The doc there is one of the top in the nation. (I checked her out.) We're 3 weeks through the month with the monitor. He's had less days where he needed to use the monitor than he's made it sound like, but we won't know for sure what's going on for a while. The PCP has done a complete blood workup the last time we ended up with him in the ED (Sept 6th). The cardiologist did an echocardiogram at the end of May (after the ablation). We've also put him in counseling to try to combat some of the stuff that his dad's pulling.

Sorry I've not been around much lately. This year has been crazy for me. This post comes from some of the stuff that I'm dealing with personally. I have a 12 y/o son who was dx with WPW in April after running SVT for over 2 hrs and having to be given adenosine to stop the SVT. He had a cath ablation done May 10th. On May 22, he ended back in the ED with short runs that went as high as 306 bpm. Since then, he's not had any recorded events like that. My son had to go to WY for the summer, so I wasn't able to check up on him like I would have liked and dad didn't take him in for the checkup that he needed over the summer with the cardiologist. He returned home on August 7th. Since then, he's complaining at least 2-3 times a week that he's having cp, h/a, SOB, nausea, and dizziness. We ended up with him in the ED on Sept 6, and the doc said he was in a NSR with ST elevation. On Sept 11, he got dizzy while taking a shower and ended up slipping and getting a concussion due to an episode. Last night, he was with me at a football game where I was working on the ambulance when he started c/o "the normal". I could feel the irregularity in his pulse, so I got him on a monitor and had the ALS provider that I was able to get out there to take a look at the strip. He said it was a sinus arrythmia with the hr ranging between 54-88 bpm, and it didn't change with O2. With the hx and the fact that the kiddo was A&OX4 and tired, the ALS provider suggested I take him home and watch him. By this morning, he was back in a normal rhythm. He had an 11 am appt because of the concussion, and I took the strip in. The PA looked at the strip and listened to what's been going on. She then had a 12 lead done (NSR with ST elevation again) and a CT and chest x-ray (both normal). It seems that his heart is showing the dysrhythmias more in the evening the closer to bedtime we get. He's getting extremely grouchy and acting depressed. It's making it almost impossible to get homework or chores done in the evening. He's even lying to me about having homework to the point of getting an F in math because he's just to tired to want to do it. Besides getting him into the docs here, I have been in contact with the cardiology dept at Children's. The 1st available appt was Sept 21, so we'll be going up then. I also leaned on them about wires getting crossed and an event monitor not getting sent out at the end of May. We should have an event monitor Monday evening and be able to start tracking the episodes with that. Has anyone heard of kids having problems post ablation for reentrant tach problems like this? Anyone ever heard of this proceedure causing sinus arrythmias? Suggestions on ideas that I can use to weed out if this is an attempt to get out of homework and chores instead of actual cardiac problems? TIA!!!

Thanks, Katie. Not sure how long we're going to be here. They did an echo on his heart this morning. Waiting for word back on that. They put him on a beta blocker, and now his heart rate keeps dropping down into the 50s and bouncing up to the 90s. They had it drop down to 48 during the echo, so not sure if they're going to leave him at this dosage. It's wait and see for now.

Ended up taking him back before we got out of town. We stopped at a store and was in for a total of about 15 minutes. He started with a h/a and chest pain that were at 4/10 when he first admitted that he had them. He progressed to SOB, dizziness, and nausea. He did a champ of a job of trying to pass out on the way as we got near the ER. Got him back and he ended up getting admitted to the cardiac floor. They started him on a beta blocker to get things calmed down. He's still got the h/a and CP at 2-3/10. Kid's not wanting to get out of bed except to go to the bathroom. Tests start tomorrow morning since we had to bring him back in.

We didn't get past the ED. After he was cardioverted at our local hospital, he stayed at or below 100 bpm. They didn't admit him since he didn't go back into SVT. They said that there were definitely delta waves that show WPW in all of the ECGs that were done after the cardioversion, so that's official. We head back to Denver on May 11th for the first available appointment with the cardiologist who specializes in this. He's still having some dizzy spells if he stands up too fast, so I'm glad that we'll be in Denver for a few more hours. I'll bring him back in a heartbeat if I think he's going back into SVT and we can't get it stopped with vagal maneuvers. Now, we're to the wait and watch until the tests start to document where the area is that's causing the WPW and make sure that nothing else is going on. Hopefully, it won't take long after the appointment on the 11th. (He's supposed to go to his dad's for the summer and that's 6.5-7 hrs away from Children's in Denver.) Please pardon any typos. I've been up since before 6 am yesterday and only had enough cat naps to equal about 30-40 minutes worth of sleep.

I had to take my 11 yr old son into the ER tonight. He was at a youth group and was sitting around about to have dinner when his heart rate suddenly jumped. After getting back over there myself, I found that his heart rate was almost impossible to get manually. I ended up taking him down to where our ambulances are housed, and his pulse showed around 246 when I put him on the pulse ox. There was another EMT there working on paperwork, and both of us had a hard time getting a B/P. He was complaining of headache, dizziness, nausea and starting to note chest/body pain. I walked him across the alley to the hospital and into the ER. They found the same for his heart rate and finally got a manual B/P of 84/P. We tried vagal maneuvers with him twice and they didn't work. They used adenosine on him after he'd been in SVT for just a bit over 2 hrs and cardioverted him. After the cardiovert, they found delta waves and started talking about WPW Syndrome. So, now we've been flown to Denver Children's and waiting to find out more. Prayers would be greatly appreciated. (TIA!)

No, it's not something that's not been said before. It's just finally getting all of the right people on board with it. Child Safety Seat Techs have been saying this and more docs were getting on board, but until now the AAP hadn't made such a solid statement for it and encourage all pediatricians to encourage it exclusively. Sounds like your doc is up on important information before it's old news.

I was looking on line today and found an article on CNN talking about the American Academy of Pediatrics having changed their recommendation for rear-facing child safety seats. http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/03/21/car.seat.guidelines.parenting/index.html?hpt=T2 They are saying that the longer a child can be rear-facing the safer the child is. Instead of 1 year AND 20 lbs, they are now saying at least 2 years or until the child exceeds the limits of the rear-facing convertible seat.

I'll donate to the fund to buy bullets!!!!