canadian_ghost

I suddenly re love my job again lol. Thanks for the post it made all of us laugh.

I had one patient that was kicked in her head during a soccer tournament. On arrival patient could not move fingers. After some time in the hospital the paralysis did go away. I think it was spinal shock. Um yes it was immediately obvious because she was telling us she couldn't feel them. When we asked her to move them she said she was but nothing was going on. Fair amount of pain in the head and she was fairly anxious. There was no visible injuries except for the lump on her head. x-rays showed nothing wrong with the neck so I suspect it to be spinal shock? Am I wrong, was it something else?

:roll:

Um.. no, he just said he didn't like them, he had bought some from some prive contracting.

Going back to what Dust said about CISD, I do agree that they can be non benifitial. I guess I was just speaking on my own experience with them, they seemed to help. But the most helpful is talking to other EMS, and venting. Thank you for correcting me yet again Dust.

](*,) Thanks Dust. I ment government...

So true. Calling 9-11 for something that is clearly not an emergency is just silly. If you can't handle your 12 year old daughter well that's your problem. Not ours... I honestly couldn't help but laugh when I heard dispatch say that.

Went to a nursing home to pick up a p/t for a transport to the hospital for a pacemaker appointment. We get inside and after looking around for a while we find out that the patient passed away the night before due to a cardiac problem. We let dispatch know, "XXX Alpha to Dispatch" "Dispatch go ahead XXX Alpha" "XXX Alpha, yeah our patient is dead..." "-confused voice- Your patient is dead for their pacemaker appointment?" Doesn't sound to funny, it was more one of those things you would of had to been there to hear the conversation. It was a joke around the station for days.

Seeing as how this was posted in September, I'm sure you have already made a choice, but from what I have heard do not buy them but thats only from what I have heard by word of mouth. So if you Did buy them maybe you could let me know how they are working out for you? Thanks!

Can you explain more? Maybe it's just me and this long day but I'm not 100% sure what you mean. Sorry.

HAHA! I love it. Where can you get one?

Maybe spend less on guns and more on health care? I dunno, just throwing that one out there.. Be nice.

One evening a family brings their frail, elderly mother to a nursing home and leaves her as planned, hoping she will be well cared for. The next morning, the nurses bathe her, feed her a tasty breakfast, and set her in a chair at a window overlooking a lovely flower garden. She seems OK, but after a while she slowly starts to lean over sideways in her chair. Two attentive nurses immediately rush up to catch her and straighten her up. Again she seems OK, but after a while she starts to tilt to the other side. The nurses rush back and once more bring her back upright. This goes on all morning. Later the family arrives to see how the old woman is adjusting to her new home. "So Ma, how is it here? Are they treating you all right?" they ask. "It's pretty nice," she replies. "Except they won't let me fart." :roll: lol

Can I get an Amen?

"Do you want us to come out there and shoot her?" :shock: Lol! I've heard that one on the internet before. I'm not to sure what I would do if something like that happened to me

jouleman first of all I would like to say sorry. Ped calls are never easy, especially something like that. But unfortunately it's going to happen. 23 years in EMS is a long time, and I can understand if you are starting to burn out. Have you gone to CISD since that call? (Critical Incident Stress Debriefing) if not DO SO IMMEDIATELY! You can get all the help you need from a trained counsellor. Also I think maybe going and taking 2 weeks off and just getting away. Maybe a long camping trip, or vacation with the family if you have one. You just need to get away for a while and forget completely about it. If after CISD and some time off and away from your job, you still feel like your burning out then consider going to counselling full time (1 day a week). You said sorry because you might be venting, well venting is what you need to do. Get it off your chest, talk to other people in the same profession as you (not family or anything) and just let it all off. You are only human, you will burnout especially if you don't let it out. I had to go to a similar call, it was a mother in labour and when we got there the baby was DOA. The MINUTE we got into the station our U/C (Unit Chief) and 2 counsellors were sitting in the station waiting to begin debriefing and CISD. So please if you love your job, love helping people despite the FF's (Frequent Fliers, not Fire Fighters... the Drunks, and the bullshit calls) then get away for a while your boss, if a good one WILL understand. Go to CISD for this call, and consider counselling once or twice week. Other than that just hang in there, try and realize why you got into this job. To Help People.

Something similar happened in my local ER. I was waiting in the ER with our semi stable p/t waiting for them to triage and open a bed for our patient when this 17-19 yr old girl walks into ER looking confused. Nurse sits her down at a chair and advises her not to move at all, apparently the ER was out of hard collars so she looks at me and asks if i can get one out of our car. My partner was attending this call so I was able to leave p/t, I went to the car grabbed a collar and walked back into the ER. I go to hand it to her then she looks at me and asks if I could apply it while she does stabalization, so I tell her I will. I size up and apply the collar to this girl after much screaming from the young girl. Then the nurse tells her to stand up and walks her to towards the x-ray dept. About an hour and a half later I return to the ER and drop off another p/t and ask the nurse how that girl was. Turns out she fractured her neck. Makes you wonder sometimes eh...

Didn't your mother ever tell you "if you don't have anything nice to say, then don't say anything at all"? Unless that was you being humorous, that was not called for Dust. I honestly don't care if you are a EMT City Idol, you have no right saying that. I was offended even if it was a joke.

I agree. If you are, even in a rural area a 12 lead for BLS will not benifit the patient any. It will take you time to get the leads on, and then once you do get them on (hopefully correct) how is the reading going to help you OR the patient? Your protocols wont be any different so you wont be able to admin. any cardiac drugs or do anything other than shock the patient if they crash on you. Dust made a good point in the price it can cost to but ONE unit you could buy several AEDs or pay the wage of another BLS medic. If your itching to use a 12 lead then advance your skill. Go become ALS. Where I live ALS is not an option, there are no ALS cars here. But in our city your 10-15 minutes max from the hospital. So in My case a 12 lead would be a waste of time/money and the problems it would bring. The only pro i can see to having BLS use a 12 lead is that the ER nurses and docs may take a glance at it and work with it, but other than that i say no.

Well I'm proud to say I am no longer a student.. haven't been for a while :? but that does make sense. Maybe I shouldn't be so soft on them ?

So.. it might just be me, but why do you people feel the need to bash students ? Yeah Most of them do call for ALS backup right away and panic in a lot of situations, but you know how it felt when you were a student yourself. After a call having to go back and get all the abuse from the medics at the station. I don't know, it very well could just be me and yes I am aware I'm gonna get chewed up and spat out by people but shouldn't we be encouraging them instead of putting them down ? Well take care, and be gentle.

What I do is I get my partner and long time friend and we usually run drills every, or every second Thursday at the station for 2 hours. Other than that I just read over my books and read stuff on here learning new tips and tricks. Getting a high call volume I really don't know what else to recommend. Maybe a career switch to city ems ? Not to sure what else to say. Take care.

I had this case not to long ago, maybe a week ago. A COPD was short of breath, we were first on scene and my partner called for ALS backup. We put him on 10 lmp via a NRB, because from my understanding to knock out the hypoxic drive it takes 4 or 5 hours ? So we figured high flow O2 would obviously help, anyways ALS arrives and lays in on me right away for giving a COPD high flow O2, I had done just as AZCEP recommended, and asked him quietly and calmly how long it takes to knock out the drive ( this whole drama had caused the patient to become a little more stressed ) and just like AZCEP said the ALS response to my question was priceless. They backed off and didn't criticize me for anything else I did, I think I might of even got a good job :shock: But you did a good job by giving your patient high flow O2 Take care.

When we come across a severe hypothermic patient I am suppose to check a carotid pulse for no more than one minute, if no pulse is detected then I am to go into CPR immediately for a minimum of 2 minutes before applying the AED, after that we are only allowed to deliver one shock from the AED, if it is unsuccessful then we just go back to CPR until we either get an ALS intercept or get to the ER. Also no airways are to go in because of movement. Other than that we just get them as warm as possible into the ambulance. Hope this helped somewhat :?

My protocol is for 10 lmp on a NRB for any chest pains, obviously think outside the box and adjust accordingly to the nature of the call and the way the patient responds to treatment. Is it really necessary to have a patient on 10 lmp via NRB when 4 lmp NC will do ? I guess it all depends on the situation at hand and the attending medic ?