Not just a toothache (2)

[Richard B the EMT]

There is a string about an abscessed tooth causing a breathing obstruction, but I am going in a different direction.

Elderly woman calls 9-1-1 about her equally elderly husband, who has a toothache. I was the EMS Call-taker, and I thought it was some kind of BS.

That is, until the woman said the pain was so intense, that husband was describing it as moving down his jaw and into his shoulder.

OK, this was the pain radiating in the reverse direction than I was used to hearing such pain/discomfort being described. I took precaution, and entered the call into the Computer Assisted Dispatch system as a Cardiac ("CARD"). Dual ALS/BLS assigned, and luckily so, as the patient went into cardiac arrest seconds after the first ambulance crew made patient contact.

You have to listen to the patient, or those with them. You also have to know what to save, and what to discard, in what they say.

Think of an episode of "CSI" that aired recently. Elderly gentleman, whose wife had died 10 years previously, originally was dismissed when saying to "CSI Grissom" that his wife was shot. Turned out she was shot, or at least her picture had been shot...with a crossbow! Using the place the picture hung, they found the spot where the crossbow attack had been launched, on the actual "then and there" victim.

[medibrat]

Richard, you and I are going to have to sit down and watch tv together...we watch all the same stuff!

As for things not always being what they seem...good call on you for using that sixth sense to send it out cardiac...unfortunately for me, my last 2 'toothache' calls were just that...run of the mill, every day, too much sugar, not enough trips to the dentist toothaches!

Brat :angel8: