Sadddest Call Ever ?????????

[sportygirl]

crotchitymedic1986

I can certainly respect those that do not wish to share. The reason I asked is that I see alot of newbies in this forum who have just begun their EMS career, and may not have experienced what the holidays bring to EMS --- my hope was to be able to give them so expectation and coping skills for the inevitable bad call that will occur in the next few weeks.

If you would rather just share your agency's or personal coping mechanisms, that will suffice.

I have a question? along with the coping sad calls. sorry if this is not approite

I am a new EMT and i haven't been in the field yet but when coming home from a trip I was on a lay over in the air port and saw a women crying so i gave her a tuise that i had and asked her if she was ok? and under her arm was a fold flag and some dog tags and we sat for a while and she told me that she spent her thanksgiving burying her son. and after she got on her flight I ematledy called my mom and told her everything and then I cryed. how do you help in things like that? how do you deal with it?

[Timmy]

While I haven't worked Christmas Day yet I have seen some things leading up to Christmas.

On community nursing a lot of my patients are older and have dementia and a lot suffer from mental illness. I find the older patients have limited friends and family, some patients don't ambulate well and that effects the social side of life. I have a few patients that have no family or friends left.

The thing that gets me worked up, some of my mental health patients are quiet young. There managing there illness well and are well medicated yet no one is willing to give them a go. I see about 5 patients under the age of 25 who live in one of those care houses. These kids are full of potential yet shunned by the community, half the problem with the kids is there to scared to go and get involved with life because of there past experiences out in the community. There family don't want to know them and pay for the accommodation in this community house because they feel embarrass to have them come around and spend Christmas with there family and friends. There pushed into this dark corner and no body wants to know them!

Here's a little war story lol:

One of my patients is 18, he suffers from mild schizophrenia and some autism, he sometimes has acute episodes. He is the nicest, brightest kid you could meet but his a little developmentally slow (but aren't we all!) . He makes me jealous, his a really good looking kid, blonde hair, blue eyes, 6'2 solid build. He could easily get a girlfriend but his autism prevents that. He suffers from extreme anxiety from past experiences being in the community and at school. I've read some of the horrible things his been put though by other kids while he was at school.

I've never seen his parents, there not his NOK and every time you mention them he'll have an acute episode so I'm not quiet sure what's going on there. I spend a lot of time out of work hours with him in an effort to over come this anxiety but even something like walking into the front yard petrifies him. I doubt his spent Christmas with family and the people in the house are not really friends, more room mates.

We have limited resources to deal with these kids were I live due to the remoteness of the town and his conditions don't really warrant any specialist care. His just another kid stuck in the healthcare system.

They say in nursing you have favourite patients, I guess his my favourite. It's coming into football season soonish, his a keen footballer, his even built like a footballer but his never played a proper game, he can beat me in a backyard game and I've played before. I plan on some how trying to get him to come to football training, he has a natural talent and maybe the encourage meant from other players and the team is just what he needs. We get along well and if I can use our friendship to encourage him to get out and socialise, maybe even get a job then that's better than nothing.

[itku2er]

My grandfather the day after Christmas.

[emtashelyb]

I have a question? along with the coping sad calls. sorry if this is not approite

I am a new EMT and i haven't been in the field yet but when coming home from a trip I was on a lay over in the air port and saw a women crying so i gave her a tuise that i had and asked her if she was ok? and under her arm was a fold flag and some dog tags and we sat for a while and she told me that she spent her thanksgiving burying her son. and after she got on her flight I ematledy called my mom and told her everything and then I cryed. how do you help in things like that? how do you deal with it?

This is just comming from me as a marine wife there is no real way you can help someone who is going through that just offer your support. My friend lost her best friend the reason her and her husband are married today on valentines day 2007. I bought her a pair of customized dogtags and told her if she needed to talk I was there for her. Its really hard to deal with death in anyway but yes its very sad when you come in contact with a family member or spouse of a servicemember who was KIA. I really have no true advice but if your having problems with it talk to someone about it.

My "saddest" call around crhistmas invloved elder abuse and a very sweet old woman who didnt want to stay at the hospital over christmas she was crying and it really broke my heart I will never forget that

[crotchitymedic1986]

All mine involved kids (3 of which were):

1. Car doesnt stop at stop sign at busy country highway, gets t-boned, flips over sideways and becomes airborn, car strikes tree via the roof, front end of car is touching back end of car, 3 kids and grandma killed - one infant in car seat survives -- christmas eve

2. Father burns up two kids in his mobile home 12/26.

3. Another christmas eve, dad who is 30-35 has congenital ventricular defect in heart that cant be fixed, goes home to spend last christmas with family. Is purple from the nipples up, but still talking. I dont know why, but the way his 5 year old said "bye daddy", standing there in his pajammas on the porch, as we loaded daddy in the truck, has always haunted me.

[bbbrammer]

Wasn't around the holidays, but it was still bad.

Car wreck. Parents killed immediately. Small kids in back alive but trapped. Needed extrication. SUV fuel tank caught fire. Every fire truck in the city put H2O on fire. Nothing helped. All we could do was stand there and watch and listen to the kids burning alive. I can still hear their screams.

Have had several holiday calls that were sad, but every single one of them was eclipsed by this one call. I think it was having to listen to them screaming and being absolutely helpless that got me. Worst thing I have ever heard in my life.

[Don1977]

My service does the ground trips for Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh and STAT Medevac due to weather or a quick non-flying trip.

We get called last christmas eve at 0530 A.M. to do a "team" trip, we arrive at CHP to get team (RN,RRT and a doctor) and are told "to get to Braddock yesterday" here we find out its a baby in arrest!

We arrived at the hospital around 0600, this baby was about 3 months old, the ER staff was working the kid for a good 30 minutes and prior EMS crew about 45 minutes.

After CHP attempted CPR and other interventions, they finally called it..... I have never seen such a hush over that ER before, it hit me too, I could never believe that would happen on such a glorious day.

My fire captain works as a PCT there and he just got on at 600 AM and "walked" into it, even he had a teary eye that morning. He told me that 2 hours later when tthe mother finally arrived to claim the body it was worse, that ER was hit like a ton of bricks by sadness.

i found out from him about 2 weeks later the kid suffered SIDS, according to an autopsy.

[Kiwiology]

Only two times when I flt really sad and had no idea what to say or do; one was a threatning suicide and the other was a rape

[crotchitymedic1986]

So, of those that have Critical Stress Debriefing or some kind of employee assistance program at your workplace, do you find that it is benefiical after a call like the ones mentioned ? We used CSD, but I dont know that i can concretely say that it helped, but I think that it did. I umderstand that many experts are now saying CSD is a bad thing. What is your opinion ?

[emtashelyb]

I have never used cism but I know I should have for atleast one call, I prefer my therapist