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Bizarre Calls


TK

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  • 1 month later...

When I was a call taker in the EMD, I gotr a call from a woman complaining that her husband was having a toothache. But when she said that the toothache pain was radiating down her husband's left arm, my internal alarm bells went off, and I entered it as call-type "Card", for a possible cardiac, instead of call type "Sick."

BLS and ALS were assigned, and arrived just as the gentleman went into arrest!

Sorry, no followup as to disposition.

Then, there was a classic call:

The call taker gets a man on line, who says his wife is delivering the baby right that moment. The call taker gives the appropriate pre-arrival instructions, and just as the CAD (Computer Assisted Dispatch) system updates to showing the ambulance as on the scene, the caller, with the sounds of a newborn crying in the background, thanks the call taker for all the help, and hangs up.

Seconds later, the BLS crew reports the address is an empty lot. The call back # turns out to be a phony.

Hearing the playback, my call taker did nothing wrong, and the department is still using the tape for training, even though the actual call turned out to be bogus.

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Whenever we would get a dispatch for a "breathing problems" the additional information ALWAYS included "patient sweaty and or changing colors". I ask which one.. and what color.

It's always funny when you get a cocky reply.. then a supervisor calls you on the radio to have you call the center after the call.

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I have a fun one :)

We were a Basic crew on a merry day of returns when we were dispatched to a local hospital for a transfer to a local nursing home. Patient is to be status post minor stroke, left side weakness, A+Ox3

We arrive to find patient in her hospital bed not moving or answering us. Family present says that she was talking and alert just minutes before. Nurse rushes in and starts pushing us out the door, she is after all, very busy. We can not get any response from patient and ask nurse if she was in fact A+Ox3. Nurse snaps back "A+Ox4!" I say "she is quite non-responsive..." nurse snaps "she is very sleepy, it is a big day for her" Nurse starts strapping our patient onto cot and is literally shoving us out the door repeating that she is just sleepy. Resp are ok and radial pulse is okay so we decide to go and assess in the rig since this nurse is not being helpful at all. How dare a lowly EMT tell her anything about her patient!

We get in the rig with paperwork and a non-responsive patient. We decide that if we can't get a pain response we are calling medical control but that we will get on the road. I drive slowly from the hospital as my partner tries to get a pain response and I get med control on the radio. Within one block we get permission to turn around and go back to the ER with our patient discharged from the 8th floor. Patient was having another huge stroke, she is just lucky she was not staying on the floor, I doubt her nurse ever would have noticed...

Just to further compound this patient's day lol she responded well to treatment and we were sent to transfer her to the nursing home again late that night. We got 2 blocks from said home and were sent back to the hospital. Nursing home was not willing to accept her so recently after a stroke. We took her back, different floor this time. She got to go out with us twice and never made it to the nursing home, just 8th floor to ER to 5th floor.

oooo and I loved my dispatch card from a rookie dispatcher that had us picking up a patient with "ultra metal status" That old guy ROCKED! ultra metal :)

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Ok this JUST happened 4 hours ago!! I had to post it because the basics (me included) two medics, medical control, ER staff EVERYONE could not believe this medical mystery.

Called at 2:30 AM ( I know nothing good at that time of night) for an unresponsive female that is diabetic. By the time we get the rig rolling the patient is still unresponsive and it being the third "episode" today.

By the time we hit the door patient is alert but altered mental state. Husband says its her sugar but they havent checked it much.

BGL on scene was 17!!! But checking the test strips (they were the patients) they expired in 08 so we didnt think it was accurate.

Load and go and meet medics in route. After one tube of instaglucose patient is AOx3 before we reach medics.

Medics take another BGL and get 11!!!!

THEY call medical control and were basically laughed at.

Take another BGL this time venously and get 18!!

We have this women telling us stories of her grandchildren, knowing current events, and even the time yet her sugar is 18!!

Two amps of D50 later we get a 48 on her. Hang two bags and recheck. 68 then about 3 minutes later 48 and droping.

In the ER nurses take another and shes back at 38 and hasnt changed status AOx3.

We are all scratching our heads.

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The most bizarre call I have been on is my partner and I were dispatched out for low impact MVA. when we arrived everything was normal the police and fire on scene. What had happened was a car with two occupants had stopped in the middle of the road and the SUV behind them ran into the back of their car doing about 15km an hour. The driver of the SUV was not injured and the driver of the car said she was fine. Now comes the bizzare part.

The passanger of the car said he was scared to move and did not want to get out of the car. The lady driver was telling him to get out and let us take a look at him and transport port him to the hospital. He just kept saying he was scared to move and he just did not feel wright. So my partner kept asking if he had neck pain and the pt just kept saying he did not feel wright and he was scared to move, as well as he mentioned he had some sort of condition that we had never heard of which turned out to be false.

Any ways, after a while my partner asked to speak to the woman driver in private, and let me try and talk to the pt and find out what was going on. He told me he had neck pain and that his legs felt funny. Now remember it was a low impact MVA at 15km an hour, so I was thinking okay maybe he has neck pain, but there was no damage to either vehicle, but who knows. So I told I am going to have to put a hard collar on him and put him on the clamshell and take him to the hospital. Well now he is saying he is fine and he could maybe move now. So after about half an hour he eventually got out of the car and walked over to our ambulance.

While inside of the ambulance my partner was taking notes and I was taking a BP and then came a RCMP officer holding the guys backpack and a few other things and said to our patient that the lady left and asked him to give him his stuff. The freaked out and the cop had to ask him to relax or else he is going to jail. Turned out the lady had a restraining order against him and she was on her to drop him off at the Tim Hortons when they got into a fight in the car and she stopped in the middle of the road to kick him out.

Sorry the story was a little long but had to paint the picture.

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I rememberd what the guy said he had and why he was scared to get out of the car. He said he had a conditioned call " Transthoracic Syndrome"

Anybody ever heard or read about this condition before?

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