Saddest moment of your career

[chbare]

Is that why you're an educator now and don't work the streets? What happened? If you don't mind me asking...

Wendy

CO EMT-B

I still work the streets in the sense that I am working in the clinical environment. I am now working as a respiratory therapist in addition to teaching.

In early 2009, I was on leave from Afghanistan preparing to sign on for another year contract when I developed back pain with terrible discomfort that radiated into my right leg and gluteal area. I had apparently herniated several of my lumbar discs without ever experiencing a "traumatic, precipitating" event. It just occurred. After a MRI and discussion with my doctor, he would not medically clear me to go back to Afghanistan. I basically went from working an exciting and autonomous position that paid well and allowed me to travel the world, to...

Fortunately, with good physiotherapy ( my doc basically showing me several stretching exercises and non-pharmacological pain management ) I feel more or less "normal" today. However, I've taken steps to ensure I can still make money. This has included transiting out of role where heavy lifting is required. Basically, I'm only a nurse in theory now, but respiratory therapy has allowed me to stay active as a clinician, caring for patients and I continue to develop my self as an instructor in the event I need to rely more heavily on teaching to make ends meet.

Take care,

chbare.

[Vorenus]

Regarding this, see this cartoon on page 97 (page 2 on the PDF). That's how I feel often...

(The cartoon on the last page is brilliant, too...)

Reminds me of these...

http://www.rippenspreizer.de/

EDIT:

http://www.rippenspreizer.de/4images/details.php?image_id=64

----> "Keep calm, I`m a dentist!"

Edited July 29, 2011 by Vorenus

[Richard B the EMT]

A supervisor saw I was "losing it", while working, on my day off, and having responded from my home roughly a half mile away from the scene of the crash of American Airlines Flight 587, November 12, 2001, Newport Avenue and Beach 131st Street, Belle Harbor section of Queens County, NYC, NY. We lost all 260 souls from the aircraft, and another 5 on the ground. The supervisor put me on a different detail on the scene, a distance away from where the body bags were being loaded for transport to the temporary morgue.

This was on top of the strain everyone in NYC was still under, from the attack on, and the collapse of, the World Trade Center, only 2 months prior.

[Katiebug]

Wow, Richard. I've had some tough moments, but nothing that even comes close to what you are describing. I hope I never do. Good on you for being there.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Richard B the EMT]

Katiebug, just mentioning 2 minor reliefs from that day.

When working the secondary assignment, I was next to an ambulance that had a dead battery, and whose crew was somewhere on the large area of the call. In no particular order, lieutenants, captains and chiefs came up to me and asked me to move "my" ambulance elsewhere. I had to tell them it wasn't my ambulance.

"Where IS your ambulance?

"No clue, 'Boss'".

"How can you NOT know where your ambulance is?"

"I responded from my home, 'Boss'. If you look down the street, there's my van 3 blocks away."

"(Yammida, yammida, yammida) Carry on, Mr B".

The other was, my home was just off the avenue, and my girlfriend's is the corner house, equidistant from the crash site to east and west. We both joke that it's been the only thing to come between us.

[DwayneEMTP]

Actually, though it won't be very 'feel good' to say it, the saddest moment in my career have come from watching the fates of other providers. My friends either caught in bad places because they're afraid to move on, or simply crashing and burning due to...well, a million reasons.

But patient wise, though I don't have a particular moment in mind, it would have to be while explaining to the family of a patient that I've chosen not to 'work' (is that like saying 'breathing treatment?') that their loved one is dead, and beyond any help that anyone can provide.

I love that moment in time for the raw energy and and the power of the emotions, including mine. Just simply knowing that I WANT to be there to help as opposed to having a provider that just wants to move on, but I also hate it for the pain that's involved. It's maybe the most useful I feel as a paramedic at times. I guess it goes with my belief that we'll help more people emotionally than physically in our careers if we just pay attention.

Also, it's one of the very few bullshit free times in life I think. They aren't thinking lawsuits (normally), or ulterior motives..they just 'are', right there, hurt and open and more needy than just about any other type of patient that I've encountered.

It's also, maybe, the most focused I've been as a paramedic. I'm always aware that this moment will stay with them forever, as they have stayed with me, so want to always leave them feeling as if someone loved them in that moment, to try and say the things that will not only allow them to begin healing, but possibly bring them peace later...Pretty grandiose I know, but the complex nature of all involved is what makes those times so alive, yet so painful.

Anyway..no idea how that sounds, or if I said it well, but there you have it.

Dwayne

Edited for spelling only.

Edited August 4, 2011 by DwayneEMTP

[medicgirl05]

But patient wise, though I don't have a particular moment in mind, it would have to be while explaining to the family of a patient that I've chosen not to 'work' (is that like saying 'breathing treatment?') that their loved one is dead, and beyond any help that anyone can provide.

Edited for spelling only.

I believe this is the absolute hardest thing I have had to do. It is a balancing act to keep you emotions where they need to be. These moments are what stick in my mind from such calls. Plus I was never really prepared for how to do it, and it hasn't gotten any easier with experience.

[DwayneEMTP]

I believe this is the absolute hardest thing I have had to do. It is a balancing act to keep you emotions where they need to be. These moments are what stick in my mind from such calls. Plus I was never really prepared for how to do it, and it hasn't gotten any easier with experience.

We actually had a full day on this I think in school. They psychology of death, helping to begin the grieving process by using the word 'dead' instead of others, why 'compassion codes' are bad, the responses and questions to expect, etc. Most in my class, or at least many, seemed to see it as a waste of time, but man, I found it to be really valuable.

It didn't make it easy, but it did seem to give me confidence that I wasn't driving these patients backwards at least. Of course, that's just theory, as we rarely get the chance to follow up on this intervention like we can many others...

It's hard when someone's loved one dies of apparent natural causes, but when we choose not to work a suicide their emotions are doubly or triply (not sure if that a word or not) screwed as they get to add the, 'what did I do so wrong as to make them kill themselves' to the 'how did I not see this coming!' thoughts and then churn it up with their grieving.

It's a crazy world....

Dwayne

[medicgirl05]

It's hard when someone's loved one dies of apparent natural causes, but when we choose not to work a suicide their emotions are doubly or triply (not sure if that a word or not) screwed as they get to add the, 'what did I do so wrong as to make them kill themselves' to the 'how did I not see this coming!' thoughts and then churn it up with their grieving.

Yes. I have been to many suicides, as both a basic and a medic, and it still amazes me the extremes of emotion that are experienced by family. People react very differently and you just never know how the conversation will go.