Chief1C

Yanno, after all these years, nothing really bothers me. Even things that smell really obnoxious. Maybe week old dead guy in July, yanno, peel the paint bad. But the mechanics of vomiting. It's so displeasing. I don't like sneezing, either.

That's not offensive... This is offensive.. I think EMS should be operated by the fire service, overseen by Law Enforcement and staffed by multilingual volunteers that were apprehended by INS while trying to illegally vote for Obama.

I was self medicating after a trip to the bakery, I have no idea why I wrote that.

I think that we think that we exist, but we don't really exist.

Well, now that EMS carrying guns is trending, we can just shoot out the tires of the vehicles that won't pull over.

You note between the bathtub and toilet, is that a cramped area. Was his chest against anything, or the weight of his body resting upon his chest? Had a patient crushed between two objects, had only been down for a period of time that day. Unknown how long he was stuck. But he was only stuck by the chest. The head and neck were very dark purple, while the rest of the body was pale when we slid him over onto the slab in the funeral home. No autopsy was done, b/c obviously, there was a crush injury, related to what he was doing. Wrote it up as postural asphyxia secondary to blunt force trauma.

I'm gonna start wearing a Tyvek suit and SCBA on every call. There people are out to get us. They wanna kill us. Now I'm gonna be paranoid over every resp. call.

A reality tour of New Jersey? Isn't that like an oxymoron?

I pronounce GIF, as I would Jiff. Yanno, the peanut butter? Randomness FTW

How do they do the breathalyzer? Have them fart into the machine?

Welcome to the city.... and now, I have abdominal pain. Thanks, fib.. Thanks a bunch. I laughed so hard, after I told two people, that I had to lay down for ten minutes, come back, read it again and then catch my breath.

EMS books based on inspiration, never go well.. Think: Ambulance Girl. Now if you've been doing this for years upon years, knock one out. Never know, could be good. But don't try to inspire people, I certainly don't want anyone joining b/c a book inspired them. That attracts the wrong crowd, get the touchy, easily offended, expect you to be mushy, folks. The only EMS related novel that I ever enjoyed was Pat Ivey's first book, EMT.

That's why you should never let anyone record you.

In a nutshell.. It's really good PR, that you can utilize w/ no strings attached, and sometimes when you do good things that you don't have to do.. People give you money. That's a plus. It's not like we can put a picture in the paper of metaphorical patient Steve, who is shown being "saved". That would be a privacy violation. But an EMT holding a kitten in a blanket that you just saved, makes people all gooey and warm, and get out the check book. That's a shitty way to look at things, but hey, shit's expensive, and money helps. So, if you use it for its intended purpose, and you use it to your advantage, but not exploit it, mehhh.. I keep them in my car, in the thing where the jack is supposed to go. The spare tire fell off, so why carry a jack? That's what AAA is for...

I actually have a set of these, but I had to buy them, the O2 Fur Life kit, play on words there. The purpose is to give oxygen, or adapt a BVM, if (you have to see the size) a dog or cat is pulled from a smokey house fire. They'll fit say, kitten to large dog. But really, they're specifically shaped for a dog. About all you could do for a cat, is blow by. Which I've done before, with an oxygen hose and a Styrofoam cup. And it worked. Of course we pulled the cats out pretty early in the game, and it was a partition fire, so there was no heat factors really. Just some black smoke. The company, "Wag'N", took it upon themselves to advertise the fact that I purchased it, in our local paper, totally w/o my permission. Even though damn near every knows my phone number, b/c that's just a rural thing, everyone knows an EMT's phone number... Nobody ever called. Nor did they call 911 to request it, nor have any companies called for mutual aid to have it sent. You either have it, or you don't; and if you don't... a cup and oxygen hose will do just fine. That's basically two vents, you can cover them w/ a finger to use a BVM; and the plastic cone; and a rubber disc as the mask cuff.

This is kinda local.. When I was a young member, we did a lot of shit that would be frowned upon today. But we didn't do stupid shit. This, is stupid shit. Learning in the fire service, education, if you will, is when someone teaches you something, like a valuable skill. Pouring gas on a brush pile, to burn it, and watching it burn, is not education. If we were called for a pile of brush, on fire, I'd assume someone meant it to be on fire. Provided it wasn't windy, and dry.. We'd probably let it be. If not.. you put water on it. That kind of stuff comes along with common sense. Someone should get their ass kicked here. Just saying You just don't use gasoline in fire training, unless you're training to extinguish a gasoline fire.

This falls into the speech I give to people who tell me they could never do "this" (EMS). What is the first thing people say? They can't stand blood. Why? They don't know what to do. Suppose you knew what to do? Common treatment, all across the board. Cover that shit up. What I'm getting at is, if they knew how to help, they would focus less on "eeewww how revolting" and more on hey, I know how to help this person spuring icky stuff everywhere. And then, there will be someone who faints, and someone who wouldn't care either way. In PA, it's required that every high school instruct CPR twice, once to 7th graders and once to 11th graders. I thought that should be taken one step further, and a full first aid course given. But what do I know? I can't even begin to think of how many people would still be here today, had the person with them just known standard first aid. And when you think about it, it's a profound statement.

I thought it was like "well maybe if you were paying attention... it wouldn't have happened". That's a bit much. I guess if it was because he's burned out... I dunno. Sometimes people fly off the hinge, when they're just smothered with ignorance. Know-what-i-mean-vern? I do that when I'm being depressed by overly stupid, ignorant, I wanna scream "wtf is wrong with you" while hitting you with a frozen chunk of the gene pool, people. But I do it in the safety of the fire house. I encourage people to vent, but not on social media, or in public. At some point in everyone's stint, you'll have a call that will make you want to punch something. Or someone. I punched and broke a lexan window. Do you know how hard it is to break lexan? yeah, have some gauze on stand by.

If beating him to with in an inch of death, was the only way to subdue him. I'd say... they need better training, and training in how to deal with the mentally ill. Around here, the police handle the el nutz o very differently than the average person they're arresting. They stand back and watch the ambulance people take care of it. They will NOT transport ANY person that is suicidal, even if they're just thinking about it.. or any person that they're called to with a history of mental illness. Then they fight you over following behind in case the patient decides to try and kill the crew. And what is it with cops and beating people, wouldn't it be less paperwork to just shoot them?

This is the kind of thing that makes me think twice about not wearing like a tyvek suit, bubble paper, double gloves, a P100 mask and thick chemistry set style goggles on every call. I went about my day, the last patient I transported had non specific symptoms. Like pitting edema, febrile, and a little red bump on one leg. Put a massive chux like device on the cot, then took the steam cleaner to it after. So I've been looking for a red bump all day... B/c I tired, tachy and HOT. But I feel fine. This is why sooo many ppl in EMS become hypochondriacs. But I still swear by never going to a doctor unless....

The boards cost $199.99... Which is prolly just a tad higher than the average board. It looks complicated. Suppose these things accidentally deploy? Oops. Sorry, but at that price, and the long term cost of all the disposable crap that goes with it, you'd need like some sort of GPS tracking device in there. B/c any person in the supply section of their company, knows that shit disappears from hospitals. And this would be the first thing Rural Metro would add to their large stock of "your shit", vs "buying their own shit". Just sayin.

Heh.. I get it. That's funny.

Today... I used the power of.. well. I guess my pager. Because that was the only item on my person that identified me as being an emergency responder.. and did the whole "its free b/c we're EMS" deal in a hospital cafeteria. Normally, it's free anyway. Drinks anyway.. and normally, I pay for it. What was different today? The GD **********ers leave our $#!t out for anyone and their brother to take off our hands. Well, so far this year, about $412 in stuff has been stolen from their little rummage sale of a supply area... So I thought I'd stick it to the man, and get a free .75c Coke. yeah, %$#@er, take that!

No shit.. I don't have access to my ePCR's from home, for obvious reasons. But I literally just within the last two weeks transported a patient for the exact same problem. Long hx of cancer of a specific type, the patient is still alive, and I wouldn't put it past them to sue. So I'd share my info privately, but not in the open boards. Anyhoo, transported initially for the pain; curled up in a fricken ball pain. Transported after discharge, with a diagnosis, in similar pain. Now I should say, that when we have someone that has a diagnosed specific condition, the medics follow their standing orders and address the pain. If it's not something that is affecting their vitals, or overall condition, these days, they tend to let it go. If it's my gutz, u better snow me or something. Then after the patient was discharged, the pain was difficult to manage, and we transported again for obvious results. Too much pain, and strong meds leads to..... Easy guess.

Not once in fourteen years, have I seen pain management used in non-traumatic abdominal pain. Several times they called for permission, and every time, doc said no.. Likely b/c of the difficulty to diagnose, once it doesn't hurt anymore. A couple times, not only did I feel bad for the patient, I was offended on behalf of EMS in general. Cancer patient, in extreme pain, gonna die anyway, no treatment possible, on hospice.. Calls b/c the pain is out of this world.. and the medic released care back to me. Like WTF am I supposed to do, take the patient home and help *the patient* load a gun to kill themselves? That bothered me more than anything I'd ever seen, in fact, the deep helpless feeling kinda made me tear up. Got the medic fired, that helped me a bit.