rat115

Or did it have gas for cooking previously? The HA has only been coming off and on for about a week. Has she been eating something or taking something different than before? New vitamins? I'm going to chime in with the same question others have asked.....Is she menstrating? Has she been having any mood swings and/or hot flashes if she's not?

Here we have our 3 usual...chest pain, fall with hip pain or auto accident on the highway. Our most interesting ones are always the one that gives the location of "---- colored ------ semi" at either one of the truck stops or the rest stop.

True, Michael. partial dislocation of a joint pica

OM.....That's great!

I have to admit that the online version of the ICS 100 class bored me to sleep. I'm so glad that I was able to take it as a class instead of having to do the online version.

The ones that would qualify as the grossest that I've seen would either be the farm hand that got electrocuted working on a center pivot. The smell was something never to be forgotten and the poor guy drove himself to the highway while talking on the cell phone to dispatch with 2 badly burned hands. Or the truck driver who got his hand degloved and some of his fingers amputated by an auger. The worst....I had a call that ended up with the husband of a friend of mine having a MI due to a clogged artery and I was first on the scene. Looking into her eyes and knowing that I couldn't do anything for him...... Ranking right up there as second place would have been the morning of the 4th of July. We had some kids go to a party, get drunk and start carsurfing. One got ran over, one fell off of the top of the vehicle as it was stopping. EMS arrived on scene about 30 minutes after the actual accident because of how far out it was and the fact that the others in the vehicle too a long time pulling together to call for help. The boy (20) who was run over was in code and was never able to be revived. As we were finishing cleaning up from taking the other "surfer" to the airport for transport to a higher lever of care, the father of the kid who didn't make it came up and asked if we (those of us still at the shed) at been on the call that morning and tearfully thanked us for what we did. I'll never forget the sadness in his eyes or the lack of hope in his voice.

Did anyone call medics for the poor ant? VS, it seems to me that you like to find a way to criticize before you really look at what people are saying. Relax and remember that not everyone comes to the correct answer worded the same way that you would. This call was about helping the patient. If the patient was happy and uninjured from what was done to help her/him, then the call was successful. (Personally, I could see my med director laughing and rolling his eyes at the entire situation.)

Here we rarely transport pts to the hospital L&S. If our dispatchers tone a call as an "emergency medical" or as an accident, we get to the ambulance shed and to the scene hot. Once we're there, we make the call how emergent the call is. I think I've been on a call where we transported L&S 6 times in 14 months and those were either auto accidents or heart attacks. One was a GSW.

Dust, you are right that there are differences between if the pt is alive and talking or not. There is also a difference between if you know a person (or their family) or not. My first loss was the husband of a friend of mine. He and his brother were finishing up a 26 mile bike ride that they had made in less than an hour and a half. His brother had been trying to get him to slow down. As they rounded one of the curves leading into town, the brother pulled around him to force him to slow down, looked over his shoulder, and watched the pt fall off his bike. A passing motorist stopped and called 911. We were toned and, since he had gone down less than 3 blocks from my house, I was on scene in less than 2 minutes. He was pulseless with aggonal respirations. We were never able to get a pulse back. When the autopsy came back, we found out that he had a blocked descending aorta (95% blocked). He never even bled from either the knee or head wound that he received when he went off his bike. It was hard for me because it was a friend's husband, but I talked with my boss about it. I went back over what was done and what could have been done differently. Talked with some of the folks here in chat about it, too. That helped the most. Learning that there was basically nothing we could have done due to the blockage helped a lot, too. BTW..... this patient's son has decided to do a bike ride in his name for an Eagle Scout project. The money raised by the bike ride is going to be used to purchase an AED for the new community/education building that has just been finished here in town.

Nosebleed. Michael....the difference between an illness that's contracted at/from a doctor/hospital and an illness that is caused by medication is quite a bit different. From a doctor's office or hospital, a person may contract a staph infection if an instrument used to suture a wound is not properly autoclaved. On the other hand, I recently found an article though this site that went into signs & symptoms of an illness that could be caused by the interaction of the drug Imitrex (and other migraine medications) with anti-depressants such as Zoloft that are seritonin reuptake inhibitors. This includes dizziness, nausea/vomiting and loss of balance. These problems can be caused by other illnesses such as labrinthitis, so a patient suffering from these signs might have to go through numberous tests if the doctors don't realize that there could be an interaction since a migraine medication would be given by a neurologist and the anti-depressant would either be given by a GP or psychiatrist. (I actually know someone who had this happen due to a combination of drugs and had the neurologist and psychiatrist BOTH tell him that no medication that they had perscribed could be causing the problems. They were BOTH WRONG.) Now for the next word.......adenomyosis.

Sorry.....Nope! :downtown: This is "a problem, such as a side effect or an unfavorable response, arising from a prescribed treatment or medicine." (Medical Terminology for Health Professions 5th Ed.)

Chilomastix mesnili is cosmopolitan in distribution although found more frequently in warm climates. It is thought to be non-pathogenic although the trophozoite has been associated with diarrhoeic stool. This is the largest flagellate found in man with an incidence of 1-10% being in the large intestine. To put it in layman's terms.....It's an intestinal perisite. BTW......Thanks for starting this tread. I'm getting to start medical terminology classes next week, so this is giving me a chance and an excuse to start delving into my book ahead of time. How about "iatrogenic illness".

Acetaminophen Cardiomegaly

Here that transfer would have been a no go. That pt would have been flown by what ever company could have gotten a flight here the quickest. Were I certified at that level, I don't think I would have been comfortable manning the back of the ambulance with a pt in that condition without someone to help ensure that everything could be taken care of properly and the quality of care was there.

It sounds like you are very concerned about this coworker. It's good that the person is already receiving counseling. It sounds as if the person is still having some major problems. I agree with Rid that this person is asking you for help with what is being said to you. I would be going to a supervisor ASAP and informing that person of what is going on. It's not "being a snitch" when you do this. It's caring about the health and welfare of your coworker. The person may not see it at first, but he will thank you in the long run. Good luck with such a tough situation. :thumbright:

65.Your idea of gambling is an blood alcohol level pool instead of a football pool... We've done that one a couple of times. 79.You've ever blown the doors off of a police cruiser, and gotten away with it. 83.you refer to frequent fiers and are not talking about air travel. Oooooo....these are common here.

Here we get paid a little over a hundred dollars a month if we take 144 hours of on call time. We also get paid $10 a call, $15 if we are doing standby at a special sporting event or a fire, and $60 or $75 (depending on if we're IV certified) for transfers to the metro areas. We have about 20 people listed as working for our service, but only about 15 signup regularly and a couple of those are known to miss calls. I agree that this is an issue. It would be great if it were possible to deal with it and make so that those who are responding regularly don't feel overworked and underapprecieted. Oh, sorry, that's an over all problem that needs to delt with in the US. :oops:

Seen this one before, but it's always a great one to see again. And, yes, I'm giulty of #24

I think you hit this issue right on there. I've seen so many times when people are more worried about what it's going to cost them that we came out to a call that they didn't want to be trasported. There there are those who sit there and try to convince you that there's absolutely nothing wrong with them because they just don't want to be sick. Tough for us, but part of dealing with the patients. :roll:

The human mind is an amazing thing.

Ditto what was said above. The IV needs to be in the left arm to prevent movement of the right since there is pain in the right shoulder. (I'd use an 18 gauge.) This also prevents problems in treating any shoulder injury once at the hospital. Watch the pt and repeat vitals every 5 minutes to make sure that the pt isn't going downhill due to something in the abdomin. I would use the long board straps to help hold the right arm in place if the pt tolerates the arm close to the body. If not, place a pillow between his body and arm in a comfortable position and "strap" it in place with "ace" wraps wrapped around the pt and board.

You know that these are very different for those who are in the rural areas compared to those who work in major areas. Here's what we'd do here. (Rural) 8) Have a bvm and o2, c-collar, and long board ready when we arrive on scene. Alert hospital that they need to have a trauma team and x-ray techs activiated. Call for a flight to be started en route to the airport and have a second crew head out to pick up the flight crew. Rapid trauma assessment while getting the pt c-collared and long boarded. Obtain vitals, load the pt and go. Start IV while en route and go back over the pt for anything that might have been missed. Call in a report to the hospital to give them an idea of what we found so that they are prepared. Airway intact? Any life threats to be delt with as a priority? What was found during the trauma assessment? Family or others around to get medical history? (IE: Is the main concern only the fall or is there pertinant medical history that we need to be concerned about?) Pt on any meds espically any anticoagulants? Motory and sensor in the extremities?

Here we're on really good terms with all of our law enforcement agencies and our FDs. Many of our firefighters also either do work on or have worked on our ambulances also. I've not yet had to deal with that on a scene, but I know that depending on the situation it's either the FD or LEOs.

When and what were his last oral intake?

Sounds like fun. Wish I'd have thought of that, but the neighbors might wonder. TPBM likes to take walks at night in dark areas and scare people by growling like a dog.