What was your scariest moment?

[mrsbull]

Just wondering what your scariest moment has been in EMS so far. Meaning your partner who is allergic to bees gets stung on a call. Or the GSW you roll up on (scene deemed safe by PD) but the shooter came back. Moments like this. How did you react?

I will post mine shortly.

[HERBIE1]

Too many to cite them all. None stand out as the "worst"- they were all scary as hell at the time. LOL

Upon arriving at the upper floor apartment in a high rise housing project- complaint unknown. Knock on the door, announce ourselves as EMS, and ask if anyone called for help or needed medical attention.

Voice on the other side of door: "Whoever this m-fer is that's knocking on my door, nobody called, nobody wants help, and you have exactly 5 seconds to get the f*ck away from my door." We were already turning to leave when we heard the sound of a shot gun being cocked...

Well, we channeled our inner track stars and made it down 14 floors in world record time. I kept expecting to hear a shotgun blast at any moment.

[Just Plain Ruff]

supposedly unconscious male subject, lying in pool of blood. When we started to assess him he came too, started going nucking futts and we saw the glint of a knife in his hand. How that freaking knife got into his hands, nobody knows but after a heated battle with 2 cops, 2 medics and 2 firemen first responders we got him down.

He expended his last bit of energy with this fight and 5 minutes later we were coding him.

The knife was scary but the blood that we got in our eyes and nose and face with the guy going crazy on us the scariest part was waiting for his HiV and Hepatitis results to come back. Luckily it was negative. But I did not like the HIV cocktail we had to take.

My other scary moment was when I had a extremely positive TB skin test. Taking 6 months of Isoniazid and then hoping that I did nt have TB was pretty scary too.

[+medic]

While I was deployed to Iraq during my military days. Part of my job was watching the locals arabs who worked on base doing mundane things. They trained all of us in combat first aid since most of the people we were watching had no concept of health and safety. We all got the big IFKs and extra gear, since they told us the people we would be watching are very accident prone and there is no safety regulations for them under Iraqi law.

One day me and my partner were siting in a construction trailer with a bunch of the locals who were building a bathroom on base. We all in there with the arabs next to us with all of there construction stuff and sleeping gear. (And yes they ate and slept in this litte trailer no wider then a semi truck) The whole place smelled like, crap, pee, oil, smoke, humus and 21 day old chesse mixed with gun powder.

There were six arabs in the trailer with me and my partner monitoring the only door in the for security. We were watching one of them pour gas from one container into another while one cut angle iron with a power saw inside the trailer. I tell the guys to stop but they dont speak english at all, nor do they seem to care that im waveing my arms around and motioning them to stop. So they continue and out of no where WHOOOSH BOOM FLASH!

You guessed it the guy cuting the iron set him self and his friend includeing the trailer on fire. They both had at least 30% partial thickness burns to there hands, torso and face. One of the other guys jumped out the back window brakeing his wrist and the other three ran out of the trailer. I was ok besides a cut to the head from triping over some gear on my way out, but my partner did not fare so well he burned his hand decently bad. We treated all of the injured with out IFK untill the base ambulance and SP's got there.

After that none of the civilain workers were allowed to store gas of power tools inside any conex or consturuction trailers. But they did not listen and a week later they burned out another one of there trailers.

Yea as for scary that ranks up high in my mind but there are many others that I can think of too.

[Kaisu]

I've had one moment where I felt real fear. We were at a post in the ghetto trying to catch a few zzzzs. Suddenly a pickup's lights are shining straight into our rig. Startled, my partner rolls his window down. The driver is upset because we are blocking his egress. (There really wasn't a road there but the guy wanted to drive down it.) So far no problem... apologize to the driver and move the ambulance.. right? Wrong. My idiot partner decides to jump out the ambulance and fight this guy... also calls him the N word.

We are lucky that the driver of the pickup was not a young hothead and decided to be the better man. If he had been one of the young bloods, both my partner and I could very easily have been shot. Medics have been robbed, shot and assaulted at that post before.

Needless to say, I did not run with that idiot again.

[emtannie]

I think some of my scariest calls weren't even calls that endangered me personally. They were more emotional calls.

Two stand out for me. Although I work for a city service, I also work for a rural service in the small town I live in, and most of my patients are people I know when I go on calls there.

We were toned for a 7 month old female seizing. The address was one I recognised, as it was a couple who are two of my best friends. Their youngest daughter was having a generalized seizure. We arrived on scene, they were panicked, I took the infant, and carried her to our rig. Thinking it was just a febrile seizure as I knew she hadn't been feeling well the last few days, I left the back doors of the unit open while waiting for my partner, and pulled the baby's clothes off to cool her. Her seizure didn't stop (she was running a fever of 39C). I tried to cool her with cool towels... her seizure didn't stop... As I was in a BLS unit (and haven't finished my medic yet) I couldn't give her any medications, and we were 30 minutes from the closest hospital. I called for ALS backup, which was unavailable. We raced for the hospital, with the little one seizing the entire way. Several times she quit breathing and then went into cardiac arrest... I did CPR for a minute or two, and she would revive, and begin seizing again. We got her to hospital, and the ER doc gave her the maximum allowable dosage of ativan and phenobarb, and the seizures didn't stop. We transported the child to a higher level hospital, 40 more minutes away, with her still seizing, and the doc on the phone with a peds specialist, giving more meds. That little one seized for over 2 hours.... all I could think of was that the infant of some of my best friends was going to die, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. THAT was scary. (after many more seizures over the next few months, she was finally diagnosed with a rare seizure disorder called Dravet Syndrome).

The second one was an mvc call. We were called to a 3 car mvc on a highway, poor winter road conditions. One of my best friends had told me that morning she was going to head to the city to run errands, and when we arrived on the scene, one of the vehicles looked EXACTLY like hers. I thought it was her van. I had a moment of panic as I thought she was one of our patients. I took a deep breath, and headed for the vehicle. It wasn't her van, but it was someone else I knew. Two of the 3 drivers involved died, and I knew all three people involved. I can generally deal with that, but I still remember the first few seconds when we got on scene, and I thought "OMG, it's her..."

[Richard B the EMT]

I drive up on a scene where the call type was an injury, described as secondary to an assault. NYPD was already on scene, walking up the walk to the address, when I see one of the LEOs grab for his holster, pull his Glock, and fire!

DAMN! I'm on the scene of a firefight in progress?

My partner had not exited the vehicle, when I threw the ambulance back into gear, and burned rubber leaving the scene, to "stage" from 2 blocks over, until at least 4 other RMPs (Radio Motor Patrol) arrived, joining the first car and 2 man team. Then, I returned.

Seems the woman we had been sent for had departed the scene prior to either the NYPD or FDNY EMS getting there. The man at the location claimed his bulldog had gotten loose, the LEO who fired said the dog charged at him. Either way, there was no human patient from that location that night (it was close enough to be an easy walk to the nearest ER), and the dog was removed to an emergency animal hospital for his gun shot wound. There almost was an arrest, as the dog owner was quite upset his dog had been shot.

I was working during the big 2003 Blackout. While I saw no rioting or theft going on, myself, I was frightened, as I remembered all the crap going on during the 1977 Blackout.

Then, try working a plane crash in your neighborhood, about a half mile from your residence! I refer to the American Airlines Flight 587 crash into Belle Harbor (Queens County) New York City, on November 12, 2001, only 2 months after the attack on, and collapse of, the World Trade Center.

[Kiwiology]

At a chest pain when my Clinical Instructor turned to me and said "so what would you like to do?" :D

[mrsbull]

For me one of my most scariest moments was when I was working a supercross event. It was so loud, a contestant had made a jump and broken his wrist. His bike was down and mangled he also had a sprained ankle. Couldnt walk so we were to carry him off the track with bikes turning the corner at top speeds and jumping, we were on the other side of the hill. We HAD to move him fast but the buzzing of the bikes and the announcer not able to see what is going on. That was scary!! He would have been killed had we not moved him because right after we moved him (record speed) another bike biffed it, he was ok tho.

[Chief1C]

My worst call/scariest moment are combined. I don't try to talk about them, I fight my mind trying to go back to that night. Nope, can't do it. I would need a sedative to help me sleep tonight. I had a lot of sleepless nights after that, second guessed everything I did, looked behind myself twice in the dark, saw things that weren't there. Never trust even someone you've known all your life, when deep emotions mix with alcohol.