Funny call stories

[medicgirl05]

I thought it would be interesting to share some of our funnier stories from calls. You know stories that aren't really funny when they happen, but years later are hilarious.

One of my most significant memories happened many years ago. I was a green paramedic working a shift with a seasoned old medic. We got a call for a baby choking on chicken bones, while en route the baby became unresponsive. Upon arrival at the scene the plan was for me to grab the jump bag and monitor so we could get to him as quickly as possible. My partner was driving. So we get to the scene and I jump out and jump into the patient compartment to grab the stuff, when I am ready to get out I notice that my partner is RUNNING beside the patient compartment door. After a few seconds of pondering how that was possible I realized the truck was rolling towards a steep embankment as it wasn't in park. Luckily my partner was able to jump in and throw the truck in park in time. We went into the house and did our job. The kid was fine. Afterwards my partner swore he had put the truck in park and it slipped out of park. I think he was panicking and didn't pay attention.

Lesson learned? ALWAYS USE THE PARKING BRAKE! 

[paramedicmike]

1 hour ago, medicgirl05 said:

 

I was a green paramedic ...

What color are you now?

 

Reminds me of a Muppets gag...

 

[Off Label]

Had a patient brought in by ambulance with a pillow case over his head because he was trying to spit at the cops and the ambulance crew. Initial call was from the police for a disoriented and combative patient. He had kind of calmed down when I saw him, but was still thrashing his head from side to side...he was handcuffed to the stretcher. I told him I'd take the pillow case off of his head if he promised not to fight or spit at me and he nodded his head that he wouldn't. When I took it off, he made a herculean effort to flip his tongue back, up and out of his mouth to present a zip lock sandwich bag of  densely compressed marijuana bud.

Poor guy was choking.

[Just Plain Ruff]

Had a call on a collapsed party at the local nursing home.  

 

On arrival found the aides doing CPR on a patient lying on her side.  they were compressing her chest with one person pushing on her back and the other pushing on her chest.  Each yelling, Breathe Blanche Breathe.  Needless to say, she wasn't breathing, nor were they compressing her chest very well. 

 

We turned her over and her arms and legs stuck up partially in the air,  the lady had been dead in her bed for over 24 hours because they thought she was just a heavy sleeper.  Not a single person had checked on her for over 24 hours.  Man was her family pissed.  

[paramedicmike]

Ran a cardiac arrest at a local nursing home several years ago.  When we arrived staff were performing CPR and had a BVM in use for ventilations.  As they had already started to use the BVM we just grabbed it and continued to use it.  Patient was ultimately transported.  The next morning the nursing home called.  I answered the phone.  It was the on duty nurse.  She asked about the BVM we used.  I explained that as NH staff had already started using it we continued to do so.  The device was used during transport and disposed of at the receiving hospital.

She then said, "Can you bring it back?"

I replied, "No.  It was trashed at the completion of the code."

She then told me that was the only BVM they had for a 200 bed nursing home.  The only one.  A single BVM for a 200 bed facility.  A facility full of people who were full code.  They did not have another BVM in the entire building and needed the one we used back.

The conversation went downhill from there.  I maintained a professional posture.  She didn't care for the course of the conversation, though.  I may have mentioned the State Department of Health once or thrice.

[Just Plain Ruff]

Had a call on a woman who was sick. On arrival found a woman who had AMA'd out of a psych facility.  She had taken her motorized wheelchair and travelled about 8 miles on her fully charged battery.  By the time she got to where we picked her up her wheelchair was dead dead dead.  

We put her on the cot and into the ambulance and she asked about her wheelchair and we told her we didn't have any way of transporting it.  So sh,e made us wait 45 minutes until her boyfriend got to the scene with a nice big pick up truck to transport her wheelchair to the psych facility.  He refused to put her in the truck and was going to make us take her.  

An argument ensued when I told him that she didn't qualify for ambulance transport and it would not be paid for if she didn't go with her boyfriend.  He still refused to take her,said that she was our responsibility.  She then broke up with him right there and he then proceeded to push her wheelchair out of the back of his pickup truck, back over it, and then drive off.  

So now we have a pissed off psych patient, a totalled wheelchair and a patient who doesn't qualify to go by ambulance.  We end up taking her back to the psych facility and dropped her off.  

The service got no money out of this call, the woman billed us for the damaged wheelchair, they paid the bill to her, and I got a talking to because I apparantly couldn't control the scene.  I soon left that service because of assholes that ran that service micromanaging crews.  

[medicgirl05]

We were called to an older unresponsive man. Upon arrival the wife met us on the porch giggling. She attempted to quietly tell us that they were smoking pot in the bathtub while drinking wine when the man passed out. We found him sitting in the tub, water drained, no clothes. Pale and clammy. Super low BP. While my partner was assessing him I asked the wife if he'd taken any other medications. More giggling. She said they used some medicine they bought in Mexico, but she didn't know what it was called. She produced the package from the trash and I discovered it was a topical jelly called "Kumagra". The lady was giggling, the man was giggling, my partner was standing in the tub with a naked man, and I'm holding the Kumagra packet. I had to step out for a minute. I took the package with us to show the ER staff. Everyone got a good laugh, patient included. Plus the patient was fine. 

 

 

[Jenjas7476825]

Got a call to an elderly Jamaican lady with  abdominal pain.  Assessed her and loaded her up.  She had a very thick accent so it was hard to understand her.  She kept saying I got da vine and kept pointing down there.  Lifted the sheet to see and there were green sprouts coming out.  She was laughing that the potato she had entered into your vagina successfully kept her prolapsed uterus from falling out and she had a vegetable garden down there.  Ummmm yeah because potatoes sprout in warm moist enviroments.  She ended up with a hyster as a result and no more prolapse

[ERDoc]

http://www.snopes.com/medical/emergent/potato.asp

[ERDoc]

We responded to an adult female resp in a neighboring district.  It was an apartment attached to the back of the house.  We go in to this apartment and the place is immaculate, black and white decor. We walk up the stairs to the bedroom where the pt is and find a 20-something female laying on a mattress that is on the floor.  Above the mattress is a sign that says, "Welcome to Ms. Stacy's dungeon." (Name changed to protect the innocent and the naughty).  The ALS guys starts doing their assessment and I'm standing there next to the cop that responded.  Next to us is a coat rack and the cop starts looking through it.  There are all sorts of leather outfits, whips, chains, thigh high boots and a bunch of other things I didn't recognize at the tender age of 18 or 20.