Sunday, April 26, 2009

Psyches & Dykes

Easing in to the day with a call to back pain, on arrival we saw our patient - a rather large woman sitting on the ground with a rather small town draped over her. Asked her and her friend if they could get changed in privacy while we waited outside.

Things to remember:

  • document what you saw and what you did (dealing with naked women in the ambulance service is enough, don't want to be dealing with them in court)
  • get both officers out of the room while she dresses
  • have both officers around to testify that nothing went wrong

Another first: we had a patient with a history of mental illness. disturbingly, he was my age. Had a cut to his foot, we were called to assist the police. He refused to talk to the boys in blue, but chatted to sweet me in green with no problems. Big ego boost!
I think I handled my first proper psych patient pretty good, and here are my notes to self:
  • Keep your distance with mentally unstable patients
  • Be firm, get them to do what you want them to do, give them those options that you want
  • Don't venture too far away from them, keep an eye out!


The last job of the day brightened up our day, even if our 15 year old patient was vomiting and in tears (she perked up with a healthy dose of our bad jokes). The background? Well....let me tell you :-)

Apparently our patient had had a bit too drink, hung out with some friends and overcame her inner fear - which lead to her coming out, and consequential making out with another girl.

Incidentally the recipient of her first female kiss had smoked some marijuana. And our patient felt this was affecting her, making her sick and emotional. Hehe, poor girl.

Her parents picked her up, and we left with a smile on our face.


Another life saved.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Kitty Kitty Ketamine

Two jobs worth remembering, one for the mechanism and treatment, the other for the openness of our patient.


An emergency call to a 'car vs. pedestrian', 20km down the road - an unusually long drive for a crew that is usually confined to the city centre. But if everyone else is out, we're more than happy to jump in!

It was in a sparsely populated area, lots of trees, and not much light. On arrival we saw a driveway, one female slumped against a wall and three males standing around. Danger Bells? Danger Bells!

Out comes Mr. Maglite, just in case.


Turns out that the female had been run over by her own car when the handbrake decided to stop working. And the males were husband and two friends. Good, disregard threat, concentrate on medical.

Pain was pretty bad (8 out of 10, and our patient had already been through a lot of physical pain in her life). Extrication would be tricky with all that pain, mechanism of injury...2 tonne vehicle rolled over elbow and ankle region - Ketamine!

Beautiful stuff, sent our patient off with the fairies without any side effects - ensured by a nice and slow administration IV.

And the long transport time back to hospital meant I had heaps of time to do my paperwork.



Then another female patient who will probably not leave my memory. She was big, she was bold, she was beautiful.

She was also very drunk.

Well, she constantly asked us if she was pretty. Her friend said yes, which then prompted her to tell us that she was pretty. We could just silently nod to ourselves, not wanting to get involved with such claims. Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder, and my eye is not large enough to behold such quantities of beauty.

She then continued to tell us what her favourite sexual position is, including favoured point of entry. All without any input from ourselves. We were a) impressed on such open-mindedness towards complete and utter strangers, and b) turned off by the thought of such actions.


As they say, it takes all types.

Monday, April 20, 2009

First Nightshift

We were second van out today. A lot of crews take it easier in such a situation, as there is always one van out before they have to be ready.

Me, I'd rather be ready to run, thinking such thoughts as "what happens if they alert us both at the same time for some multiple car pile up or worse?"


Well, that's just what happened:

"Hello Depot, Vans #1 and #3 please to a Bus vs Bus".


Well, off we sped, pedal to the metal, my adrenaline pumping, my Mass Casualty training fresh in my mind.

In the end it was more of an exercise than anything else, a low speed impact between two buses, and we were last ambulance on scene. We grabbed two walking wounded and took them to hospital.


Still a good job. I got to see how Mass Casualty works in the real world. I followed up this job with the first paramedics that were on scene, as well as on scene team leaders, just to see how they handled, what their thoughts were etc.



At hospital we witnessed a kicking and screaming patient being brought in by police. Being held down by police and hospital security on a bed, the nurse asked him a few questions, to which he didn't reply much. This guy was literally spitting anger and disgust, and was not happy being at hospital.

That changed the minute the nurse reminded him what had been happening, all in a really calm voice: "You were seen running in between cars on a busy road, and other citizens were worried about you".

To which he replied: "Oh...I forgot about that. Sorry, I didn't want to cause anybody any harm".

Sweet as a lamb after that. Well done nurse!



The shift ended with an early morning call. A youth had driven his dads car at elevated speed against a traffic island, and cleanly ripped of the front right wheel, which was lying a couple of meters down the road.

They were all healthy, but not happy, so we let the police deal with them.


I'm sure his dad was not too pleased, it looked like a brand new car. Oops :-)

Sunday, April 19, 2009

First Shift! First Job!

First day on the Job - I rushed in to attend :-)


Female in her 80's with a NOF (fracture to Neck Of Femur). MXF, Fentanyl, Easton bandages, took my time. no panic, just forgot all major obs :-)

Started treatment with MXF, continued with Fentanyl IN, respraying every 10-15 minutes, whenever the patient needed it.


Then cruise around town, the mall, also checking out bus lanes for emergency drives, exploring the entrance to hospitals, had a look around the childrens hospital and the Casino.


Our second call was to a patient, bleeding on foot, 15yof. It was a no show. Instead saw the police with ?heroin overdose, and conveyed her to hospital. I practiced my NPA insertion. Note to self: Make sure KY Jelly is in the back of van, readily available.

3/4 hour overtime - more money :-)