Full Arrest

Yesterday wasn't even worth blogging for. Very boring. Yaddah, yaddah, yaddah.

Today started out like any usual day. I got up at 0650 and left for work at 0740. Our first call we got called for was a pt c/o epistaxis at a nursing home. The guy was pretty young (53) and had lots of complications from diabetes. The nosebleed started the night before-no other complaints. His vitals were as I expected- B/P through the roof at 190/110. His abdomen was rather rigid, and his glucose was around 350. We couldn't get a line and even if we did we couldn't give him fluid. Oh well. We took him to the hospital. The whole time he was with us we never saw a drop of blood come out of his nose. Weird.

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We got called for a lethargic patient at a home address. The place is practically a block from the hospital. We pull up and a lady is screaming "she's not breathing! She's not breathing! Shock her!" I was just like, okay. We brought our gear inside. The lady was elderly, maybe about 70, unresponsive lying on the couch. She was breathing, but very slowly (maybe 6 a minute) and had a pulse. I went outside to get the oxygen off the back of the cot and I heard sirens. The daughter called 911 too. The daughter kept yelling at us "why aren't you doing anything? Shock her!" I was like "Ma'm-she has a pulse. We are doing everything we can right now." We got the lady hooked up to the monitor, and I started bagging her. She was in a sinus brady rhythm at about 34. Then the fire department came in. They helped us out tremendously. The lieutenant kept the family out of the room while the rest of us got the lady moved over to the cot. We got her out to the rig without too many problems. The fire department sent two of their guys with us to help out. I switched the BVM onto the onboard oxygen and looked at the monitor-asystole (god I hope a lead is just off). No such luck-she was coding on us. We got an IV, a tube, started CPR and were off to the hospital. I drove. Here was my tele report: "Ambulance 146 we have an ETA to your facility of 2 minutes. We have a full arrest, CPR is in progress" Hospital: "you have what?" Me: "We are brining in a full arrest with an ETA of 30 seconds-I'm pulling in. Click." Yeah. We got the lady back for probably 7 minutes at the hospital, but she ended up coding again before they got her to cath lab. She even had a B/P of 140 systolic and had a strong pulse. Oh well. I guess you can't save them all. I could hear the daughter screaming from the waiting room. I was on the other side of the ER in the medic room. I'm glad I didn't have to see her afterwards because I could just see her screaming at me "I told you to shock her!" Another day, another story.

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We also did a return to a nursing home in Wisconsin.

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Hopefully I'm up for a restful night.