Dazed and Confused
Today was a bit of an odd day. When I got to work I learned that my normal partner had taken a personal day and I was working with someone else. Not a big deal, just different. Sunday is usually a hit or miss day. Either we are extremely busy or we sleep all day. Today was busy.
Our first call was a priority out of a home address for dizziness. We got on scene in a ritzy area and headed inside. The lady was downstairs in the basement. She had woken up feeling dizzy around 0630 and it still hadn't gone away. No biggie, right? We got the stair chair and headed back down to get her out to the rig. We were getting ready to move her over, and her son points to the stair chair and was like, "Um...isn't that supposed to be connected to something?" I looked and sure enough, part of the chair had come undone and one of the front legs wasn't connected to the seat. Great. Then, after moving her over, I go to pup one of the straps across her chest and the seatbelt clip came off. Needless to say, I couldn't get it back on, and we had to tie the straps together. This was quite embarassing, especially because of the standards of living in that area. We got her out to the rig and onto the stretcher. We did all of our care, and headed towards the hospital. I was chatting with the patient and an IV bag came flying out of the cabinet and fell on her shoulder. It didn't hurt her, but all I could do was repeatedly apologize. (I could have sworn that I closed that cabinet!). The ride was bumpy, and I was just waiting for something else to go wrong.
We cleared up from there and were sent on a priority for severe abdominal pain. Of course, the lady weighed almost 400 pounds and was about 5 feet tall. She stated 10/10 pain and that she had a history of gall stones. She looked like she was in pain. It took forever to get her out to the rig, but we finally made it. Her vitals were stable. She writhed and screamed in pain when I started the IV, so I began to think that she had an extremely low pain tolerance. She stated she only wanted to go to one hospital. It wasn't the closest, but the second closest, so I told her that we would talk to medical control and find out what we were going to do. I was on the phone with tele and I told them that, "....hospital is the closest with an ETA of 9 minutes, we have an ETA to your facility of 17." The patient yelled, I will not go to that other hospital, I only want to go to ...hospital. The RN on tele asked me to get another pain rating, and the patient said it was down to a 2. They allowed the longer transport. I think the lady only said that so that she could go to the hospital she wanted, but in the process, downgraded it to no lights/sirens. Oh well.
We did a kid with a ruptured spleen to a Children's hospital. And a few BLS calls.
Our first call was a priority out of a home address for dizziness. We got on scene in a ritzy area and headed inside. The lady was downstairs in the basement. She had woken up feeling dizzy around 0630 and it still hadn't gone away. No biggie, right? We got the stair chair and headed back down to get her out to the rig. We were getting ready to move her over, and her son points to the stair chair and was like, "Um...isn't that supposed to be connected to something?" I looked and sure enough, part of the chair had come undone and one of the front legs wasn't connected to the seat. Great. Then, after moving her over, I go to pup one of the straps across her chest and the seatbelt clip came off. Needless to say, I couldn't get it back on, and we had to tie the straps together. This was quite embarassing, especially because of the standards of living in that area. We got her out to the rig and onto the stretcher. We did all of our care, and headed towards the hospital. I was chatting with the patient and an IV bag came flying out of the cabinet and fell on her shoulder. It didn't hurt her, but all I could do was repeatedly apologize. (I could have sworn that I closed that cabinet!). The ride was bumpy, and I was just waiting for something else to go wrong.
We cleared up from there and were sent on a priority for severe abdominal pain. Of course, the lady weighed almost 400 pounds and was about 5 feet tall. She stated 10/10 pain and that she had a history of gall stones. She looked like she was in pain. It took forever to get her out to the rig, but we finally made it. Her vitals were stable. She writhed and screamed in pain when I started the IV, so I began to think that she had an extremely low pain tolerance. She stated she only wanted to go to one hospital. It wasn't the closest, but the second closest, so I told her that we would talk to medical control and find out what we were going to do. I was on the phone with tele and I told them that, "....hospital is the closest with an ETA of 9 minutes, we have an ETA to your facility of 17." The patient yelled, I will not go to that other hospital, I only want to go to ...hospital. The RN on tele asked me to get another pain rating, and the patient said it was down to a 2. They allowed the longer transport. I think the lady only said that so that she could go to the hospital she wanted, but in the process, downgraded it to no lights/sirens. Oh well.
We did a kid with a ruptured spleen to a Children's hospital. And a few BLS calls.
posted by Ambulance Girl at 18:11
1 Comments:
Oh we have all had one of those days when things go wrong.
Its amazing people pain tolerance isnt it. And its hard to feel empathetic for people that play up the pain levels. Arhg.
Anyway keep the bloggs coming :-)
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