The easiest code I never worked.

I worked the past few overnights at small city ambulance (henceforth referred to as V.O.)
Sunday night was cool. The emergency line did not ring once from 5pm sunday to 8am monday. it was a beautiful thing. You could tell that people were getting bored and antsy, because after a while, the ball busting, practical jokes, and relatively good-natured harrassment started kickin in big time. It was quite amusing. You all know how it gets. you have the random gags played on random crew members, then you have that one person who is just a glutton for punishment. You know, he's about 5'7", 120 lbs soakin wet, and always harasses the guys 2 times his size. It's amusing, really. It's like watching a hyperactive chihuahua pestering a St. Bernard. Big dog is sittin there mindin his own, then yappy lil dog starts jumpin around, makin noise, snappin at big dogs jowls... yeah. Shortly after little guy was pestering bigger guys, they grabbed him, stuffed him on the couch and proceeded to try to make a human pretzel out of him. Now a normal, sane person would say after that "Ok, these boys can tie me up in knots with ease, so i'll just take it easy for now." But as you all know, normal, sane people do not exist in EMS as a general rule.
So shortly after getting pretzeled, this kid is standin there in the middle on the lounge holding a water bottle. Now both of his tormentors/tormentees (I say this because it is a mutual affair. He torments them until they cant resist anymore and torment him in return) are in the immediate vicinity. The larger of the 2 is about 4 feet away from him with no obstacles in between, and the other is leaning over the couch talkin and keepin an eye on the TV. so what does pretzel boy do? starts talking to medic #2 (leaning over couch), takes slight step forward, then proceeds to make a sharp forward motion with the water bearing hand while squeezing the topless water bottle.... Direct Hit! Could not have hit medic more perfectly. A perfectly aimed shot of Raspberry Dasani right off the end of the nose, all over the face, and down the shirt. Don't ask who had the raspberry water in the first place. it was just sittin around. Anyway, all the rest of us start laughing, because we realize that pretzel boy just instigated another round of some kind of torture. So Medic #2 walks to the linen closet, pulls out a towel, dries off, then goes after pretzel boy. Nothin bad happened, pretzel boy just got pretty wet himself on several occasions over the next hour or so... wound up having to throw his uniform shirt in the dryer, so he cut a few holes in a hospital pillowcase and wore it around as a shirt. So that will give you an idea as to this kids' stature. That was pretty much the extent of that fun sunday. I couldnt sleep so i spent most of the night on the computer once everyone else went to bed. slept from about 5am ish to 730am ish, came back to hometown and worked hometown ambulance (henseforth known as QVA) So i got to sleep from 830 til about noon when we had a call for an OD up north... Routine transport, uneventful, other than all the construction on the way to the hospital... turnin a 2 lane into a 4-5 lane. yeah. its cramped.
anyway, the rest of that shift was uneventful, so around 330 i got cleaned up, and i left to head back to VO shortly after 4pm, which was when i got off duty from QVA.
I got back to VO, and the place is almost empty. 4 rigs are out and the only other EMS person there was Medic #2 from the night before. So we're just hangin around, i pulled my dinner out of the fridge, ate it, put down my fork and heard "***** Rescue, Medical Emergency, 70's male, unresponsive, CPR in progress." Being as how we cover that particular fire district, anyone within earshot would have heard 2 people (Medic and I) uttering various words and phrases of displeasure and dismay.
Now this is where the "Easiest code I never worked" phrase comes in.
Medic and I get in the truck and start haulin ass to the scene. I'm not too familiar with this fire district, so imagine my surprise when medic tells me that we're gonna beat the FD because it's right up the road from quarters.
We turned onto the road that this call is on, we're looking for the address, and up ahead we see some guy who appears to be fire police, and he's doin the windmill. So we get up to him, hit the brakes, and then he motions us to go farther. so we go a little more and my medic is already pissed about the windmill guy. If you're gonna flag an ambulance down, be in front of the house we're goin to, ya know? So we drive a little farther and it would appear from the addresses that we've passed the house. So we turn around, head back toward windmill guy, get near him, and he immediately goes back into windmill mode, then starts pointing behind us and motioning for us to turn around again. So we stop, i roll down my window, and say something along the lines of "Is this the house?" and he says "No! You gotta go back that way!!!" to which my medic (Who is driving) yells "Well if it's up there then why the f*ck are you wavin us down here?!" I dont think the windmill heard that comment though. So we whip a U-ey again, fly back down the road, and by this point i'm thinkin "This is gonna be ugly." I'm sure you're familiar with the phrase "Shit rolls downhill", and you know its gonna be ugly when the shit starts rollin before you even get there. So we get to an interstection and by now, medic is livid due to human windmills and bad directions. The only saving grace was that i looked over and saw a blue light thru the trees, pointed it out to the medic, and we finished our cluster littered journey. My medic was about ready to kill Mr. Windmill, because once we found the house, it turns out that Mr. Windmill was about 1/2 mile down the road from our destination. Apparently, my medic mentioned the situation to the fire chief, who was not amused either.
We jump out of the truck, i grab the Airway bag, Suction, ALS back, Medic grabs the monitor, we make a beeline for the door. Medic steps in, i hear a few words exchanged, followed by my medic saying "What? He's awake??" .......... So i start to back up a little and in pours the fire department, who is still under the impression that we have a paws up patient in the house.
Once medic hears the story, he tells me to go put everything away and get the stretcher and a stair chair. We got him out of the house and to the hospital uneventfully. Turns out the guy came inside his house and went down. Has a history of CVA, TIA, etc etc. so they figured he had a mini stroke or somethin... I'd like to know where the whole "CPR in progress" message came from.
My rather efficient imagination concocted some cruel story about calls getting switched between the 911 calltaker and dispatch... We get called for a code and show up to some guy who just had a TIA or syncopal episode, and some other dept. gets called for a syncopal episode/TIA and shows up to find some poor soul ART (Assuming Room Temperature)... Strictly my imagination, mind you. I dont believe that actually occured.
Why can't more codes be like that guy? It'd make life a lot easier. He did have somethin goin on though, because i asked the medic about his rythm (Which i was watching on the monitor in the hall by the nurses station) and the guy had PVC's, PAC's, elevated T-waves, and A-Fib.
Anyway, that call was the highlight of the evening. I had 2 more calls over the course of the night once i was paired up with one of the paramedics on the shift... Medic #2 was just there fillin in til everyone else got back. But yeah, the other 2 were nothin big, both BLS... one was an ankle injury that wanted to go to a hospital about 25-30 miles away around 2100, and then we had some guy with shoulder pain around 0400 who we took to the close hospital, with was only about 5-10 minutes from where the call was.
Well, i have other stuff to write about, but this has gotten way too long as it is and i need to go make some coffee.
So i'll write more sometime soon.
Peace