Ticketitus, Ice Pack Attack, and early snowfall.

Yep, its been a fun week.
Paramedic class is in motion and right now we're in ethics, med/legal, blah blah blah. ya know, the CYA stuff but not the "Fun" stuff yet. I'd heard rumors of the sheer mass of the paramedic book, but Damn! "It's 'Uge tom, it's 'Uuuuuuuuuugggggggaaahh" 2100 pages or somethin like that. Ya know what I say? "Bring it on!"

So back to the title, one thing at a time...
I worked 1600-0000 a few days ago at QVA and started out the shift with a call for chest pains in a vehicle, PD on scene. So we get up there and it did not take us long to figure out that it was a local yokel with ticket-induced chest pain. She totally earned the ticket though... drove by the police station at about 50 (in a 30 zone), officer pulled out after her, clocked her after she went through a stop sign (the legal way, believe it or not) and after she went thru the sign, floored it. back up to 60 in a 30 with a badge on her ass... so after she turned at the next sign and gunned it goin up the hill outta town, pd hit his lights and pulled her over, she started flippin out, this that and the other thing... so officer went back to his car and she proceeded to get out of her car and start walking up the road. Mr Police man did not like this, told her to get in the car, she started having hot flashes, chest pain, the usual classic symptoms of ticketitus. Anyway, she signed off, bitched and moaned to us ambolance people about the officers attitude (which made his day). he was laughin whenever he wasnt talkin to her. so she got her ticket and went on her merry way, but not before almost whackin another car head on as she pulled out around the ambulance...

Then later on we had an EMS call up north for injuries from a fall. Got up there, jumped outta the rig, started walkin toward the house, and FD came out from behind the house with the Pt. on a board. Got her in the rig, warmin up (cuz she'd been outside for about an hour when it was in the 40s). On the way to the hospital i was breakin out ice packs cuz her knee hurt and she had a pretty nice goose egg on her head. The Ice pack for the head was fine. The ice pack for her knee on the other hand, struck a cold, brutal, embarassing revenge. All i wanted to do was activate the pack and put it on the poor womans knee when the ice pack said "Aha! Revenge shall be mine!!!!" Most ice packs i've used are those ones you have to just about punch to get to pop (my boss is cheap, she gets the bad ones) but by some unknown fluke, we had the ones you can pop with a mild squeeze... So i grabbed it, squeezed, and heard pop-pooosh! (pop being little bag of water bursting, pooosh being the entire bag exploding) Now, there are 2 directions such a bursting is going to travel. One being all over the pt, and 2 being, you guessed it, smack dab in the middle of my lap. Let me tell ya, if you've never had the thrill of the contents of an ice pack dousing your nether regions, it is, to say the least, refreshing.
Of course, fight or flight response kicked in, almost causing me to create NY's first convertible meat wagon. I was dancin around the back of the rig, trying to brush off the little chunks of ammonium nitrate that were all over me, then grabbing at towels in an attempt to dry off.
In the meantime, the other EMT who was in the back (QVA runs 3 person crews) was laughin her ass off and the pt was lying there trying her hardest not to laugh, even though i was laughin at myself. I can only imagine what the driver of the vehicle behind us was thinkin as i was dancin around the back of the rig. I wound up staying outside when we got to the hospital due to the large wet spot on the front of my pants. It was amusing, but not amusing enough to share with the entire ED staff, which i'm sure would have made their night.

Now for part 3 of the title.
Its not snowing here yet, but it's supposed to before wednesday night. Higher elevations are supposed to get up to 7 inches of wet snow over the next few days, but the lower elevations might see some accumulation tomorrow night. I have a feeling this winter is gonna be brutal. around here, it usually goes "the hotter the summer the worse the winter" and this summer was a scorcher here. we had, i believe, right around 30 days where it was 90 or better. we had one day this summer actually hit triple digits. 101 at 330 pm one day this summer. Thats pretty warm for upstate NY.

well, it's gettin late (or early depending on your outlook.)

Talk to ya soon