Can you say "Wow, that came out wrong."

"It was really scary at first," says Simms. "I wondered what could be in this hole I was putting my hands in. The first time you reach in a hole you're a little bit nervous."

Is it just me, or does something about that sound a little perverted?
What would you guess that quote is from?
believe it or not, it's from the December/January '06 issue of Outdoor Life magazine.
The topic? "Grabblin'". For the uninitiated, that's one of several terms used for the art of catching large catfish by hand. The person talking about it was a 23 y/o girl involved in a film dubbed "Girls Gone Grabblin'", 'which features more than 30 scenes of women battling monster catfish with nothing but their gloved hands.'
I may need to watch this film.

Can't pick on her too bad though... we all have had those moments where we say something, then either later upon reflection, or immediately after the histerical laughter of our friends begins, you think or say "WAIT!!! I DIDN'T MEAN IT TO COME OUT THAT WAY!!!!"

I've had my fair share... A running joke around my FD is "Did ya learn that from the Discovery Channel?", most often in response to some useless factoid i share with the group. Some time ago, i had one of those "Right sentence, wrong time" moments... i said it in regards to the first half of a comment that a friend made, but the second half of his comment reeeeaaallly made my observation quite amusing and a relatively innocent observation turned not-so-innocent.
I've had several other moments like that, but i would rather not elaborate. Everyone at the station has had them though. It's usually after 23:30 or so when the creative juices start flowing, and people come up with great ideas or hilariously out of place comments.
It has been said that every good idea in my FD has been hatched after 0100.
And thats the truth.

Another example.
The setting: my FD, late at night.
The players: Dave, Jeremy, Ray, Shaun, Myself, another male whom i cannot recall, and Jackie (the only female of the group, obviously)

I am usually the recipient of many jokes and jabs, under the rule "If we didn't like you, we wouldn't pick on you". If that's true, i'm the most popular guy at our station, if you dont count bustin on the probies.

Anyway, I was catchin all sorts of ball-busting and during this session, Dave comments, "We've been pickin on Adam quite a bit tonite, but Ray and Jeremy haven't gotten it too bad tonite.
who should we take on next?"

At which point, Jackie blurts out, "Ooh Ooh, Do Me! Do me next!!!"

wrrrroooooongg thing to say in a room full of guys. the next 5 minutes was mostly nothing but hysterical laughter (you know, the kind so hard you can barely breathe), followed by several minutes of attempts at making a joke out of it, but losing it halfway through and falling prey to another period of hysterical laughter.

Many moments like that at my station. It's great. Especially when i'm not the butt of the joke.

Anyway, nothin new since last time. Yet another sleepless night at V.O. I got up at a decent hour, i dont know why i cant sleep, but i'm not tired. this sucks. at least nothing is going on that i know of tomorrow.

This is yet another shift that i accepted from someone looking for a night off (3rd shift since friday i've picked up). I got a phone call around 1530ish. It was the D.O., asking if i could come in early for a long distance transfer. I said no problem, got in here, found out that it was a trip from V.O. land to near Amsterdam. Gloversville, to be exact. About a 100 mile trip.
We had a 93 y/o woman who is healthier than most 70 y/o's that i've picked up in an ambulance.
She fell and broke her hip at our area's most popular tourist destination. This place picks up people from alllllll over the place. Well this woman was from the Gloversville area, had to have hip surgery for this injury, and didnt want it done at our hospital here in V.O. land.
We were told she was this cantankerous old hag (just about a quote from the nurse who apparently isnt too personable herself), but when we went into her room to get her on our stretcher, she was one of the nicest 93 y/o's that i've been in contact with. My paramedic had some rather choice words about the nurse at our ER. apparently she is about as little of a people person as you can get without turning green.
So this transfer went well, with the exception of receiving horrible directions. We ended up at St. Mary's in Amsterdam. My driver (who was actually the paramedic, but this transfer was BLS so he drove) wound up going into the ER and getting better directions. The Moral of the story? Be very careful how much trust you put into Mapquest.

To make this trip even better, our rig is the company Shambulance (actually in a tie with another rig for that title), just had snow tires put on, and she handles very badly over 60 mph. Or 45 mph in driving rain and high winds, which was the setting of most of this trip.
When you are fish-tailing at 40 mph, it sucks. plus on the way back it was raining so hard the wipers may as well have been off.

So we got back from that trip around 2200 (left quarters originally at 1630ish) and havent had anything yet, knock on wood. Doesn't really matter, i wont sleep anyway. shifts over in 4 hours, why bother.

My partner Jeremy needs sleep though. I feel bad for him. No sleep in 2 days, plus on friday he worked a trauma code on a good friend of his. There was only a 3-4 year age gap between them, and Jeremy has known this guy for about 15 years. Its rough when you're not only working on your friend, but also a fellow EMS worker. The pt was a former co-worker and fellow Vol. of jeremy's.
My condolences to everyone affected by his death.

I'm finding out that i know more and more people who also work for the bus company i'm starting at. One girl i took my EMT original with, 2 ppl who used to work for QVA, a former neighbor of mine, and a few other people. It should be cool. I've got my trainer pretty impressed, so thats cool. I have apparently inherited my father's driving genes.

Well, i dunno what else i'm gonna do this mornin, but i know it involves a cup of coffee, which should be ready by now.
Cya.

just another day in paradise

I'm getting sick of these up-all-nighters.
I'm workin at VO tonite, doing the 1700-0800. its just shy of 0600 right now.
I was plannin on trying to get some sleep, but obviously that didn't happen.

It's been a relatively peaceful night overall. Got here, went to dinner, came back, watch the new version of The Longest Yard. Most of it anyway. i came into it after 45 minutes or so. Good movie, i think. Anyway, after that i started studying. Gotta make sure i've got a grip on Med Math for class tonite. Med Math isn't too bad. I've been pretty good at fractions all along, so now i finally found the answer to "When the hell am i gonna use this in real life?" It's nice to find the answer to that question now and then.

I studied for a while, did some med math problems/scenarios... finished up and the emergency line rings. Some old dude is calling for chest and arm pain x 3 weeks, getting worse tonite.
0130, of course. My partner was sleeping, but i had just finished studying and wasn't all that tired.

Anyway, got that guy taken care of, came back, studied a little more, then laid down around 0330, figured i'd go for 4 hours of sleep before i had to get up. 4 hours is better than nothing, right? Well, it didn't happen. laid there, tossed and turned, but sleep never came to me. So i got up around 0530ish, grabbed a smoke, and here i am.

I've picked up some hours here, which is nice. i need the extra money really bad. My new job is gonna start sooner than i though, which is good. The bus garage called DMV and started bitchin about the long wait, so they added a few days. Now i do my road test on 12/6. I'll get a few weeks of driving in before christmas break, which is cool. My test was the 22nd of Dec., which would have put my start date for work around 1/6.

Anyway, back to VO. I did the 1700-0800 friday night, also. Wasn't too bad of a shift. Started out with a CPEP run from the hospital here in VO-land to syracuse. Talk about a nut-case. He's had the nurses all nervous i guess. His woman works upstairs from the ER, and he thinks she's cheating on him with a Doc., so he's been hiding in the woods, scoping out the exits with binoculars, tryin to catch her in the act. The nurses were sayin that he's the type who would bust in with an M-16 and peg anyone who might be involved. Once i met the guy, i realized that that concern wasn't too far off base.
He and his girl are quite the pair though. both crazy, dark, twisted individuals.

This guy started talkin about the dream he and his girl had when they were both 12, before they even knew each other. same dream down to the last detail.
He was talkin about how she used to be into witchcraft, he was into satanism, this that and the other thing...
One time when he was talkin he looked me right in the eyes and i swear my hair stood straight up. The look in his eyes... It's been a long time since someone made my hair stand on end. I didn't freak or anything, but i was a lil nervous for a few. He didn't give my any problems though, which is good.

Then in the middle of the night, we had a transfer from a POS hospital we cater to. This place drives all of us here at VO insane. We get some seriously bullshit transfers out of there. Did one one time for a guy who had been choking, dislodged the food, but still felt like there was something in his throat. We got called to transfer him to syracuse because the hospital didnt have the equipment to look down his throat and see if anything was still there.
We do get some nasty ones out of there though.
Cardiacs, bleeds, burns (When the damn hillbilly ambulance halfway between there and syracuse transports him there instead of travelling the same distance in the opposite direction to take him to Upstate's burn unit... assholes)
This hospital doesn't even have a doctor on half of the time. They only have 1 FT doctor covering the ED. the rest are PAs and stuff.

Anyway, this transfer was justified. Lady had a cyst on her liver the size of a football, they said.
So we took her to syracuse. That was another all-nighter, because i had slept all day friday, due to another all-nighter thursday night. It's a vicious cycle.
So here i am, another all-nighter, with class starting back up tonite and us starting IV labs.
I'll try to grab a few hours sleep when i get home and hope QVA isnt too busy (doing a 0900-1500 there)

New York weather never ceases to amaze me. Friday morning around 0300 is started snowin like a SOB. we got called out for an MVC around 0350, and let me tell ya what. if it had been daytime, you would not have been able to see the distance of 2 power poles. We got cancelled before we even rolled though, which was cool. Between 0300 when it started snowin and 0400 when we got cancelled, we had about 4 inches on the ground. It was still snowin like crazy around 0900 when we got hit for another call that ended up being nothing... accidental trip on a medical alarm. It was also about 10 degrees while it was snowin like that. We did get off easy though. it was supposed to snow like that all day friday, dumping up to 2 feet on us by friday evening. it quit snowin around 10 am.

Now tonite, it's been drizzling, and its about 40, 45 out right now. Expect the unexpected should be upstate NY's motto. at least when it comes to weather.

Nothing else too impressive has beein going on. SSDD for the most part. I'm doing another overnighter on tuesday here. It'll be interesting to see how it goes. I'm on shift with the company crab-apple. Ever seen that shirt that says "I'm just one big F&#%ing ray of sunshine, aren't i?" That fits this guy perfectly. He seems to get off on making people's lives miserable around here. There are about 36 people who refuse to work on his shift.
Ah well, life goes on.

My brain is about empty now. Can't think of anything else to write... should i tough it out and stay up, or try to get 1 whopping hour of sleep? I'll think about it.
Cya

bored bored bored

You know you're bored outta your gourd when you resort to lurking in Yahoo chat, seeing how many spambots you can ignore over a certain time period at 0110 in the morning.
I'm one hour and 12 minutes into a 39 hour shift with QVA. Fun fun. The nice perk about QVA is that I can do whatever the hell I want (except drink) wherever the hell I want (as long as its within 5 minutes of the firehouse).

Anyway, in my boredom, I thought I'd start goin over the calls I've been on that have stood out over the years, and how I got started in this beautiful mess known as EMS.

As a kid, I had the typical fascination with fire trucks and all that jazz... It was always something I wanted to do. Every time I heard the whistle blow or saw a fire truck whipping by, it always got my pulse going...
Anyway, when I was 14 or so, my mom joined up with an ambulance about a half hour from where we live now. She started out as a dispatcher, back before 911 came to the county. I'd tag along now and then, especially when she'd do the 2200-0200 shift. Once I turned 16, I joined up as a dispatcher. By then, 911 was in place, so all we really did was try to round up 2nd crews when the main rig went out, answer phones, and keep track of the rigs times and stuff.

I took the CFR class when I was 17. I could have taken the EMT class instead because I would have been 18 by the test, but thanks to a half-assed knucklehead of a friend, I missed out. I joined up with a rural (very rural) vol dept. when I was 16 with my mom. At the time she was their only EMT, and I wanted to get certified as medical because most of the time it was just her and me. The chief gave her a portable and mom and I were pretty much rescue during the day. This was a dept with only like 15 members on the roster and most of them worked during the day. They'd show up for fires or MVCs, but we'd be lucky to get one or 2 on an EMS call.
Anyway, I took the CFR class with a friend that I got to join up with the FD... And I told him, "Joe, if you're gonna drop out of this class, do it early because I can still get in the EMT class". He, of course, said, "I aint droppin out, I wanna do this!" So what does he do? Drops out 5 days before the practical. Asshole.
So I tested out of CFR in December 2000, and started the EMT class in Jan. 2001. Glad I took that EMT class instead. It was one of the best classes I've ever taken. The instructor was phenomenal. He made it fun and interesting. It was a big class, too. Started out with around 40 ppl, ended with 33, I think it was.

Anyway, midway through the EMT class, I quit the FD I was in. My parents quit due to elevated bullshit factor in the FD, and I followed them out the door. I took a lot of shit there, some good natured, some not. I guess I just figured if it was that bad with my parents around, I didn't wanna know how it'd be with me flying solo. So I quit just after I turned 18. I was still with the ambulance I started out with, but not as active.
I started looking into other FDs, namely the one whos district I reside in, but they apparently got screwed by one too many college students, joining fresh out of high school, getting equipped with gear, and disappearing. So everyone I talked to there said don't even bother applying.

Then one day I went FD hunting. Drove to the next closest district, which happened to be the FD I'm still with today. There was an officer there along with another ff, we talked for a few, I told them my situation, and they got me an application. I knew right away I was gonna like it.

I lived about 8 miles from my old FD, so back when i was a member, now and then I'd go to the station, do some cleaning or whatever, and then just hang out. Well, the chief who lived across the street did not like that. He'd either call or come over, bitchin, and if I wasn't doing something constructive, he'd tell me I either had to do something around the station or leave, because I couldn't just hang out there waiting for calls.

So imagine my surprise when during my interview at my current FD, the chief asked how often I could hang around the station, because I lived about 11.5 miles from this FD. I was shocked that they were actually asking me to spend time at the station. No complaints on my part, I told the chief I'd be there as much as I could.

Once EMT was done, I was getting ready for college. I spent 2.5 years at Onondaga Community College in Syracuse, getting my degree in Fire Protection Tech. For my first semester and then my last semester, I commuted either from home or from the FD. For the other 3 semesters, I was a bunk-in at a northern Onondaga County FD. It wasn't bad at first, but near the end the politics and other station bitch related bullshit got to be too much, plus I got the job at QVA over the summer between semesters 4 and 5, so I couldn't work and bunk-in at the same time. I chose work.

Now, after 4 years of being a basic, I decided to advance. I was thinking about taking this paramedic class early on this year and I went back and forth in my decision for a few months, weighing the pros and cons... Then my sister announced that she was gonna take the original paramedic and my mom decided to take the advanced standing class (a condensed paramedic class for level 3's who have been certified for at least 2 years.) So I figured what the hell. Do it this year and I've even got my own study group. :-) It'll be pretty cool once we all pass. Half of the paramedics in QV will have the same phone number. :-)

So that's my "How I got started" story.

Now I vol for the FD still; I'm Lieutenant/Medical Officer there. I work for QVA and VO, and I used to vol for the County Wildlands SAR team, but I put in for a leave of absence because paramedic class is gonna keep me way too busy for that. I've actually gotta pick up my hours at the FD, because I have to make sure I have the required hours and attendance points to remain a line officer next time around.
We have a pretty decent system in our dept. for elections. We vote for the Chief, President, VP, Secretary, Treasurer, and the board of directors. Then the chief chooses the deputy chief, they choose the assistant chief, and so forth on down the line thru captains and lieutenants. The chief also passes out a survey, and the membership writes in their suggestions for the line officers under The chief. He usually follows the survey, unless someone who is not prepared for line officer duty campaigns their way onto the surveys. Up until a year or 2 ago, the surveys eliminated a lot of the BS that comes with regular elections, but shit's been getting ugly over the last year or 2. ppl are buddy-buddying their way onto the surveys and that isn't always a good thing.
I would get more into the possibilities of the '06 then '07 elections, but I'm gonna keep my mouth shut. If anyone from the FD reads what I wanna say, there will be problems if they figure out who I am and who I'm talkin about. So if what I think is gonna happen does happen, I'll let ya know. But in the meantime, it's relatively privileged info, and I don't want to be responsible for it getting out.
Well, that's enough for tonite. I might start reminiscing about past standout calls next time around.

Remember: If you can find humor in every situation, no matter how bad it is, you can make it though.

SSDD

I love New York. The people who run this state are so full of infinite wisdom that they're drowning in their own BS. I went and scheduled my CDL (commercial drivers license) road test yesterday and the soonest i could get in was December 22nd. And it's all because of NY's money saving logic. It used to be that there was a Brownie for every DMV (Dept. of Motor Vehicles) location. Not anymore. NY decided to let 3 or 4 brownies who started doing road tests on Model T's retire, and instead of hiring 3 or 4 more, they're laying off several more. So now you're gonna have one brownie covering a bunch of DMV locations. They said at the office that come spring time, there is usually a 3-4 month wait for road tests. it's ridiculous.
Ok, enough of my rant. on to other things.

It snowed last night. We got 2 inches or so of accumulation here at home since yesterday evening. It is quite refreshing. There is something theraputic about the first snowfall of the year. Especially like it was last night, where it blankets the ground and coats every tree branch, big and small... it looks like a postcard. it is amazing.

I did alright on the quiz monday... i got a score of 100, including the 20 point bonus question. i think he also gave partial credit for answers that were sort of right or partially right.
There were some people who actually got "Bullshit!" written in big red letters next to questions that they were obviously just grasping at straws. It was kind of amusing. I was not the recipient of a BS label though, which was good.
There were some amuzing moments throughout class, as usual.
The class ended with alot of confused and frustrated people though. After going over pharmacology, we got into drug math. It went all right at first, because i've always been halfway decent when it comes to fractions. It went alright until we got into Dopamine and Microliters. Then our bostonian transplant started disagreeing with the instructor, one of the big mouth hotshot EMTs started givin the instructor shit, and then this other guy who has a history of really freakin stupid questions started asking RFS questions by the bucketful, sometimes even asking a question that was exactly what the instructor just got done saying. The way he asked the questions was like the instructor had never said anything about it at all.
I do kind of feel bad for boston to a degree because he basically got F-cked over on his resiprocity so he has to take the paramedic class all over again. but still the crap he was gettin into was crazy. I really wanted to turn to him, big mouth EMT, and knucklehead and say "STFU and let him teach us this. Not all of us know this sh-t already (Boston did know it already, and hot shot just thought he did). But it's like come on, i'm having a hard enough time with the Dopamine figures, quit makin it so much more difficult.
All i gotta do is study up on it a bit more and practice it, and i'll be fine. We got a homework assignment last night for Thanksgiving break involving drug math and stuff, so i'll be practicing that alot.

I went up to the bar again last night. I was feelin in the mood to play some pool. I usually play the hunting game, but i figured that pool was cheaper and i've dumped enough damn money into that hunting game that i could take a break. That train of thought didn't last long.
The owner plays the game all the time, because this bar is pretty quiet most of the time and he doesn't have much else to do... well, he started a contest. Get into the top 10, you get a free drink of your choice. you beat his high score, you get a free bucket of ponies, he calls em. Splits of Labatt Blue, blue light, bud, bud light, coors light (my personal favorite).
Anyway, the other day, 71,000 something was #1 spot.
Well, Jamie got on a hot streak the other day and turned the top 3 scores into 81K, 77K, and 72K.
He told me he did pretty good, but when i looked at the top scores I was like "WTF man, you tryin to make the top 10 unbeatable?" he just laughed.
Anyway, i can't say no to a challenge, especially when you knock me out of a position i used to hold (Screen Record and Animal Record for Whitetail, and Animal Record for Black Bear.)
Well, i got back at him. He held every spot in the top 10. When that screen popped up, you saw a nice row of 10 JME's (his initials.) I wound up slapping an AJA (My initials) into 5th place. So i got a free beer and i got called an asshole for ruining his beautiful top 10. :-)
It was great though. I could tell from about the 2nd animal on that if i kept up my pace, i'd get top 10 but i didnt want to say anything, because every time i've gotten on a roll in the past and said something, it would always end badly.
So Jamie was gabbin on the phone to his cousin (which was kind of funny because it turns out that i live in Jamie's grandmother's old house, so that kinda weirded him out the first time he heard it... anyway, he was tellin his cousin about it.), and he wasnt paying attention to the game. Halfway through the last screen of regular play, (you hunt for 6 animals, and each animal has 6 screens. Then after you clear all of that, you get an Elite Stage, which involves one screen for each animal, with 3 monster animals on each screen. You also get the occasional bonus screen with really big animals, or various target shoots where you can earn bonus weapons or accessories), he looked up and saw that i was only about 2000 points out of the top 10 and not even in the elite stage yet. It was great. I was proud of myself. I inserted my initials into a spot on that record board that will take alot of very good games to oust me from.

Well, i gotta go pay my car insurance and do some other stuff before i go on duty tonite... workin 1700-0000 for QVA. Good times.
cya

Headaches and pink slippers.

3 severe headache calls in 24 hours... was it the tug of the moon's gravity, something in the air, or what? I did a 24 with VO sunday. First call of the day was for a severe headache, general weakness. Got there, nothin huge happening, routine run to the hospital.

Later in the evening we had what came in as chest pains and general illness. Nothin huge there either (except for the pt, that is. he wasn't HUUUUUUGGGGAAAHH, but he was a big fella.)

Then at 04:30 monday mornin, we got yet another "severe head pain" run.
She musta been hurtin because when we got there, she was sitting outside, at 0445ish, wearing sunglasses. had em on from when we picked her up til we dropped her off at the ER.

My shift ended at 0800, started heading back home because i had to work QVA at 0900. i was about a mile or so out of town when QVA got hit for a severe headache/dizziness. The lady was hurtin, you could tell. She didnt even wanna breathe too loud. could barely get info out of her, and of course she wanted to go to syracuse because thats where her neuro is. Gotta say, she and her husband got it together when it comes to medical info. her husband handed me a stack of papers, which included a current meds list, a complete medical history, The list of doctors and specialists she was seeing, and somethin else i cant quite remember. Pretty nice list, except it didnt have any personal info on it so i had to keep buggin her for info. ah well, thats what we're here for, right?

Paramedic class is goin pretty good. That quiz monday was a bitch. had 36 fill-in-the-blank/short answer questions on Shock and Acid/Base balance, along with an essay style bonus question. talk about a headache. I absolutely hate that style of quiz. I do understand the logic behind it... If you can do a fill in the blank test, you know your stuff... anybody can pass a multiple guess test. Pardon my whining... still trying to get used to this extent of studying. I'll get there soon. I'm not messin this class up.
We started up pharmacology monday after the quiz. we'll be gettin into IV practice either tomorrow or after Thanksgiving break.

Now for the pink slippers. I almost laughed my ass off earlier.
Wal-Mart is good for many things. a wide variety of items, endless redneck jokes, and from time to time, some rather comedic moments.
I bought a video a few days ago and i decided to bring it back today for a few reasons. I walked in, went to the customer service desk, explained what was goin on, and she proceeded to ask if i had a pink slip with it. i was like "???" and she said you're supposed to check with the greeter and get a pink sticker that says this is for a return. The other girl then goes over to the intercom, hits the button and says "I need a CSM to customer service, i have a gentleman here with a return and he forget to get his pink slippers-I MEAN STICKER!!! Pink sticker!!!"
Now of course she's wayyyyy beyond saving it now, because i'm LMAO, so is she (although very red in the process), the other employees at customer service, and one or 2 of the ladies on registers within earshot. come to find out it wasnt over the intercom, but instead over the walkie-talkie system. but still, i'm sure everyone who heard it started crackin up. i saw a lot of employees with big smiles walkin by after that. so after a few minutes worth of chuckling and good natured ribbing (i mentioned that she was gonna come in for her next shift and find a pair of pink slippers hangin by the door... she laughed and said "i'd better not" and one of her co-workers looked at me and said "Haaayyyy, thats an idea!" The girl did say, several times, "I'm never gonna live this one down, am i." her coworkers were like "no, probably not."), i left, with people still chuckling at the whole exchange. it was really quite amusing. some of the employees were actually apologizing to me between the verbal mix-up and the fact that it took a lil while for me to get my refund. I kept tellin them to stop apologizing, it'd been a while since i had a laugh that good. i did finally convince them i wasnt upset or anything, cuz i think they were thinkin i was gettin frustrated or whatever. I was lovin it though. Gotta love Wally World.

Anyone out there heard of the band Flyleaf? Relatively new group, they kick some ass.
bought their CD sunday, only 12 hours after i first heard of the band. Caught one of their songs on the Hard Drive radio show on my way into work sunday... got to work, looked them up online, then eventually went to wal-mart sunday night and bought the cd. they have a few of their songs on their web page, www.flyleafmusic.com
They've got a pretty good sound to them.

Well, i'm outta here. gotta go try to set up my CDL road test tomorrow and hope there is an opening somewhere soon... there's people around here who can't get tested until late december. hopefully i can get lucky and get one withing 3 weeks somewhere.
TTYS

Small town funk.

Hello. How many of you are here because my lil sis sent you over? Either way, this entry is a tribute to the town I live in. For previous vents about my town, see near the end of "NY weather" and in the middle of "A&P is done" I'll probably repeat some of it in this, but oh well.

I can already hear some people saying "Oh Adam, you're just anti-social", or "You just haven't caught the small town spirit yet" No I'm not and you're right, I haven't. Nor do I wanna catch it, if it turns you into what so many people in this town are.

You can tell who was born here by the way they act and what they talk about.
You can also tell who is not native to this town, because even if they have caught the C-funk, it's usually not as acute of a case as the home grown ones.

Now before I go wild here, I would like to insert a disclaimer.

There are quite a few people I know in this town who are very down to earth, who have their heads on straight, and have not been completely white washed by the C-Funk. Some of them may have it on them, but they haven't been taken over as of yet.
Some of the things I'm going to describe may not sound so bad to some of you, some of you may even think I'm just intolerant of differing opinions, and some of you may go back to me being antisocial or not having caught the small town spirit yet. But anyway.

I Don't think this town has ever had a wake-up call. The level of apathy here is so high it's disgusting. Everyone has the "That wont happen to me" or "Nothing like that ever happens in this town" mentality.

My mom was talking to a County Sheriff and he said that our little town (village population around 2500-3000) has more drug problems per populous than Rome and Utica combined (Utica has a population of 60,651 and Rome has a population of 34,950.) I do realize that the numbers are quite different and that it's hard to compare the 2, but I threw it in there anyway.
Now if you ask anyone in this town about the drug problems, the only thing that anyone will admit exists is Weed. And weed is used heavily. Sometimes the cops even overlook "exchanges" that some of the ballsier dopers do right in front of them. They have, however, started buckling down big time. They've been doing random drug searches at the school with K9s due to the sheer number of incidents that have occurred on school grounds so far this year.
But if you ask John or Jane Q. Public, they won't believe that there is anything worse than Weed in this town. There was a major drug bust in town last year that involved the DEA, FBI, State Troopers, County Sheriffs... 25+ people got arrested, many different locations involved, started at the High School (no pun intended), spread to some dealers residences when the kids at the school cracked and spilled their guts, big huge deal. And ya know what? Most of the townsfolk STILL think it was just some large scale drill!!! You cannot tell them otherwise! They will believe that the DEA, FBI, NYSP, and OCSD chose our little town for some huge scale drug bust drill before they'll believe that we actually have enough of a drug problem to warrant the bust. I mean, we're talkin big black SUVs, Agents storming the school, searching every room, every locker, Front page news in almost a Tri-County area, and our lil small town paper just had some blurb buried in the pages somewhere.

I know the lady who runs the food bank here in town. She's an LOL (little old lady) in her 70s, and a few years ago she could name off at least 30 Crack houses. I know a woman who's daughter was getting AFU on crack or meth or something while living with the guy who ran one of these houses, and this woman would not admit that her daughter was doing drugs, because we don't have those kind of drugs in this town...

God forbid that we ever have a murder in this town. People will be hiding in their basements with guns until they hear on their little emergency radios that the suspect is in custody. That'll be nice for Fire, PD, and Ambulance though... All the dingleberries will be in their basements and off the roads, where they normally drive like idjits.
But yeah, if we ever have a major crime in this town, people would not know what to do with themselves. Everybody is so used to their little closely knit little routines that if you threw a wrench it it, they'd be lost.

I know that is not unique to my town though. I think most small towns are like that, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. People need to live where they are comfortable. Walk main street, talk to all their acquaintances, and read the weekly paper to see how Betty and Shirley's Bridge Tournament went last Thursday. This is one of those towns that when we got our second stoplight, it was on the front page. Classic example, I know.

I will admit that a lot of the small town conveniences are nice.
You go to the hardware store looking for something, they'll bend over backwards to help you.
Pretty much anywhere you go, people will help anyway they can.
Everything is close together and you can get almost anything you need if you don't mind payin a few extra bucks.
We had a situation earlier this year where a woman from out of town had parked at the church next to the fire station because she had to build a big ol' wreath for a wedding later in the day. Now, the people at this church do not know parking etiquette at all. The FD/ambulance shares the parking lot with the church and on more than one occasion I've had to hang out at the station for up to an hour after a call because after all the normal parking spots are full, people just pull in and park in nice neat rows right down the middle of the parking lot, effectively blocking in whoever is parked properly. Well, that's what happened to this out of town girl. In the midst of her wreath building, she broke the foam that was her wreath base. So after starting to panic because her van was blocked in, she walked over to the hardware store, asking if the guy had this foam. He said no, but the lumber shop a few miles outside of town would probably have it, so he called ahead and sure enough, they did. She told him her car situation, he reached into his pocket, pulled out the keys to his truck, handed them to the woman, gave her directions to the lumber yard, and sent her on her way. He is lucky that she was genuine in her situation. She went, got her foam, came back, dropped off his truck, walked back over to the church, finished her wreath, and then wrote a very sweet sappy letter to the editor about our lovely little town. I'm sure it impressed the shit out of her. Probably was a shock to her to. Yes, it was a very nice gesture on the part of the hardware guy, but he's damn lucky she didn't take advantage of his generosity.
We are a small town, but not that small. I can see that happening somewhere else where you're way the heck out in BFE and everyone knows everyone within 50 miles, but that's not here.
Anyway. What else.
Oh yah. You know in Friday Night Lights and Varsity Blues when the teams go to State and the town is freakin empty? That's my town. A few years ago the Varsity team kicked some ass, wound up eventually losing late in the playoffs, but finished regular season 10-0
When the playoffs started and the team was going to play at the Carrier Dome, the town was EMPTY. The only places still open were the gas stations and the big grocery store. The grocery store employs many highschoolers, but the nights that the team was playin in Syracuse, they had a skeleton crew of older people. There were places that closed because they wanted to go to the game. I think someone said that somewhere around 1500 people went to the Dome those nights. That's better than half the population, folks. This place was almost a ghost town. It was eerie.

The son of the pastor of the church that my parents attend (Phew) was the star wide receiver.
One of the days that I went to church, during the music and prayer portion, the pastors wife stepped up, interrupted the music, and started praying for and "Exhorting" the football team, talking about how "we" were gonna win because 3 or 4 of the kids on the team went to our church, and because of that, God is on "our teams'" side, and we're gonna win state, and blahblahblah. I was just sittin there slack-jawed that someone could have the balls to interrupt a church service to root for the high school football team.
Someone asked her later "Mrs. Pastor's wife, what if the other team has a bunch of kids that go to church and they're all praying too?" to with Preachers wife responded with "Well, we'll just have to pray harder than them, I guess". I thought that that whole event in church was rude, disrespectful, and absolutely ridiculous. There's a time and a place for that stuff, and it is NOT during a Sunday worship service.

Lets see... Oh yah. They had a bomb threat at the high school, so they ushered all the kids into the auditorium and locked them in there until the rest of the school was cleared. I don't believe the auditorium had a sweep first, either.
This is also the same school that put padlocks and chains on all of the emergency exits after that school shooting where the kids pulled the fire alarm then started pegging people as they went out of the fire exits.

If you live in the town instead of the village, and you have to go into the village, it is usually referred to as "Going downtown". Rome is referred to as "The City" and Utica is referred to as "The Big City". Most ppl from this town would not even dream of going to Syracuse. My sister vols about 15-20 miles north of Syracuse and her friends and the ppl at my parents' church were trying to talk her out of it once they found out that she has to transport to Syracuse hospitals.
(Airheads) "Ohmigawd!!! You have to go to Syracuse?!
(Stacey) "Yup."
(Airheads) "Do you have to go to Syracuse at night too, or just during the day?"
(Stacey) "Anytime, day or night."
(Airheads) "OHmiGAWD! Aren't you scared that you're gonna get shot?!?!"
(Stacey) "Uh, no."
(Airheads) "You don't, like, go outside alone at night at the hospitals, do you???"
(Stacey) "Uh, yeah. I was just sittin outside on a rail at 2 am at St. Joe's the other night."
(Airheads) "OHMIGAWD!!!! REALLY?! ARE YOU CRAZY?!"

They were even raggin on her about hanging around outside the ambulance garage at night because it is "so close" to Syracuse.

We know people who will not let their kids spend the night at friends houses
in Rome because "People get murdered in Rome all the time!!!"
For the record, Rome hasn't had a homicide yet this year.

And last but not least, this town hates young people. DWI is viewed as less of a crime than skateboarding (The cops harass the skaters all the time, whether they're doing anything wrong or not) The town has made no attempt to accommodate anything for younger people (the only things even remotely close to entertainment is the Bowling Alley on the other side of town, and then the bars for the older crowd) They had started up a skate park, but it was tucked in way behind the DOT garage where it was quite hidden and never advertised, and then it was closed due to "Lack of interest." I've heard many younger people make comments like "They should just turn this place into a gated community" or "Why don't they just fence this town in and put up big signs saying 'NO KIDS ALLOWED!!!'"

Am I bitter? Maybe. Am I anti-social? I don't think so. Am I out of place? Yes. From my front porch, I can see 12 other houses. That's 12 too many. I'd rather have a nice, snug place in the middle of the woods on a 250 acre plot of land, 2 miles from the nearest neighbor. Again, I'm not anti-social. I can be quite social. I just prefer peace, quiet, and privacy. If I'm feelin the social bug, I'll go somewhere to satisfy the urge. I don't want the urge to be fed through my front window.

So to end this, let us raise our glasses to the N.Y. Yankees (for the record, I was rootin for the Red Sox just to piss ppl off), Small town Football (congrats to the team, cuz it was the best they've ever done... I just didn't get wrapped up in the craze) and to excessive apathy; may no one invade your perfect little world.

What a day.

It's been a busy few days. I've been getting swamped with calls while on duty with QVA, which is good cuz it means a nicer paycheck. Todays check was very nice. I've had a around 11 calls over the last 2 weeks. (a good number for a BFE ambulance).
Yesterday (Wed. actually) was busy.
We had our frequent flyer seizure pt... When we transported him was the first time i've gotten flipped off by a 5 year old. I'm still tryin to decide if he actually flipped me off, or if he was holding out his finger so that i could put a bandage on the finger we'd just checked a sugar off of. We had pricked his middle finger so that we could get a glucose reading, but when i came at hime with the bandage, he was lookin straight at me with perfect flippin the bird form. Poor fella. He'd been stuck with a 22 ga. twice, got a shot of Glucagon in the thigh, and 2 finger sticks for a blood sugar reading. Anyway, when i saw that finger in the air, i just started laughing. I found it comical for some reason.

On the way back from the hospital, we got hit for a head injury at the Middle School. We get there and someone meets us at the rig tellin us we've got a 13 y/o with a 1/8" dowel rod impaled in the back of his head. We were like "??!!" Sure enough, this kid had about 2 inches of this dowel rod under his scalp, in line with his spine. His hands were tinglin a bit, and with a few more things involved, the paramedic thought that our best bet would be to go to the regional trauma center peds unit. after securing the parents' approval, off we went. we drove all the way to the trauma center (around an hour drive), got the kid into the peds unit, and within 10-15 minutes, the doc grabbed the rod and slid it out, no X-rays or nothin. We're like "We drove all the way to Syracuse for that???" Ah well, a few extra bucks on the paycheck anyway.
The whole way back from syracuse we were watchin a fugly lookin storm. Dark, dark sky, lightning, rain, and a lil green sky in the mix.
Got back in quarters, got home, and 10 minutes later, the pagers are goin off again, for chest pains at the docs office. Driver and i get to the station and theres no paramedic in sight. turns out his pager didnt go off, so he met us on scene. we had a guy who had a very rapid pulse rate, doctor tells us he's in V-Tach. Paramedic shows up, we get pt in the rig, on the monitor, and the paramedic says "That doc needs an ACLS update. thats not V-Tach, it's SVT!" So Mr. Pt gets 6mg Adenosine, knocks down the SVT long enough for paramedic to see that there is underlying A-Flutter. Couple seconds later, pt jumps right back to SVT around 180bpm, same as before.
Next, pt gets 12 of Adenosine with the same results: knocks out the SVT, shows A-Flutter, then right back to SVT. Paramedic said that usually A-flutter doesnt conduct all the way thru the heart, but this time it was. Each A-Flutter spike kicked out a complete heartbeat.
While we were at the hospital, the storm hit pretty hard. almost torrential rain, heavy lightning, really nice stuff for november.
So that was pretty much the fun of the day.

Today was class again... Thought it was gonna be a quiz. Monday, Instructor said it was gonna be mostly multiple choice with a few fill in the blanks thrown in, and that was supposed to be tonite.
Tonite, however, he told us that the quiz is monday, with 37 fill in the blanks, but that we were gonna review tonite, and everything we needed to know would be on the review. Said if ppl fail the quiz after having the review, there were going to be issues.
Class was generally uneventful. Did some shock labs along with the review.

We had to stop at Wal-Mart on the way home so i could get some stuff for an oil change for my car. On the way out, my sister and i observed the following:
-Group of about 6 guys (late teens to early 20's) walking out of the store
-2 girls getting out of their car
-(One guy in group) "Hey.. Hey! What's Up?"
-(One of the girls) "Not much"
-(Guy) "Hey, what's your name?"
-(Girl) "I'm not allowed to tell ya!"
-(Guy) "Aww, C'mon!"
-(Girl) "Nice try. I'm only 13, buddy!"
-(Guys friends, my sister, and I) WHOOOOOAAAAHHH!!! (along with histerical laughter, jeering, and statements like "nice one, dude" and "Hey, you win some, you lose some")

It was hilarious. Funniest thing i've seen/heard since Derek popped his fake eye out during class.
I will say that this girl did not look 13. I can't remember if she got out of the back seat or the drivers seat. If she got out of the drivers seat, she obviously wasnt 13. So she either was actually 13, or of age but a quick thinker.

Not much else new. hit the bar last night and tonite, hung out, unwound a little...
It was snowin here today. Not heavily, but enough to let us know that we would soon be in its unrelenting grip.

I've got plenty of studying to do this weekend.
I'm making flash cards of definitions and important points in the book and my notes.
gotta learn this jazz one way or another.

I'm off for now. Cya.

Gotta love NY weather.

November in Upstate New York.
You usually think of things like the last of the leaves falling off the trees, hunting, getting ready for Thanksgiving, and maybe even putting up the Christmas lights.
You don't usually think of violent thunderstorms, insane winds, microbursts, and hail.
The whole area got pounded sunday evening by what was left of the weather system that FUBARed indiana and all them. The weather radar was showin dark reds and purples.
My fire district got a solid hit. (For anyone reading from the area whalloped by the tornados, i know we got it easy, and i feel for ya. good luck in your recovery/rebuilding)

Anyway, i was working a 24 at Small City ambulance on sunday. Most of the day Sunday was amazing, weatherwise. sunny, low 70s, just beautiful.

I was paired up with a girl who just recently got her paramedic certs and we were first up in rotation. We got called to the south end of our district for a general illness and transported back to Small City hospital (SCH). Couple hours later we got hit for a transfer from small city hospital to Cooperstown. Talk about a trip. it's a good hour, hour and a half drive.
Lisa and I were up again, so we went to the hospital.
Come to find out, it was the same lady we brought in from the south end of our district.
She had a White Blood Cell count of 445,000. I guess normal is around 10,000, so to put it lightly, it was just a little bit high. She was in her 80's, hadn't seen a doctor in 53 years.
Unfortunately, thats all changin now.

So while we're getting her ready for transport, we hear that a tornado watch has been issued for the area. Once we get outside, it was starting to get pretty windy.
Thank God we got to Bassett ahead of the weather. About 10 minutes out from SCH, we started hearing the calls come in from the west end of the county, quite quickly heading east. All we heard were hits for trees and wires down until we got out of radio range.

We still hadn't got the weather when we left Bassett. We stopped a few miles from Cooperstown to get somethin to drink for the drive back. A few minutes after that stop, it was starting to get Reeeeeeaaallly dark (you know stuff's about to get ugly when it's already dark out due to time of day and you can still tell its getting dark from the weather). Then the lightning started in the distance and Lisa and i agreed that this was not going to be a fun drive back home. Sure enough, a few miles later, we drove into a wall of hail, horizontal torrential rain, and blinding lightning. These conditions continued for about 30 minutes before it started to lighten up.

In the thick of it, Lisa said "Adam, i'm glad your driving and not me!" I said "Me too!" and she said "HEYYY!". No disrespect to her, but i'm more comfortable driving in nasty weather than i am as a passenger, unless i really know and trust the capabilities of the person driving. And i know some people who i don't trust driving during the day on dry roads. Lisa isn't one of them, but that's beside the point.
Anyway, the storm FINALLY let up when we were about 20-25 minutes from quarters.
We got back and the rest of the night was uneventful. no more calls and everybody got to sleep uninterrupted that night. I'm workin a 24 there again this Sunday, so we'll see if we can go 2 for 2 when it comes to sleepin thru the night.

I've had quite a few calls with QVA lately. Which is really good, because i can really use the extra $$$. I'm supposed to go in to the new job tomorrow, get my training set up, and turn in a copy of my CDL permit. After that i'll get my training done, get my road test, and once i have my CDL license i'll officially be a school bus driver. Whoopie. It's good pay and i only have to do it until i get my paramedic certs. and who knows, maybe i'll still do it on the side.

Anyway, kinda got off track there. Had quite a few calls with QVA, but nothin that's really stood out. We did have some issues with one of our EMT's... She drove the meat wagon to the hospital the other day for one of the calls we had. On the way to the hospital, she ate a curb pretty nicely. We were going thru a construction zone and all of a sudden the ass end of the rig kicks left and i hear the sound of squealing tires. The paramedic, the Pt., and I all kinda looked up, out the front window, and out the back window to see what was going on... Not too much damage, scrubbed the tire and the wheel up a bit and left a lil cut on the outer tire on the back. The lady who was driving doesn't seem to grasp the concept that a MedTec Type 3 Box rig is just a little bit bigger than the Liberty that she drives. So she's probably gonna not be driving unless absolutely necessary from now on. I figured i'd be nice, let her drive, and see what i could learn from the paramedic towards my class. Not much. wasn't much of a call, basic ALS. the pt was complaining of chest pain, he was 17 years old, about 6'5"+ and a solid 330, if not better. He was a little jumpy at first because i was sitting behind him getting stuff together while the paramedic was starting the IV. Kid musta thought i was gettin ready to jump on him and hold him down or somethin, cuz he kept whippin his head around like someone was sneakin up on him. Later on in the call we got talkin about music and stuff... He's got pretty good taste for a 17 year old. Likes Metallica, Zeppelin, Skynyrd, Seger, lotta the old stuff. pretty cool, compared to some of the posers around here.

I tell ya, some of these kids just make me laugh, yet they disgust me at the same time. we live in a lil ink spot on a map and these kids act all big n bad. Wearin the flat brim hats sideways, super baggy pants down around their knees, with a ghetto strut. you'd think these kids were in NYC or even Syracuse. One day i wanna round all of em up, throw em in some form of mass transit vehicle, and drop em off on South Salina St. in Syracuse's South Side at 1 am. Then again, i just wanna scare em, not get em maimed or murdered.
Its funny to hear these kids talk though. It's kinda like watching Malibu's Most Wanted.
There's a lot of B-Rads in this town. It's pathetic. What's really pathetic is u get these little hotshot preppies who try to pick a fight with a Skater. Skater kicks the piss out of em, they go home crying, then come back a day or 2 later with 2 cars full of friends with various objects of a hostile nature, the 10 kids beat the piss out of one skater while little hotshot preppy sits there screamin and yellin and calling the heavily outnumbered skater a bitch and a pussy or whatever else they feel like callin em. Then when the damage is done, they go around tellin everyone that they beat up skater so-and-so themselves. It's pathetic.
I love my town, Cantcha tell? My sister had an encounter with the small town funk recently, i'm sure she'll be writing about it soon. She's the one with the Things That Make You Go Blah site in my links area.
Anyway, thats my rant for the evening, small town shenanigans.

We got into Shock last night in class. The fun begins. My instructor loves shock, so we're either gonna know it inside and out or go loopy before we're done.
I've started counting the F-Bombs that he drops while teaching.
I counted 90 last night. That wasnt including the ones he dropped while on break or right after class. He was totally wired last night, almost to the point of a spaz attack.
I dont know what got into him, but he started pingin off the walls once he started talking about the progression of shock.

We have learned when to take something very strongly to heart, because if he's trying to make a major point, the sentence normally starts off with "If I EVER find out that one of you
Sons o' Bitches---" We've heard that a few times so far, i'm sure we'll hear it many more.

Thats it for tonite. Gotta get up early tomorrow.
Cya

More jokes? How bout a link?

In my browsings the other day, i realized that most of the EMS humor stuff that i have is now on www.thelunatick.com check it out, it's got some great stuff both for Fire and EMS.
In the meantime, i think i have one or two bits that aren't on that site yet, so if that pans out ya might see it soon.

So whats new with everybody? Any bizarre calls, amusing moments, or the like? Not much here, except for the fact i started counting my instructor's F-Bombs during class. I counted 69 from 1940-2130 last night. And i think i missed a few due to note-taking. This guy is quite colorful. He definately proves it to be a multi-function word. It's great. :-) I'm gonna count em for the whole class period next time. It all depends on what subject he's on as to the rate of the F-Bomb deployment.

We're finally starting to get into the "fun" stuff. Or at least closer to it. Started General Principals of Pathophysiology. All that fun stuff like Resperatory/metabolic acidosis/alkalosis, acid/base balance, etc etc. I'm not looking forward to thursday though. He says he's gonna start up on the fill in the blank quizzes. To hell with that. i HATE fill in the blank. I had to do em in college in one of my classes because the guy there didn't believe in "Multiple guess" questions. I see the point of fill in the blank because all it is is regurgitating information that you've learned, but i always seem to draw a total blank then i see a blank space on a question. Any pointers from anyone???
I can't afford too many FUBAR tests. i got 9 out of 25 wrong on our quiz yesterday, but that was my own damn fault for not studying enough. And that was on a multiple choice!
Our quiz grade is 20% of our module grade. And according to my instructor he's going to be making the module exams very very large. he said the first one will probably be only 150 questions or so, but once we get deeper into the material it's gonna be 200-250 questions. He wants us to get used to big tests so that the state final isn't a shocker. supposedly if you can pass our instructor's exam, you can pass the state exam.

Went and got my CDL-B permit today. I think i mentioned the bus driver job a while back?
Hopefully the job will get in motion on monday. I had to take 4 different tests to get that permit:
General CDL and Air brakes, passenger, and school bus endorsments. fun fun fun.
Well, i gotta go motivate myself to do some studying.

Glass Eye!

Found out tonite that the guy who sits a row behind me in paramedic class has a glass eye.
I heard a commotion behind me near the end of one of our breaks, turned around, and it appeared that this guy was doing the eyeball trick out of Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls.
Then he proceeded to push a little harder and with a flip of a finger, out it popped. I just about flipped out. Started laughing after the initial shock wore off (it didnt take long) then started laughing my ass off because of the reaction of his friend, who was sitting next to him. This guy starts turnin green around the gills, just about dry heaving. Then when we slowly start to calm down, the guy says "Aw man, it aint on straight" and proceeds to rotate the glass eye, which gets us flippin out again, then he starts tappin on his eye with a pen, which pushed us all over the edge. My sister, glass eye guy, the guy on the other end of his table, and I are just rollin. I was laughin so hard i could barely breath, tears rollin, and everybody who didn't know what was goin on was just lookin at us like "???" Most of our laughter was because of the guy turnin green and repeatedly stating "I'm gonna puke man, i'm gonna puke". So we FINALLY calmed down (sort of) by the time the teacher (a sub giving us an A&P refresher) started talking again and does anyone wanna guess the first words out of her mouth? "So everybody here knows all about the Eyes, ears, nos---drowned out by the hysterical laughter of the 6 people familiar with the event that just occured behind me. So now she is lookin at us like we're loopy, so Mr Glass Eye showed the whole class his lil trick, which effectively killed a few more minutes before ppl recomposed themselves. He told us later how he likes to stick stuff in the corner of his eye that shouldnt be there, or how he likes to coil up about a foot or so of dental floss behind the fake eye then make like somethin itches then pull out the floss... That just ain't right...

I've been getting a few calls lately. They kinda come in waves for me, at least with the ambulance.
I wound up riding in with QVA on an MVC the other mornin... Went out for a smoke (i dont smoke at home out of respect for my parents and i also dont want my little siblings to see me smokin) and just started drivin around town at like 0240. couple minutes later a town cop blows by me. i was going the same direction he was, so i just continued on after he passed, and just before i got out of town, Rescue and Ambulance got blown out for an MVC-PI (Motor Vehicle Collision with Personal Injury). It was only about another mile or so ahead, so i went up, offered my services to PD, and checked up on the ppl involved until other EMS got there and they took over. Then i wound up riding in with the ambulance as we took both Pts to the hospital. Both BLS, although hurtin a lil bit. Lucky kids, they were. They were either lost or just taking the really long way home (instead of getting on the North/South interstate {both their starting point and destination are either on or near this interstate} they took a state highway that takes them in more of a wide sweeping C-shape to get there) Anyway, they were lucky because she fell asleep at the wheel, went off the road, bounced over someones driveway, then went up off the road into some trees and didnt hit any of em. She should have flipped her car when she hit the embankment for the driveway at 55ish. Then they came to a stop with a tree touching against the passengers side corner panel.

Then the next night, we got hit for a Cardiac in North Nowhere. (this is so far north that dispatchers have made a joke of yelling out "HEY GUYS, I FOUND QVA!" when we call for times at the hospital. It took us about 25 minutes or so of travel to get there (When i say this is North Nowhere, i'm not joking. Even the crows pack a lunch when they take this trip). So we got there and our cardiac was actually chest pn from pneumonia along with Acute Respiratory Distress. She was bad enough that we offered to assist her with a BVM, but she didnt want none of that.
Couple doses of Albuterol and a Solumedrol later, she was in a little less distress. She was yet another pt. that waited wayy too long to call us. We have several of them. We get there and they're CTD (Circling The Drain) because they should have called us like 2 days ago. So we took her from there to one of the city hospitals which was about a 1 hour transport away. She refused the closer hospital because of some issues she's had in the past... So i think that wound up being a solid 3 hour tour.
Not much new other than that, just trying to get my new job in motion... gonna be driving school bus. Hey, its decent pay, about a mile and a half from my house... work as much as i can without interfering with paramedic class, then once i'm a paramedic, go do paramedic stuff and maybe still have the bus as a side job to boot.
Time for me to sign off.
In the words of my instructor:
Keep your heads out of the clouds, out of your asses, and your feet on the ground and you'll do fine.