The Adventures and Observations of Unit 13

No, I didn't get abducted by aliens.

2007-09-15T23:23:00.000-05:00

What Up, Blogland?
Sorry it's been so long... It's been one heluva year for me.
Working like crazy, a relationship, etc.

I'm working 4.5 jobs right now.
Still working for the Wolcott Hill Express (my hometown ambulance), the city Ambulance service ( just got active again back in July. Didn't have time to diddle around with the ride-outs, nor the motivation for a while. When you get hired or advance levels, you have to ride out with a crew for 5 shifts to make sure that you meet the uber-high standards here [sense any sarcasm?] So after being on my own with the WHE for almost 10 months, I finally did my ride outs here. I've worked some shifts since, I've also done standbys at the race track that we cover.), also back driving school bus again (talk about irony... I life-long homeschooler driving a school bus), I just got hired at a local pizza place as Delivery Driver/Kitchen Bitch (straight from the kitchen manager's mouth at my impromptu interview while I was there for lunch with a friend), and still occasionally working up at the bar.

"Adam, why the hell are you working 4.5 part time jobs instead of 1 full time job?", you ask.
Well, several reasons.

#1: Not a lot of worth-while full time jobs around here. Every one that I've looked at either has bad reputations as employers with how they treat their people, or they're specialty jobs.

#2: I'm working double-full-time hours with The WHE, but the pay sucks. But I also have no gas budget since i'm right in town anyway.

#3: I'm seriously considering moving out of state next year, therefore I am going to be doing some traveling over the coming months, investigating areas that I'm considering calling my new home. It's a lot easier to get time off from 4 part time jobs than it is 1 full time job. (I know, in the big picture, it isn't too logical, but I never claimed to be completely logical all the time.)

I was originally in a toss-up between Oklahoma and Montana, but now it's leaning toward Montana or Wyoming.

I was going to stay in NY and go to either Ranger School or get some environmental degree and try to get into a Fisheries Management job, but I'm really getting sick of NY. There is not a lot here. The economy sucks, a lot of the people suck (I know you get that everywhere, but NY has a special breed), and we're taxed and regulated to the point of strangulation here.

I was originally considering OK because a few years ago I had decided that if nothing was going for me here by the time I hit 25, I was either going to go work as an OTR truck driver or move to Tornado Alley, find work, and chase storms. OK started sounding even sweeter when I was told that they are practically begging for paramedics (who get paid appreciably better than here in NY), the cost of living is 1/3 less, plus... I could be a storm chaser.
Then I started wondering if I really wanted to trade Nor'easters, lake-effect snow, and nose-hair-freezing cold for Diaphoreses-caliber heat, Rattlesnakes, Scorpions, and the chance of getting sucked into the sky by a Hoover from Hell.

I still like the thought of storm-chasing and not having to deal with the crappy weather we are famous for here, but I don't think it would be something I'd want to do forever. I don't like oppressive heat. It can be near debilitating for me. If I can barely stand a NY 95 degree day, how the hell would I be operational in OK heat?
Montana is definately more up my alley. The mountains, the woods, the wide-open spaces... I've always wanted to visit MT and I am going to, sometime this winter if I can save the money for the trip. I want to go visit to see if it's just another hair-brained idea or if it's something that I would definately enjoy. I know it has the bad winters and everything, but the way I look at it is that it's easier to warm up than it is to cool down.
I'm still gonna visit OK next spring if I can swing it. I will be going to Texas in the next few months to visit an old friend that I haven't seen in about 8 years and just regained contact with, so that'll be cool, too.
There is a lot of investigating to be done for sure. I'm not making this move on a whim. I'm gonna have a job lined up before I move. I'm also going for my National Registry certifications next time a class pops up around here.
If I do decide on MT or WY, that'd be an awesome area to work as a Forest Ranger in, or to work in fisheries. I'm already daydreaming about flyfishing for trout in MT or WY. :-D

So, there's the trailer for the next year or so of my life. I'll update the plot and script as time marches on. I can't make any moves until after August '08, since the town paid for my Paramedic tuition. They didn't make me sign any commitments, but I decided to give the town and WHE 2 years of service as a paramedic as a bit of a Thank You for paying for my tuition. It'll most likely be early '09 before I do anything... Stick around for Christmas, move shortly after that. Part of me is hesitant about moving that far away from my family, you know? I love them and I don't want to be the missing face in the family photo, nor do I want to be the one who has to race cross-country to get home if something bad happens. We shall see what happens.

In other news, I'm single again. I have been for about 2.5 months.
I had mentioned a few posts back that I finally got myself a girl. It went great for a while. We went from meeting to being a couple over the course of 2 weeks and we were inseperable from the start. We spent pretty much every moment together for the first 3 or 4 months while she lived in town. Then she moved about 20 miles away to her parents' house things still went well for a while. The last month or 2 we were together, things were getting kind of stressful. There was a lot of BS going on that I'm not gonna get into tonite because I'm not in the mood to elaborate. Basically, things were still going tolerably (from my point of view, anyway), and she went from totally in love to "I'm feeling suffocated, miserable, I love you but I'm not in love with you anymore, blah blah blah" over the course of about 2 weeks. This was late in June.

I was devastated. She was my first relationship, things looked great... i was planning on proposing in February, actually. Now I'm glad I didn't jump the gun and do it sooner. I've had a personal ground rule for a long time that states that new relationships (from meeting to engagement) require a year and a half before popping the question, to really get to know the person, etc. There are exceptions, for example if it were someone I've known and been friends with for a while, if it became a romantic relationship it might not need as much time.

Anyway, I got to see some true colors in the last month or 2 we were together that I didn't really like, plus there was other stuff that I'd been ignoring (i'm sure the same is true the other way around, too).
I actually did alright getting over it, for the most part... Aside from the part of drinking a little too much... I drank more in the month after we broke up than I had the entire previous year, possibly longer. I didn't spend the month in an alcoholic haze by any means. I had several times where I got markedly intoxicated, especially in the first 2 weeks, but after that it wasn't bad... somewhere between social drinking and a good buzz a few times a week.

I've been really good for the last month and a half or so. I can look back on it without getting misty-eyed or depressed and I can actually enjoy the memories that we'd made. We still talk from time to time, we've met up for C&C (Coffee and conversation) a few times. The first few post-breakup C&C's were rough afterwards... Seeing her made everything fresh again and would put me in a funk for a few days. The last time we had C&C though, it was good. I was good with it during and after, it didn't throw me into a funk or anything.

The first month and a half or so was definately a roller-coaster. I'd have good days and I'd have really really really bad days. Some people say that if they could go back knowing what would happen that they'd never let it happen to begin with. Not me. I learned a lot of things while we were together and after the break-up. My self-esteem shot way up and I've got a ship-load of great memories. Not only were we a couple, we were great friends. She even says that still, after the break-up. Being able to talk as friends is good. I still have my moments where I'm like "WTF, man..." Sometimes I get a little perturbed, sometimes a little wistful and "what if" and all that, but I know it's best in the long run.

Actually, the night she broke it off between us, as absolutely devastated as I was, I breathed the biggest sigh of relief through my tears on the drive home. It felt as if a huge weight was lifted from my shoulders. As I look back, I see a lot of things now that I wasn't seeing then, both in me and in her. Things that other people were seeing that I either wasn't seeing or was ignoring, stuff that I'd shrug off when it was brought to my attention... You know how it goes.

So I'm single again and I'm actually enjoying it. The alone time, the freedom to do whatever (within reason, of course), the sudden and quite relieving lack of drama in my life, all that good stuff. In the meantime, I'm just cruisin. I'm not searching for another relationship, I'm not out hooking up or dating around, nothing like that. I'm not getting serious again unless I'm pretty damn certain that there is long-term future potential. Besides, my "game" sucks, anyway. LOL

I think I've typed myself out for one night. I'm at the City ambulance, working a semi-unexpected overnighter. I'd signed up to work the races Friday and Saturday. Friday night went well, Saturday (yesterday technically) was iffy. It rained all night and into the early morning Fri-Sat, so they spent a few hours working the track to get it raceable (it's a dirt track), then they had the hot laps and the heats for qualifying, then just before the feature race (a 200 lap race), the skies opened. So we sat there doing nothing for several hours (if we leave, the race is called off because they have to have an ambulance there, so we stayed until they told us to leave). A little before 2100, they decided to call off the race and hold it Sunday morning at 1000. So we watched the fireworks and came back to quarters, after which I was planning on going home, throwing my uniform in the wash, and going out for a little while to check out my favorite local bartender. :-P
Jumping back a few days, one of the paramedics who was supposed to be on tonite had called and asked if I'd work for her when I got done with the races. She said she had another call into another one of the ALS guys, and she'd let me know if she ended up needing me to cover for her.
Well, she never called me back, so I assumed that the other guy was covering.
As I went to punch out tonite, the shift supervisor looks at me and says "Aren't you staying?"
I said "I wasn't planning on it.
He said "Amber (not her real name) said you were gonna work for her tonite."
I said, "Really? I said I'd work if she needed me and to call me to let me know for sure, but she never called back so i thought she had the shift covered."
Eyes then rolled as most of the guys on duty tonite made some comments and I said "No problem, I'll stick around, i just didn't know I needed to"
So here I am working the overnighter, then working the race, hoping someone will relieve me at 1430 if the races are still going on, because I have to work the delivery job at 1600. Fun stuff.

Ok, enough typing for one night.
Again, sorry about the absence, I hope all is well with everyone!
Be safe,
Adam

My 1st code

2007-06-02T13:11:00.000-05:00

Yes, it happened. I've actually had 2 so far, but we'll just talk about the first for now.
I was working on the Wolcott Hill Express one fine evening when my pager went off for a 37 y/o male in seizures in the next town north (one of the 3 towns in our first due).
I knew pretty much right away that if he was still actively seizing we were going to have to call for a link-up (still no narcs...). I got to the fire station and waited for the rest of the crew, Mike and one of our Basics. We called en route and headed north (about a 7-10 minute trip). About a minute out, FD got on the radio and told us that the pt was still actively seizing, and had been for almost half an hour. WTF. He seized for 20 minutes prior to the family calling 911. We grabbed our stuff and started heading into the house... The fire chief met us half-way across the yard, making the "Glove up" motions... Then told us that the pt had HIV and Hemophelia. Nice. No extra pressure there...

We got into the house and sure enough, this scrawny, sickly looking guy is on the floor flopping around in a grand mal seizure, eyes wide open, foaming at the mouth. We got the info on what had happened, put him on a blanket (couldn't get the stretcher in the house) and carried him out to the stretcher. Before we left the house I asked the family where they wanted to go... they said Syracuse. I said No way, not in his condition, pick something closer. They did and we headed outside. We got him in the rig, got him on the monitor, got an 18 ga to the AC on the 1st try (thank goodness). I told the driver to call for a link-up for narcs and we got moving.
I felt kind of helpless, because all we could do was monitor his airway and his condition... Breathing was adequate, sounded like he aspirated a bit... Monitored pulse, rhythm, resps, etc. He was still seizing, staring straight at the ceiling with this wide-eyed look of terror... It was chilling.

About 15 minutes into the transport, he suddenly stopped seizing. I thought "Well, this is a good thing!" Then I looked up at the ECG and said "Oh fudge, that is not a good thing at all..." A very irregular bradycardia. He had a relatively normal rhythm and pulse rate up until that point.
I jumped up for the Atropine, pushed it, flushed it.... Annnnnd he went asystolic. Dammit.
I looked back at him and i actually saw his lights go out... His body just went limp, his eyes almost closed, and his face went completely slack.

I jumped up, grabbed the box of code drugs, grabbed the airway kit, grabbed a BVM, and told my driver that we now had a code. He asked if i wanted to cancel the link-up rig and I said No way, I could use an extra set of hands.
I pushed Epi and another Atropine, I did some CPR, then handed the BVM and the compressions off to my partner while I set up the ET Tube kit.

I got everything set up, donned safety goggles and a mask, and then went for the tube. His throat was full of fluid so I suctioned him out and saw his vocal cords, dropped the tube, inflated the cuff, hooked up the BVM and verified the tube placement. In the middle of getting the tube, we met up with the other rig and their paramedic jumped on board with us just as i was dropping the tube in. He took over CPR and asked what the story was.

After a round or 2 of Epi and Atropine, the pt went into an idioventricular rhythm, but nothing more, no pulses.

We got him to the hospital, gave report, they worked him for a little while longer, then called him.

I went outside after leaving his room to have my post-code smoke, wrote my paperwork, then we headed home.

Not too bad for my first code as ALS, i thought... other than him coding in the first place, there were no major snags as far as codes go.

Thennnn, i got home. My girlfriend called me and said "You need to call Paul (a friend of ours). That was a really good friend of his and he's really broken up." Crap. Not only was I bothered a little because this call was the first time in my life that I actually watched someones lights go out, but it also had to be a very good friend of a good friend of mine.

Over the next several days, I found out that pretty much everyone that i associate with in town was friends with this guy. It was kind of hard... Seeing them so upset, wondering what was going on in their heads, if they were blaming me in any way for this guy's death... It took me a little while to get over that and not feel uncomfortable around everyone. I knew I couldn't talk about it because of the HIPPA shit... All i could and did tell them was that I did everything that I could possibly do for him.

My gf was friends with him too, so I wound up standing in a corner at the funeral... After the funeral, I got a bit of a laugh. Joanie (my gf) was talking with our friends Paul and Missy, so i went over to them and chatted with them for a few... And suddenly I smelled something peculiar. All 4 of us looked at each other and I asked "Is that what I think it is?" We looked around and saw the source of the herbal odor... A circle of people around the casket, in the funeral home, passing around a bowl.

My pt had been a dedicated stoner and usually took in loners, gave them a place to crash, befriended them... so he had a pretty tight circle of friends. And in his honor, at his funeral, they gathered around his casket and lit one up. For me, it was an interesting combination of touching, comical, and disbelief.

Hey dude, that ain't the bathroom...

2007-03-16T00:38:00.000-05:00

That title is words of wisdom that a patient of mine should have heard before he went and made himself the first pucker-factor trauma pt of my paramedic career.

I thought my Cardizem guy got my pulse rate up a bit. pfft. I have learned over the last few months that I, unlike many EMTs and Paramedics i know, am not a trauma junkie. No sir, no how. I do not like trauma. I know it's relatively simple... Airway Airway Airway, secure the spine, large bore IV's, pump some fluid into them, do your exam, evaluate extent and possibilities of injuries, patch em up, etc etc etc. Still, I do not enjoy trauma at all. Give me a cardiac call any day of the week.

I was hanging out at my girlfriend's house by the fire station when my pager went off for an "Injuries from a fall down some stairs, bleeding from the ear." Hmm... this could be interesting.
Mike (the best damn driver in the world) and I got to the station at around the same time, but no one else was showing up. We waited for a minute, then I called home to mommy (because she just happens to be the scheduler and I wanted to see who was on with us). Well, the EMT who was supposed to be on with us no-showed so we said screw it, we gotta get going. If she decides to show, she can meet us on the scene. On the way to the call, Mike called another one of the EMT's with his cell and asked him to meet up with us. Mom also volunteered to join up with us if we needed her. So anyway, the call was just outside of the village by not even a mile so we were there quick.

Mike and I got out, grabbed our stuff, and started walking in. Near the door, one of the 3 or 4 people who were there said that he was in the basement. I walked in the door with the backboard and related equipment and followed the directions to the basement door.

I reached the top of the basement stairs, looked down, and promptly thought, "Ohh, Shit..." as my pucker factor went into overdrive.

Looking down the stairs, I see a man and a woman holding the arms of a good sized fella who is posed with one knee on the floor, one foot on the floor (like he was trying to get up), one arm on the womans shoulder, and the other hand on the stairs. Any hopes for a minor case of "Fall down, go boom" went out the window as I realized this guy was about 1.5" from FUBAR.

He was looking up at me with Bad Head Injury Eyes. You know the look. The wide-eyed, terrified, glazed over, lights-are-on-but-nobody's-home look. And he had blood all over his face/head. And shoulders that were soaked with blood.

I made my way down the stairs and asked what happened. Apparently, this guy had had 4 or 5 beers over 2 or 3 hours, needed the bathroom, and since he was at a friends house, he didn't know where the bathroom was (I'm sorry, but that's one of the first places I look for anywhere I go. That and secondary exits.) Well apparently, this guy grabbed the wrong door.
Instead of door #1 (the throne-room of the porcelain princess) he grabbed door #2 and entered without looking. And backwards, I believe. Problem with door #2? Door #2 causes your 6'2", 260 lb ass to fall down 13 rough cut wooden stairs headfirst onto a bare cement floor. Yeah. Ouch.

I took a look at this guy and the more I looked, the more my stomach dropped. A large, bright red and bleeding goose egg (ostrich, maybe) on the back of his head, copious amounts of blood coming from his ears, running down his neck, soaking his shoulders... No CSF that I could see though.
I began trying to talk to the guy, to calm him down, to get him on the backboard... Well, he didn't want none of that. He wanted to get upstairs. We were trying to calm him down, hold him back, trying to do a standing take-down. The more we tried, the more combative he got. His wife was standing in front of him with her hands on his shoulders, trying to calm him down... I realized for certain how seriously screwed this guy was when he began looking over her shoulder, yelling her name.

We finally got him on the backboard, then he really started fighting. We eventually got him strapped down, immobilized, hands secured... Then all of a sudden his LOC dropped. We got him up the stairs, out into the rig... by then, he would respond to verbal, just barely. As we were loading him into the rig, I was standing by his head when he chunked up some of the chicken noodle soup he had been eating earlier and sprayed me. Just luckin' fovely. Before we left, I called fire control and asked for a status on the trauma center. The replied that the trauma center was open. I told them we were enroute with a serious head injury and would call when we got closer to give report... We started heading for Syracuse to the trauma center and Mike asked if I wanted a helicopter, to which I promptly answered "Most definately!"

I was definately nervous. This guy was FUBAR'ed, and how. Anyway, we got him ALS'ed and were told the bird would meet us on the way there. He continued to vomit, we continued to roll and suction. Once we were settled in, it was pretty much chunk, roll, suction, monitor vitals. Pupils equal, sluggish, and dilated, by now responsive to pain only, resps were sufficient, pulse rate of 56, BP 150/P. Hmmm. Looks like we have the start of some Cushing's Reflex here...

By the time we got to the LZ (about a 15 minute ride), he was completely unresponsive. I had considered tubing him along the way as a precaution, but he was totally clenched. All we have for intubation meds is Etomidate, which I've been told is sketchy in trauma scenarios... plus Etomidate will only keep him under for a few minutes, and I had no Valium or Versed (long story there).

We were at the LZ, I turned around to do something, and the EMT said, "Hey Adam, is he breathing?"
"He was just a minute ago..." I look... Oh, fudge. He's not. Oh wait... he is... I watched for a second... Mr. Head Injury has just gone into Cheyne-Stokes Respirations. WTF. Where the hell is Mercy Flight??? I grabbed the BVM, started bagging, and a firefighter stuck his head in and said that the medivac was on final approach. Sweet. A minute later, the flight crew jumped in, saw the bagging, raised the eyebrows, and started getting all their supplies and drugs out as I gave them the report.

In goes the Lidocaine, in goes something else, in goes the Succs. Flight medic goes for the tube... Nothing. Tries again, Nothing. After the 3rd unsuccessful attempt, he breaks out the Blue Stick (not the technical name, just what I call it). Blue stick goes in and I felt it in his trachea and told the flight medic so. He pulled the stylette out of the tube, slid the tube over the blue stick, inflated the cuff... Chest rise and equal lung sounds. Sweet! Wish I could use that lil gadget...

We got him loaded into the bird and they took off. We then got the nice task of cleaning and disinfecting that comes with trauma calls.

The next day, my suspicions were confirmed. Massive Basilar Skull Fracture. One of the paramedics I work with told me the guy had pronounced Racoons Eyes and Battle's Sign the next day.
Things were iffy as to his chances for a while, then I didn't hear anything more.
I did find out recently that he is home. Not sure how much of a lasting effect he has from it, but he is home.

That call officially blew away my white cloud.

I've had several other calls worthy of writing about, but i'm just going to post this one for now... I've been pecking away at this post for way too long, a little here and a little there... I'll write more soon.

Be safe!

Torn...

2007-01-08T18:51:00.000-05:00

How come when you think you've found a good thing, sometimes it just totally lets you down, or you let yourself down, or it turns out it wasn't meant for you???
That's what has bouncing around my head for a good week now... And here I am, on the brink of letting the dispatch job go...
It started out pretty good... I started in September, working 1600-0000. The learning process was fun... going from watching to doing helped me learn a lot more. I was slowly getting the hang of it as time went on. My trainer was good, pointed me in the right direction, gave me a load of help...

Then I went to nights. Not bad, kind of tough to get used to, and usually very quiet. Which was good and bad. Good because it was a slower pace most of the time, gave me more time to learn the intricacies of the job, etc... bad because it is quieter, so you don't get the repetitive learning mechanism in motion as much... things are more spread out, but usually when something happened, it was big. One time we had 25 or 28 cars headed to one incident... Big fight at the city college, (the city that has its own dispatch center)... City PD showed up, called us, and basically screamed for every available marked car in the county... he got all but 5. 3 town cars, 1 sheriff, and 1 trooper were the only cars that did not respond due to location or being tied up on something. Every time a car arrived, we heard "KEEP EVERYBODY COMING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" until they finally calmed the riot down... well, near riot anyway... 300 people in a college dance who didn't wanna leave, 20-30 of whom got violent and started to brawl...
Anyway, nights went ok. I was having a few snags here and there but was going ok for the most part, my trainer was great, etc...

Thennnn, I went to days. Within a few days of being assigned to B-lines (0800-1600) I felt the beginnings of a slow downward spiral. I was convinced that my trainer was the Devil's red-headed stepchild. (Not really. She is however, one of the most venomous, bitchy, nasty, rude, condescending, unhelpful, monkey wrench-like, abrasive wenches I've ever met.)
No help from her at all. I actually went backwards. In her eyes, everything I had learned before her tutelage was wrong and she had no problem burying her claws in my ass and hissing or screeching in my ear that she thought so. I could not do anything right. And everything I was doing was the same as I had done on the other shifts without problems from anyone, even the picky perfectionists. So here I was, basically relearning the entire job because this witch was on a power trip.

This spiral of apprehension and dread continued up until about a week and a half ago when after one particularly nerve grating day, I snapped. I held it in until she left, just slowly blocking everything else out, trying to get that last 40 minutes out of the way and over with. After she left, I went to leave also, then decided to grow a set of cojones and talk to the supervisor. I called her into the hall and just unloaded everything. Told her what was going on, that I could not take this anymore, that I did not want to fail at this job, but that I couldn't take the wench's badgering anymore. The next day of work I was with the supervisor and everything was peachy keen... for a few days.

I began looking inside of me, objectively at my performance, trying to figure out what went wrong... I felt dumber. I felt more useless and clueless than I did when I first started, except now I also felt like I was sitting there cross-eyed and drooling, and I was feeling very inadequate.

Then, my feelings of inadequacy was confirmed when I was pulled into the office of our new Assistant Director ( A Sgt. with the Sheriff's Office) and informed (fairly and matter-of-factly) that I was behind the curve of where a new dispatcher with my time in so far should be and that my training was being extended a few weeks. I should be just about ready to be cut loose of trainee-hood by now and sent into the insane, confusing, and frustrating world of dispatcherland with no leash. But, I am not ready for that yet, I was told, to which I totally agreed. That conversation got my "Plan B" wheels turning hard.

What to do, what to do....????

I decided yesterday, after a solid week of deep consideration, brainstorming, and trying to work out every angle that this job was not meant for me.

Then I began to think of the last year or so of my life... Giving a year of my life to paramedic training for what? So I could sit behind a radio and send all the other paramedics to jobs and let my skills rot? So that I could say "See, I told you I could do it!" and then neglect everything that I learned? I think not!

So Today, I began the hunt. I stopped by 3 ambulance companies. I was told by 2 that they didn't think that they were hiring but it's always good to have an application on file. I also went to the ambulance Co. where I did my ride time for paramedic class. There, I was told that they "May just be hiring", filled out the app, and left. I was hoping to talk to the bosses, but one was off today and the other was out and about. I did get to say hello to my preceptor and some of the people who were on when I was going my time... hung out and chatted for a few and then left.
I've also heard of 3 other ambulances that are hiring "Within Range" (not too far of a commute).
I could be pretty much gauranteed a job in Syracuse. However, I really don't want to go there. I know a guy (works for QVA and Syracuse) who, when I spoke to him a little while ago about a lead he was looking into some time ago, went into recruit mode, telling me the 43 reasons to go to Syracuse. I'm sorry, but I don't want to work in Syracuse. I will if I have to, but i'd rather not, given a choice.

So here I am, blogging instead of searching the net for opportunities. I'll be signing off of here shortly and starting the search for paramedic employment...

This sucks though... So many doors were opened for this job, I figured this was it...
I've known for a while that this wasn't for me to retire off of though... I knew that within a month of starting my training.

On to Plan B...
Get a paramedic job full time, start working my butt into shape, go back to school for Criminal Justice, try to get into ENCON (NYS Dept of Environmental Conservation Police), then hopefully eventually go to the Ranger School and get into the NYS Forest Rangers.
That's the plan anyway...

Other than yet another job fiasco, life is great.
I have an awesome girlfriend, if I didn't mention it last time... Things are going great. She's pretty down to earth, tomboyish, likes the outdoors almost as much as I do (some of our best dates have been hikes and nature drives...) and to top it off, we can actually hold intelligent conversations with each other. It's great.

Well, time to start looking for job options in the paramedic field.
Be safe!!!

Still alive!

2006-12-06T14:16:00.000-05:00

Hello all!
Sorry for the absence. Life has been pretty crazy lately. Much has changed since August! I'll be writing soon to fill in the blanks there.

The purpose of this post is to announce with pride that my Paramedic Cherry finally got popped.
I've had a fair amount of run-of-the-mill calls since i got my card in mid-August. Quite a few BLS runs, and quite a few simple ALS runs. You know what I mean; O2, IV (usually a saline lock), ECG, check blood sugar, keep em comfortable, and have a nice cruise to the hospital. I've had a few that induced a mild pucker factor, but nothing that seriously puckered me up or tested my knowledge retention.

Well, that changed the other day. I've been running a pretty stupid schedule for the last month or so... 0000-0800 at dispatch, 0900-1800 or 2000 at QVA, and just praying for peaceful days so i can sleep before I have to go back to dispatch. I've had a few days that were busy and I got diddly for sleep, but for the most part it's been ok.

Anyway, I got home from work on Monday morning, slept for a few hours. A while after I got up, I had to go into town for something. On my way back, I was coming around the corner about a block up for the fire station when I heard "QVA, EMS".
"Well, this is convenient, I'm right here already."
---QVA, Medical Emergency, 12345 Back Rd., 70 y/o male, Possible Cardiac---
*Yawn* "Yep. ECG, IV, O2, check blood sugar, maybe some Nitro and Aspirin, transport, etc etc..."

The other 2 members of my crew answered up. One of whom is one of the best Ambulance Drivers you'll ever see (Before you all gasp and start calling me names, he is actually strictly an ambulance driver. Was an EMT once upon a time, but now just drives. And boy, can he drive. It's a lot more comforting when you hear Mike answer up, especially when the weather is bad. The guy gives one heluva smooth ride and he can also whip the ponies very effectively and safely when he needs to). The other crew member was an EMT who has a history of issues. Some of these issues include agitating fragile situations, not following directions, etc. Nice woman, but has a history, ya know? So right there, a small part of me groaned and hoped for a BS call. We all got to the station and went on our merry way, over the river and through the woods, to cardiac's house we go...

On arrival, we backed into a nice snowblown driveway (we picked up some accumulation the other day... this locale had 10-12 inches.) I assigned the crew to get the Monitor, Airway bag, and stretcher while I went in and got the scoop.
I knocked on the door, heard "Come in", and went in. To my left sat an elderly gent, a little on the heavyset side, sitting on a recliner with his hands on the arms in a tripod position of sorts. He was obviously short of breath and a bit on the pale side.

This is the conversation and sequence of events that followed:
Me: "Hi, I'm Adam, I'm a Paramedic with the ambulance, what's going on today?"
Him: "Well, I'm having a hard time catching my breath, my chest feels funny, and my blood pressure is acting weird."
Me: "Define 'weird'."
Him: "Well, this was my last one, I took it with my machine here," pointing at the bottom set of numbers on a legal pad.
Me: *Looks down at legal pad and sees 72/52, eyebrows promptly raise, I reach for his wrist for a radial pulse... nada. Reposition... Nada. Hmmmm... Put on my ears and listen to his chest... clear lung sounds in all fields, heart sounds are kinda quiet and kinda fast. Couldn't tell how fast, but it sounded a little Tachy.*
Him: "Then I took it just before you walked in and my machine said 'ERROR'"
Me: "Hmm."

At this point, my crew walked in. I promptly reached for a BP cuff and directed the EMT to get the monitor set up for me. Inflate cuff to 160... 150, 140, 130, 120, 110, 100, 90... Nothin. Eyebrows start to crunch as I drop past 80, 70, 60, still nothin. I hit 50 and suddenly I heard a sound that instigated one intense pucker factor; "beepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeep." "Please let that be a pager ," was the first thought to cross my mind. Alas, it was not to be. I looked at the cardiac monitor to my right and saw a bright green "200" over a picture perfect narrow complex tachycardia.

"Feces," I thought. "Thiiiiisss is gonna be fun."

Driver has been around long enough to know good from bad on ECGs and I see his eyebrows raised also. "You did bring your lead foot with you today, right?" I quietly ask, to which he smiles and nods. Sweet.

"Sir, which hospital would you like to go to?" *Please say RMH, please say RMH, please say RMH* (I'm not too fond of RMH, but it is the closest facility at a distance of 20 miles and pretty much a straight shot from QV to there.)
"RMH," states the patient.
"Good choice," I said to Pt. To EMT, I said, "Mike and I will load him up and get him outside, I need you to go set me up an IV start kit, a line, and get the Adenosine out." Off she went after she finished putting him on 02, Mike and I got him loaded up and carried the stretcher down the porch stairs, then wheeled him to the rig.
The EMT was still spiking the bag for me. I rechecked his radials, very weak and very fast. At least I can feel them now, I thought.

I reached across to the opposite bench, grabbed an 18 ga, a tournequet, gauze, alcohol prep, and the venigaurd (the clear sticky piece of plastic we use to secure IV sites.) On goes the tournequet and after a few seconds I started looking for an AC. (Antecubital vein. It runs under the surface in the crook of your elbow, its a good size vein.) I could just barely feel it there. I prepped the site, took a deep breath, crossed my fingers, inserted the needle... Flash! Shweeet!
This was the perfect night for a successful first stick. Got it hooked up and it flowed beautifully. I know sometimes AC's can be positional but this baby was flowin no matter how the arm moved.

Once the IV was in, I again asked for the Adenosine and was promptly handed a small brown glass vial. Phenergan. WTF. Tell me we're not setting the tone here...
"Nononono. Adenosine. White boxes, one with a red end, 2 with yellow ends."
Next I'm handed a box of Lidocaine. I start to get up to get it myself when they finally found it. They also set me up some 10 cc flushes. Come to find out, the drug shuffle was the only issue of the whole call. We really did have a good flow going among the crew and the EMT was actually keeping her head on straight today. Sweet.

I told Mike that we were good to go so he hopped up front and took off. I got the first Adenosine dose (6mg) set up and told the EMT to squeeze the IV bag hard when I told her to.
I gave the guy the Adenosine prep speech (you might feel funny, you might get dizzy, your chest might hurt for a minute, but this should make you feel better), hit 'Record', kinked off the line, slammed in the first 6mg of Adenosine, slammed in the flush, and told EMT to squeeze. Looked at the monitor.... Holding steady at 196. "Ok, not uncommon for the first 6 to be ineffective, lets go for 12." Got the next dose of 12 mg ready, record, kink, slam, slam, squeeze... Nada. Didn't even skip a beat. WTF. All of a sudden, pt says he feels a little better. BP is 118/72 with a pulse rate of 190. Nice. He also had about 400cc's of saline in by then.

Ok, 3rd dose.. Set up for the final 12 mg, record, kink, slam, slam, squeeze... Whats this? Brakes! Rate slows down to 133, plateaus, then climbes back up to 188. Dangit.
Then just to confirm what I was thinking, I pulled out my protocol book...
"For Narrow Complex Tachycardias >150 bpm, Immediate Syncronized Cardioversion is indicated. You may attempt a brief medication trial. For NCT's <150, cardioversion is usually not indicated."

Dammit, I do NOT want to have to zap this guy without Valium or Versed, but he is still haulin
ass, completely refractory to the Adenosine... Hmmmm. HEY! We just got Cardizem! And everything about this guy is stable except for his rate...

So I called Resource and asked for RMH. Once I had RMH on the phone, I gave them the scoop, told them his current vitals, told them that he was refractory to the whole series of Adenoside, that cardioversion was the next thing on the protocols but this guy was pretty stable, and I mentioned that we now have Cardizem. I was told to stand by.
A minute later, they asked if I had Amiodarone.
"Yes, I have Amiodarone..." *Why the hell do they wanna know if i have Amio?*
"Oh wait, QVA, Standby again."
"Ok."
"QVA, is it wide complex or narrow complex?"
"Narrow complex! *I already told you SVT-narrow complex, knucklehead*
"OK, Stand by again..... QVA, do you have Cardizem?"
"Why, Yes I do!"
"Ok, standby again...... QVA, per Dr Soandso, Give the pt 20 mg of Cardizem IV over 2 minutes."
"Copy RMH, Per Dr Soandso, 20 mg Cardizem IV over 2 minutes, we're see you in 5-7 mins."
"That's affirmative QVA, transport and advise, we'll see you when you get here."

So out comes the Cardizem. Mixed it up, shook it up, looked it over, plugged it into the line, and slowly started pushing the plunger, keeping an ear on the monitor. About 10 mg into the dose, I heard the monitor slowing down. I looked over and saw that we were at 165 and dropping. Sweet! It progressively made its way down to 100 then started bouncing between 130 and 90. Once the whole dose was in, the rate danced around for a minute and then settled down at 96 and regular. I looked at our pt and his eyes were kinda wide as he took a deep breath.
"I bet you feel better." I said.
"Wow, Do I ever! Can I go home now?" he asked with a laugh.

By this point, we were almost at the hospital and we took another set of vitals: 124/62, 96, 18. B-E-A-U-tiful! I like this Cardizem stuff! We took the guy into a room, transfered him over to their bed, gave report, then started writing, had the Doc who gave me the order for the Cardizem sign my PCR, talked to him for a few minutes, finished up, and off we went. Of course, I forgot to turn in the hospital copies of my PCR's so we had to turn around about 10 minutes away from the hospital on the way home to drop of the paperwork. I was happy thought. If forgetting to turn in my paperwork was the worst thing that happened out of that whole call, it was a damn good night. And my EMT was great for the whole call. Every time she checked his vitals she checked his lung sounds. Fantastic.

So that was my first real pucker-factor call with me in the role of lead. And I didn't even screw anything major up. I was a little nervous about my first big call, but all turned out well and I remembered just about everything I needed to, so hopefully I can continue to do alright.
No codes or other major shit calls yet *knocking hard on the desk* So far so good!
Well, I will sit down sometime in here and fill y'all in on current events soon.
Take care!

The light at the end of the tunnel!

2006-08-28T22:45:00.000-05:00

The light is a new career and the tunnel is my less-than-impressive resume spanning the last several years. The last few years have seriously sucked, job-wise.
I worked in a convenience store on grave shift during college, quit that job to come work for QVA (which is the one thing that has been relatively steady for me) and because I was moving back home, then in '04 i got a job working at a furniture factory near here. I turned down a security/EMT position at the casino because this job was closer to home. Then I kind of kicked myself because the factory job lasted 8 months, then I got laid off due to a sales slump. Looked back into the casino, nothing open. Looked into the R.M. Syracuse, also kept looking locally for work. I got hired on at a Marina/Bait and Tackle shop, then a week before that was to start, RM called me for an interview. So I weighed my options: $8.50/hr 15 miles from home, or $8.00/hr starting pay 45 miles from home. I took the closer option.

A week after I got hired, they decided to tell me it was a seasonal job. The place is open year-round, but only 2 or 3 people, the manager included, work there during the off-season.
When the end was getting near, I looked back into the casino. I got shot down from there because they didn't like the fact that I had a fair amount of Saturday classes for paramedic class, and they told me to call back after class was done. Yeah, right. I'll get right on that.

I wound up getting hired as a Sub. Bus Driver for the school district I live in. That was relatively steady and quite interesting. So over this past winter, I worked for QVA, occasionally for VO (Just started doing my ride-outs that are required for new employees and new ALS providers. before that, I havent worked there in months... BS factor got to be too high and i felt i needed to concentrate on paramedic class more than I did being people's litter-box), and I drove Bus.

When school let out, I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. I desperately needed a job, but I had NO time available to get a full time job and still get my clinicals and ride time done. So I scraped by over the summer, working for QVA, then getting hired at the bar that I have frequented over the last year or so. That is quite entertaining, being a bartender in a redneck bar. Some of the stories I've heard and some of the people I've met... wow.
Anyway, i've been working there for a couple months, a few days a week, and it's helped. The main thing was that it is flexible.

Early this year I had to stop by the Administrative Office for the schools and on my way out, I took a glance at the bulletin board, which had a number of civil service exam postings on it. One caught my eye: Public Safety Telecommunicator. Hmm. So I looked into it, paid to take the exam, took it in March, and went on my merry way.

Then in June, I got a notice in the mail to report to the county office building on such-and-such day for the Typing and Information entry test. I went, passed it, and again went on my way

I got a canvas letter and the test results shortly thereafter. I scored a 90 on the civil service exam, which surprisingly put me in the #1 spot. I also comfortably passed the typing test. Well wouldn't you know it, I got that letter, went to MA to visit my Aunt and Uncle for a weekend, came home, and on the Tuesday after I came home, I sat down to fill out the canvass letter. As I was looking it over, my heart almost stopped. The time was 17:30 on a Tuesday. The canvass letter had to be hand delivered or postmarked THAT DAY. %$#@&
I was so mad at myself, because I had spent that whole day being a couch potato, then finally remembered the letter when it was too late.
The next day, I called the county Personnel Dept and told them what happened. They said that I was off of that canvass list, but if I sent in the canvass letter with an explaination as to why it was late, they would put me on the list for any future canvass. I did just that, then I spent about a week kicking myself over my laziness and blowing that job opportunity, then I got over it and decided to keep looking for job possibilities.

Fast-forward a few weeks. Guess who gets a phone call from the 911 Center, looking to set up an interview? That put me on Cloud 9. I went into my interview, found out that I was one of 4 candidates, and also the only one with any dispatching experience (Mom used to dispatch for one of the ambulances in an adjoining county before 911 came in, and when I was old enough I also signed on. Didn't do much dispatching because 911 came in just before I joined, but I got a few years of keeping track of the rigs, their times, getting crews together, etc etc.)
Anyway, the interview went well, the interviewer (who is also the head of 911, a county coordinator, among other things) told me all the stuff about the job, asked tons of questions... When it was over, he said they would be wrapping up the interviews that week and would be making their decision the week after that and would call to let me know.
Well, they never called. I didn't think much of it, I figured I either didn't get it, or else they were following the typical state/county hiring process (slower than molasses in February). A few weeks ago, I got a letter telling me to go to the county health office for a Visual and Hearing Acuity test. I figured that either it was just another part of the screening process prior to them making their decision, or else I had the job and they just forgot to tell me.
There was one girl there who had taken the test and we got talking. I asked if anyone had ever called her after the interview and she said that no, no one did, but she called the guy at 911 and bugged him after a week or 2 and he told her that yes, she had the job, Personnel must have forgotten to call. So right there, I got excited. She was #2 on the test, I was #1, and we were the only 2 there for the visual/hearing test.
The visual/hearing test was the day after the written exam for paramedic (So it was the 18th). Wednesday of last week, I got a call from home while I was working at the bar: There were 2 letters for me from the Dept. of Personnel. They brought them to me, i opened them, one was another canvass letter and the other was a letter saying that I passed the physical exam requirements for the job and was now eligible for appointment. SWEEET!
The next day, I called Personnel because I had a question about the canvass letter. On the front are 2 checkboxes. One says "Yes, I am interested in the position" and the other one says "No, I'm not interested". On the back are all sorts of particulars to check, and I wanted to make sure I filled it out right. I asked the woman at personnel what I needed to do on the back and she said "Nothing, just check yes or no on the front. I know for a fact that they want to appoint you to the position, and the only thing you use the back for is for future canvasses if you dont get appointed the first time around. So just check yes on the front and send it back to us, we'll get it upstairs, approved by the county board, send it to the 911 Center, and you should be hearing from them soon, it could be a few days, it could be a few weeks." I was almost dancing across the firehouse when I got off the phone with her. So I mailed it Thursday of last week.

I am really excited about this. I'm really hoping and praying that I can hack it as a dispatcher, because it is way past time for me to get into a career and get out of the dead-end-job pool.
I do have the paramedic card under my belt, so I can always fall back on that, but still. This job has county benefits, state retirement, starting pay of $23,381 a year, $30,000 at 5 years, and a really sweet vacation and scheduling setup. 8 hour days, 5 on 2 off, and each pay period the off-days back up one day. So if my first 2 weeks I have Wed-Thur off, the next pay period I get Tue-Wed off, then Mon-Tue, Sun-Mon, so on so forth. 2 weeks paid vacation per year, I get my 2 weeks the first year but I can't use them until I hit the 1-year mark, so when my 2nd year starts, I'll have 4 weeks of vacation that year. Then you have the usual earning of sick time and personal time.

From what they said in my interview, you don't get stuck on any one position, either. There are 5 spots on shift: County Law (State Police, County Sheriff, and multiple town/village police agencies) County Fire/EMS, City Fire, City PD, and Data (running VINs and licence info, backgrounds, etc.) and it rotates on a day to day basis so that each day you're on a different station.

Did I mention that i'm really excited about this? I am gonna make this work. This is too good of a shot for me to miss. I think I could definately stick with this job. It would take something pretty impressive for me to leave this job. As long as I can handle everything that goes with it, I don't see it being much of a problem. I've dealt with the on scene stuff for 7 years... I know dispatch can be just as stressful though. Probably more so, I would imagine. (What do you think, Wadical? Any advice?)

Well, it's getting late and i need to go get some coffee. Have a good night!

A case of whup-ass

2006-08-18T06:37:00.000-05:00

WWWOOOOHOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm a paramedic, I'm a paramedic!!! We did it!
Mom, Stacey, and I all passed!!! QV's paramedic population has now doubled and now half of the paramedics for the ambulance have the same phone number. how cool is that!!! Plus from what mom said last night, we are the first mother/daughter/son combo in New York State to all get certified together.

Yesterday was pretty great overall. All but 2 of us from my class who were testing on-site met at the training center, hung out for a bit, had a beer (passengers only) then headed out to Albany.
The guys i rode with had gotten a hotel room so we just chilled there for a few, went to Applebee's, went back to the hotel, soaked in the hot tub for a few, then went to the testing site.
Near the end of the test i started getting a little edgy and had to consciously keep myself from getting lax and just whipping off answers. After 2.5 hours, went into the scoring room as a basic and stepped out as an extremely excited paramedic. I got a 94% on the BLS portion and a 90% on the ALS portion. I was just about dancing.

We went back to the hotel room afterwards, lounged in the pool and the hot tub for an hour or 2, then started making our way back.

Now I am just writing this out while waiting for the bathroom to free up so i can take a shower. I'm heading into the city to take my visual and hearing acuity test, then going to the training center for my protocol test and to get online, then going to VO and letting them know that despite their doubts and occasional mockery, I passed this thing. Actually, today is a friend of mine's shift and he and most of the ppl on this shift have been pretty supportive.

Ok, gotta hit the showers.

Thanks for the well-wishes, everybody!

Tomorrow is THE big day (2 of 2)

2006-08-16T21:43:00.000-05:00

Here we go.
if all goes well, i'll be a paramedic in about 24 hours.
either way, i am partying my ass off this weekend.

I had a blast tonite... Went fishing at my favorite lake ever...
Caught a very nice largemouth. a solid 4 pounder, if my weight estimation is correct.
it was a nice, fat, solid fish. got my pulse racing pretty nicely.

Well, i'll letcha know this weekend how i did.
I plan on opening a can of whup-ass on it.

We did it! 1 of 2

2006-08-15T00:13:00.000-05:00

Yep! Passed my Practical Skills Exam. So did Mom. So did Stacey. I'm pretty sure everyone who made it to the practical, passed the practical. Now all i have to do is pass the state written exam thursday and it's allll good. I plan on passing it. i will pass it. and i will enjoy the relief of having everything done. and i will not be around next weekend. i will be with at a friends house friday. and maybe camping and/or fishing in North Nowhere on saturday. Either way, this weekend is gonna be a party. a big party

Tomorrow Morning is the Big Day, 1 of 2

2006-08-11T21:08:00.000-05:00

Here we go, ladies and gentlemen.
Time to prove that I have learned a thing or two over the last year.
Tomorrow morning, (almost precisely 10 hours from this moment) is my Practical Skills Exam for Paramedic class. We had a practice practical Thursday night and it went well for the most part. All I gotta do is remember to keep my head, not freak, breathe deep, and get it done.
I've come too far to botch it now.
I'll let you know how it goes.

Cat got your tongue?

2006-08-08T02:04:00.000-05:00

Saw this story, had to share it.

Calling in sick to work makes me feel uncomfortable because no matter how legitimate my illness, I always sense that my boss thinks I am lying. On one occasion, I had a valid reason but lied anyway because the truth was too humiliating to reveal. I simply mentioned that I had sustained a head injury and that I hoped I would feel up to coming in the next day. By then I could think up a doozy to explain the bandage on my crown.

In this case, the truth hurt. I mean, it REALLY hurt in the place men feel the most pain. The accident occured mainly because I had conceded to my wife's wishes to adopt a cute little kitty.

As the daily routine prescribes, I was taking my shower after breakfast when I heard my wife call out to me from the kitchen. "Honey!", she hearkened, "The garbage disposal is dead again! Come reset it!" "You know where the button is!", I protested through the pitter-patter of the shower. "Reset it yourself!" "I'm scared!", She pleaded. "What if it starts going and sucks me in?" Pause... "Please honey, it'll only take a second!"

No logical assurance about how a disposal can't start itself will calm the fears of a person who suffers from "Big-ol-scary-machine-ophobia", a condition brought on by watching too many Stephen King movies. It is futile to argue or explain. And if a poltergeist did, in fact, possess the disposal and she was ground into round, I'd have to live with that for the rest of my life. So out I came, dripping wet and buck naked, hoping to make a statement about how her cowardly behavior was not without consequence. As it turned out, it was I who would suffer.

I made my way to the kitchen, crouched down, and stuck my head under the sink to find the button. It was the last action that I remember performing. It struck without warning, without respect to my circumstances. Nay, it was not a hexed disposal, drawing me into its gnashing metal teeth. It was our new kitty, clawing playfully at the dangling objects that she spied between my legs. She (Buttons, aka "The Grater") had been poised around the corner and stalked me as I took the bait under the sink. At precisely the second that I was at my most vulnerable, she leapt at the toys that I unwittingly offered and snagged them with her needle-like claws.

Now when most men feel pain or even sense danger anywhere close to their masculine region, they lose all rational thought to control orderly bodily movements. Instinctively, their nerves compell the body to contort inwardly, while rising upward at a violent rate of speed. Not even a well-trained monk could calmly stand with his groin supporting the full weight of a kitten and rectify the situation in a step-by-step procedure. Wild animals are sometimes faced with a "Fight or Flight" syndrome. Men, in this predicament, choose only the "Flight" option.

Fleeing straight up, I knew at that moment how a cat feels when it is alarmed. It was a dismal irony. But, whereas cats seek great heights to escape, I never made it that far. The sink and cabinet bluntly impeded my ascent; the impact knocked me out cold. When I awoke, my wife and the Paramedics where standing over me. Having been fully briefed by my wife, the paramedics snorted as they tried to conduct their work while suppressing their hysterical laughter. My wife told me that I should be flattered.

At the office, colleaguess tried to coax an explaination out of me. I kept silent, claiming that it was too painful to talk. "What's the matter, cat got your tongue?"
If only they had known.

Gaurdian Angels and the Grace of God

2006-08-04T22:12:00.000-05:00

Those two forces, my friends, were working overtime Wednesday night.
Here is the story as determined by the Fire Investigators.

At 1530 on 8/2, lightning struck the house. It caused a smouldering fire in a crawl space. The lightning also caused a propane leak in the basement. As we all know, propane is heavier than air and seeks out the lowest point, in this case, the basement. Since propane settles, if it has had enough time to settle, there won't be much of a smell if it's enclosed. Getting off track though.

The homeowner got home around 1900, found her house full of smoke, went to the neighbors house and called 911.

My FD was activated, along with our neighbors to the west (Station 8) and the north(Station 29). When they got on scene, they were faced with a 2 story colonial with a smoke condition in the house. As a side note, the homeowners were putting up a stone facade on the house. The FD investigated, could not find any active fire. They went to the TIC (thermal imaging camera) and found the fire in the crawlspace. One crew went outside and started removing a few rocks from the wall to access the crawlspace from the outside and another crew went inside with saws and PPV (positive pressure ventilation) fans. When access was gained, a cellar nozzle was inserted into the crawlspace. (A cellar nozzle is a ball shaped nozzle with multiple orifices pointing in multiple directions.. a hole is cut in the floor and the nozzle is hooked up to a 2 1/2" line, then lowered into the cellar. When water flows, the head of the nozzle starts spinning, sending large amounts of water in all directions. It is a very effective tool for fighting cellar fires and it saves you from having to send firefighters into the burning basement, which is about the worse place you can be on a fireground.) As far as the investigators can tell, when the cellar nozzle was charged, it introduced a lot of air to the fire as well as stirring the prementioned pooled propane. As we all know, Fire+Air+Large amounts of Propane= BOOM.

And that's exactly what happened. There were several (6+) Firefighters inside when the house exploded. The stone facade blew off the side of the house, landing on the deputy chief from Station 29, buring him up to his chest in stone. Originally, the docs thought he fractured his spine, but upon further review they decided that he exacerbated an old injury and also injured his leg. The chief from Station 29 got 1st and 2nd degree burns to his face and hands and also reportedly caught a PPV fan with his head (reports say the ppv fan has the shape of his helmet on the cowling). Another assistant chief from the Station 29 broke his leg and i don't know about burns on him. In all, 5 ppl from Station 29 got transported.

In my Dept., my Deputy chief got 1st degree burns to his face and 2nd degree burns to his hands, as did my Captain. I believe my captain got it a little worse than the deputy chief because the captain's mask got knocked off in the explosion. Another of our firefighters went to the hospital for eval due to some transient deafness. He was treated and released quickly.

Our neighbors to the west (Station 8) had 4 FF's injured. The chief had burns to the face, head, and hands as well, i believe. I'm not sure about the other 3's injuries, but i believe they were burns, bumps, and bruises.

Come to find out, the neighbors later told crews that the propane tank "Had been making a funny noise" earlier (after the lightning strike and before the 911 call), so they shut it off. The tank itself was some distance from the house (100' or so from what i was told).

The fact that no one died is nothing short of a miracle, nothing less than divine intervention. The fact that the most severe burns were 2nd degree is a miracle in and of itself! If the wall had fallen on anyone other than the Deputy chief from Station 29, it would have killed or seriously injured them. The DC is about 6'5" and built solid. He's a foreman for a construction company, so he's got many years of hard work behind him. His build saved him, along with the grace of God.

Everyone is already home for the hospital, which is great. That means no one was burnt bad enough to need the Burn Unit. Only 4 or 5 out of the 12 spent the night at the hospital.

I got to the station around 0300 and the assistance was already pouring in. The farthest dept to the Northwest end of our county (Station 26) was at our station, with a crew and an engine on standby. We are the farthest dept. to the Southeast. Last night, the farthest in-county dept. to the north of us (Station 24) was on standby at our station with an engine and a squad. Station 29 has departments from the far west of the county (Stations 27 and 15, among others) on standby for them. It's amazing. There was even a firefighter from one of the paid depts to the southeast of us (about 25-30 miles SE, 2 counties away) at our station standing by. Thursday morning, we had 2-3 news stations out front with their communications masts up in the air, reporters everywhere. it was crazy.

I got a chance to see the house that morning when we got called up there to extinguish a hot spot. I couldn't believe how blessed we were that no one died when I saw that house and also the rock pile the 29's DC got buried in. Completely amazing.

My chief is still really shaken. He has an extensive fire intruction/training, prevention, and investigation background. He's on the NFPA Advisory Boards, all sorts of stuff. And he is really shook up and torn up over this. He's the type who will spend every idle moment picking the whole scenario apart trying to find what went wrong and what could have been different, and beating himself up over anything he can think may have been done differently. So i do hope he can rest easy. The investigators determined that he and the rest of the crews did everything right with the information they had and nothing could have been done differently unless someone could have seen into the future.

For those of you who offered up prayers, Thank You, Thank You, Thank You.
God was watching over Station 4 (my dept) and everyone else present that night.
---------------------------------

In other news, paramedic class is almost over. I have 2 more rides with my preceptor and 2 more ER rotations and i am done with clinicals/field time.
Our PSE is the 12th (!!!!!!!!!!) and our state written is the 17th. Time to start brushing up and preparing. Paramedic, here I come!

Have a great night, and thanks again

Please Pray

2006-08-03T01:31:00.000-05:00

Hi all
If you could all say some prayers for the people in my FD and neighboring FD's, I would appreciate it. We had a house fire tonite while I was at work and apparently while the crews were working in the house, it exploded. All i know is that about 12 people were hurt, some serious, and anywhere from 6 to all of the injured were firefighters. I know at least 3 ppl from my FD went to the hospital with burns and other injuries.
I'll let you know more when I do.
Any and all prayers would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks

almost there....

2006-07-19T01:54:00.000-05:00

Wow. I didn't realize my last post was in May. oops.
It has been way too busy lately, but we are close to the end of class so I should be able to breathe soon. It has been an interesting 2 months. Our instructor resigned a few weeks ago, citing medical and personal issues. So the last few lectures have been split up among various people who have been assisting with teaching.

I'm almost done with clinical time. Maybe 40 hours left, give or take a bit.
I'm in Phase 3 in my ride time. hopefully I'll get into Phase 4 next week. I have to have everything done and turned in by 8/11. Our PSE is 8/12.
I can't believe I've been in this class for almost a year now. I REALLY can't believe that i'm gonna be a paramedic in a month. I'm just hoping i can continue improving with my ride time and get signed out.

It's been an interesting few months with ride time.
Since i've been in phase 3, I've had 2 DOA's, several BLS runs, several routine ALS runs, a few sign-offs. Monday i got to do a transfer that had Dopamine running and then tuesday we had a disabetic wake-up.

The DOA's were pretty obvious. The first one, we were told on dispatch that the Pt had expired 20 minutes prior and the family wanted it confirmed. He was in bed, ART, hooked up the monitor, Asystole in all 3 leads, disconnected, talked to PD, talked to family, and went on our merry way. The other one came in as a possible unattended. We got there, went into the bathroom, and there he was. Buck naked, doing a backbend over the toilet with his head and shoulders crunched into the corner next to the tank, complete with cold, moist skin, and lividity from the shoulders up and the calves down.
My preceptor sent me in the bathroom with the monitor to confirm the guy while he talked to the family. As my preceptor was talking to the family, telling them that the man was dead and answering their questions, I put the guy on the monitor, turned it on, and... Oh Mylanta, I see a PVC! And another one. And then what looks like a run of V-Fib. I'm looking at our Pt. who is obviously dead as a hammer and looking at the monitor which appears to have a workable rhythm. WTF is going on here? I'm nowhere near the leads and the guy is obviously not moving, so I did what any level-headed paramedic student in my situation would do. I semi-urgently called out my preceptor's name. He promptly showed up at the bathroom door as i was printing out the strip. He looked at it, got a slight pucker-factor look about him, looked from the leads to the monitor, and said, "Let go of the monitor for a second." I did and lo and behold, there appeared the asystole that matched the obvious state of the Pt. Turns out that if you put a Lifepak 12 on the bathroom sink, hook it up to a dead person, and then steady said Lifepak 12, the minute movement of the moniter produces PVC and V-fib look-alikes. I knew you could produce such artifact by playing with the leads, but i wasn't moving the leads. I just had my hand on the moniter. Good to know for next time though.

This past friday i was riding with my preceptor at another agency he works for (he works for a busy, city-based agency where i mainly ride and also an agency in a small village with a decent sized coverage area, but much less call volume.) We had a cancelled MVC in the Wal-Mart parking lot, then we got called mutual aid a few districts over for another MVC, this one a roll-over with 3 pts. We arrived just as the primary rig of the agency we M/A'ed to was getting ready to leave. They told us that they had the younger girl and the mother, and that our pt, the 17 y/o girl who was driving was right over there on the backboard, ready to go. So we got her loaded up and headed for the trauma center. She wasn't really hurt, which was amazing after I saw the damage to the SUV that had rolled at least twice and was barely visible from our position on the road, but due to the rollover and the speed and everything, we went to the trauma center. Her only complaint was a seatbelt burn. It was a pretty uneventful ride, we just chatted and stuff along with the usual BLS work-up.

After that we had a Difficulty breathing call which went pretty smoothly. Routine ALS, Duo-neb treatment, O2, half-hour wait at the hospital. when we got there there were 4 ambulances already there. we got inside and couldn't even get in the ED because there were 3 stretchers ahead of us. So we got to sit there for a half hour, 40 minutes until a bed opened up.

Monday, I was riding in the city. It was a pretty calm day, call-wise. We had a BLS pt. who had fallen out of her wheelchair and was stiff and sore because she was on the floor for an hour or so.
Then we got called for a transfer from the hospital in the next city north of us down to the ped's ICU about 30-40 miles away for an 18 y/o girl on Dopamine. That kind of raised our eyebrows. We picked her up and the Dopamine was on a pump, so I didn't really get to use it, but i did some med math with it. The math I came up with said 30 mcg/kg/minute. I thought that was a little high. Then i realized i forgot a decimal point in the mg/mcg conversion. Oops. Good thing the pump was giving the drugs and not me. That's a med math mistake I won't make again. She was really only on 3 mcg/kg/min.

Then yesterday (Tuesday) we had a few calls. We started the day out with an unresponsive Diabetic. "Sweet!" I thought. The whole way there I was plotting out my Course of Action. Got to the house and the family met us outside and told us that he was pretty bad. They found him on the floor, "barely conscious and moaning". I got inside and he was showing classic hypoglycemia signs. Pale, cool, very diaphoretic, and he had a GCS of 4/2/4. I had the EMT check the vitals, my preceptor put on the monitor, and i went for the IV. That's when it took a short downward spiral. It was relatively low light in the house, but I found a decent AC. The first IV needle i picked up fell out of the needle gaurd onto the floor. I picked it up and started looking for a place to set it down out of the way. I started reaching towards the used alcohol prep to set the needle down and my preceptor thought i was going to wipe it off and use it. He said "Do NOT reuse that thing!" to which I replied, "I wasn't planning on it." I grabbed another 18, I got a good flash on it, but it wouldn't advance, so there's negative IV x 1. Dammit. We did use that for a Chemstick with showed a blood sugar in the low 40's. My preceptor then said, "Let's get him out of the house and into the rig and we'll try again." We got him out to the rig into some better light and promply found a pipe of an AC vein which I hit with an 18 ga., no problem. Pushed an Amp of D50 and 5 minutes later the guy was bright eyed, bushy tailed, A&Ox3, etc. etc. I love D50. It never ceases to amaze me how fast people come around when they need that stuff and get it. We transported him without any problems. Once we turned him over, my preceptor asked how i felt that call went. I told him "Could have been better, could have been worse." He said "Yeah, you're right. A couple things: That first IV was just atrocious (which i did agree with). First i thought you were going to use the one you dropped, then you had problems with the one you started in the house. The one in the rig was just about perfect though." He then proceeded to tell me that it's best to get the Pt. out of the house and into the rig, which is a more controlled environment. What irritated me was that I totally agree with that and that's been my game plan all along. I've ridden with a few medics who have spent over half an hour in the house of a Pt. doing the IV and everything else. Personally, I prefer to get them in the rig ASAP especially if they have a serious issue going on, that way I have all my stuff right there and I'm "on my own turf" where it's a lot more controlled. The fact that I got some tunnel vision going on and forgot that really irritated me.
He also pointed out the fact that I forgot to put the guy on O2. We did put him on O2 pretty soon after we got to him, but my preceptor was looking for me to point out specifically that we needed it, instead they put him on it without my saying anything. There wasn't any delay in him getting it, but i did overlook it right off the bat. Just gotta remember, BLS before ALS, and ABC's always start out BLS. What really irked me about that call is that if i had done better on it, that call probably would have put me into Phase 4. Oh well. Hopefully we can get there next week.

All in all, i'm doing pretty well. My IV technique is really improving. I was pretty close to earning the nickname "Bloodbath" and I also had an ER nurse threaten to put a tourniquet around my neck. Up until recently, my IV's had a tendency to bleed all over the place. Mainly because i'd forget to take off the tourniquet, then i'd take the needle out of the cath before i was ready to put on the line or the lock. I've got that all figured out now though and they are getting alot cleaner and a lot more organized. And I now remember to take off the tourniquet right after i advance the cath. The only other issue i really have is "The leadership role". It took me some time to get used to the idea of walking in and taking control of the call and treating my preceptor like an assistant, but that's what he wants. He wants me to delegate tasks, etc. I'm getting better at it though. The diabetic call started out great in the leadership department. It's a shame that some of the other stuff kinda went a little downhill. It all worked out though and no one got hurt, so that's a good thing and a learning experience.

The past several calls (the BLS calls and the Routine ALS calls, anyway), we've gotten in the rig with the Pt. and he has said "let me know if you need anything" and he sits down in the captains chair. Most of the calls we've had, he hasn't had to jump in and add anything, so that's good. It's kind of nerve-wracking at times, but I figure that if i do something wrong or miss something, he'll jump in.

So yes, I have until 8/10 to get this stuff done. Hopefully it continues to go well and improve and hopefully I can rid myself of tunnel vision. The nice thing is that i'll be riding with another ALS provider with QVA for a while before i start riding as the Lead ALS. It won't be one of those deals where I ride a few shifts and then get thrown in as the only ALS provider. Or so I hope, anyway. Knowing my luck, the first call I go on solo will involve a black cloud and an elevated pucker factor.

In other news, I might have a new job soon. I took the civil service exam for a job with County Dispatch. I scored in at Numero Uno on the Civil Service exam and then I passed the typing/info entry test pretty smoothly. I got a canvas letter, sent it in, and I had an interview Thursday of last week. 2 available jobs, 4 people interested in those 2 jobs. My interviewer said that I was the only person who had dispatching experience (When i was younger I did some dispatching for the volunteer ambulance agency i used to run with) plus i've got 7 years in the fire service and 5 as an EMT. Plus I've worked days, evenings, and nights before and am willing to work any shift. He said that they would be making their decisions this week and they'd let me know either way. It would be cool to have that job. It would make paramedic be a part time job for now, but that's ok.
So I will keep you all posted about the progress on that job.
In the meantime, be safe and have fun.

It's Alllliiiiiivvvvve!

2006-05-30T23:44:00.000-05:00

Yup, I'm still alive. I knew it'd been a while since I've posted, but I didn't realize how long.
I've been so busy lately with hospital time and work and stuff that I hardly know which end is up.

I've done my time in the burn unit, which was morbidly awesome. I learned alot about burns and I was fascinated with some of the treatments and information and stuff...
There were 3 pts there when I went for my rotation.
One was a kid with 3rd degree water burns on his legs and backside and arm. I felt bad for him. Supposedly he had started his own bath, forgot to turn on the cold water with the hot, then jumped in and got burned. I thought that sounded like a feasible story until i found out that the kid can't walk. So something smells fishy there. I got to help with the bathing and bandaging on him. He had been in the unit for about a month when I was there and had already had the grafts and everything... most had taken, a few spots hadn't. What really kinda got me fried about this kids situation is that this is his 2nd time in the Unit. When he was 4, he supposedly "jumped in the bath he had run" and had 3rd degree burns, boot style. this time though, he "Jumped in and sat down". Once i heard about the mom, though, i think it's more likely that mom was baked or somethin, started the bath, forgot the cold water, and threw the kid in there. Sad stuff.

Another guy in there had 2nd degree flame burns on his chest, back, shoulders, face, and head.
He and some friends were at his garage when they heard something. When they went to investigate, they found some guys trying to steal gas. When the perps became aware of the owners presence, they promptly threw the gasoline on him, followed by a match. Those burns were pretty fresh. I was there on a Tuesday and that had happened the previous Saturday night. He was on a Fentanyl drip, i believe the dose was 7.5 mcg/hr along with a demand dose of 15 mcg available every 8 minutes... I'll have what he's having, minus the burns.
Anyway, they had applied pigskin to his burns. I guess that's the new thing for 2nd degree burns. Cover it with pigskin, and as the skin below it heals, the pigskin lets go of the skin. So when we cleaned the guy, the nurse was trimming the edges of the pigskin, then cleaning the guy. He had me help apply the ointment and stuff... I think they used Silvadene (sp?) then put on the dressings. I also watched the Physical Therapist run him through the basics to get the skin exersized and stretched and stuff.

The 3rd guy was really bad. He was an older gent, had been working on a farm tractor, was pouring some gas into the carbs or something like that, spilled some gas, and as luck would have it some wires contacted or something, lighting the tractor, and him, up. He had 3rd degree burns over 48% of his BSA (body surface area), almost all from the belt line up. His face and head was mostly 3rd, some 2nd. His chest and abdomen were all 3rds, his calf had a 3rd, his back had 2nd and 3rd, one hand had 2nds from the mid-forearm down, and the other arm was 3rds from the shoulder to the fingertips. his left hand was completely mummified.
I got to watch the surgery on him. They had already grafted his chest and abdomen, but alot of it did not take. I really felt bad for him because he had a DNR, but the family had it lifted for the surgery. Honestly, if i was burned that bad i'd probably be asking for the shotgun instead of 911... I don't know. I know there are miracle cases out there, but damn.... Burns like that would be hard enough for a young person to recover from, let alone a guy in his late 60's.

Anyway, I got to go to the OR and watch some of the surgery. They were putting a trach in as well as finishing up with the exsizing (sp?) of the 3rd degree burns. They weren't even grafting, just peeling, cauterizing, and bandaging. Have any of you ever seen an exsizement surgery? Holy mackerel... It reminded me of filleting a fish. This tool they use looks like a giant potato peeler and they cut the dead skin off in strips. It looks just like filleting a fish.
I watched them peel his leg and i sort of watched them opening his neck up for the trach and that was enough for me. They still had to do his entire left flank and arm. The leg was more than enough for me. I bowed out, went back upstairs to the unit, changed back into my clothes (First thing they did when I walked in was to get me a pair of scrubs and told me to change into them), and left.

I got my respiratory time done, which was pretty boring. I learned a few things about respiratory, watched some of the PT routines, medical treatments, lung sounds, etc.

This past week has been insane. On Thursday, I drove one of 6 buses to Niagara Falls Canada and Marine Land. It was the yearly field trip for one of the grades at school.
I had a blast! I had never been to Canada, Niagara Falls, or Marine Land before Thursday. I took full advantage of being there, too. We went to the Falls first. Once we dropped everyone off, we parked the buses, rode the Peoplemover back to the Falls. I walked along the observation area checking out the falls. I was so pissed that I forgot my camera. I snapped a few shots with my cell phone, but that was it. Anyway, I wandered around the shop and stuff for a while... I almost bought a RCMP hat, but didn't really have the money to spend on it. After that, I went down behind the falls, then we went on the Maid of the Mist. THAT was great. That right there was worth the whole trip.

After the Mist, i beat feet back for the bus, met up with the other drivers, picked up the kids, and off we went to Marine Land. I didn't realize the Falls and Marine Land were so close! Their entrances are right across from each other. Once we got to Marine Land I watched the Dolphin/sea lion show, played the Indycar game in the arcade (that was pretty cool) then just started wandering around. I had heard there was a pretty good roller coaster up there, but i couldn't see it or anything. I checked a few different things out as i was walking along, and I ran into a few kids i know from various bus routes i've driven. They told me "you have GOT to ride that roller coaster, it's freakin awesome!" They pointed me in the right direction and i started that way. I still couldn't see the RC, but i could hear it... Once i got closer, i heard the sound of the R.C. train, looked over, and saw the top of a loop through the trees. I got a little closer and I saw the track, down in a gully like 4 feet off the ground in the woods. I was getting more and more excited because this thing was really starting to look bad-ass.
Sure enough, it was. I went into the tunnel entrance (which is shaped to look like a dragon's mouth), and it was seriously dark in there. Once i got in a little way, i had to actually put my hands out to keep from running into anything, it was that dark. I wound up riding that roller coaster about 7 times in a row with a bunch of the kids. I wish i had found it earlier, i would have ridden it at least 10-15 times. It was great. Quite a few surprises and unexpected twists and turns on that ride.

I get to take another busload of kids to 6 Flags in about 2 weeks, so i'll get to ride the Mind Eraser again. I LOVE that ride. The Superman is great too, but i heard it is closed. The Predator is ok, but i'm not a huge fan of wood coasters. The Predator is so rough it feels like it's knocking your fillings out of your teeth. Especially in the rain. I rode it 3 consecutive times in the rain once and i felt like someone had kicked me in the ribs for the rest of the day.
I think i shall try and save enough money to ride the Sky Coaster when i am there too. That ride is such a rush. They strap you into the harness, hook you to some cables, then pull you up 180'.
When you get to the top, you pull a rip cord which releases you from the winch line, you freefall for about 40', then it turns into a giant swingset. It is a huge rush.

Next summer, I HAVE to get out to Sandusky, Ohio. I've wanted to go to Cedar Point for years now, but have never had the time or money. My brother also wants to go, plus my cousin and her husband live out near there and they already offered us a place to stay. I can't wait. I want to ride those coasters out there sooo bad.

I spent Friday through Monday at the hospital doing ER time, 1100 to 2300 each day. Actually, i did 1200-2300 2 of those days, but whatever. It was pretty interesting for the most part. Alot of run of the mill stuff, a few standouts... I got a bunch of IV's Friday and Saturday. That was cool. Only missed 1 all weekend. I watched the anesthesiologist tube someone in the ICU... I was not impressed with that Dr. He seems like a royal prick and not alot of ppl at the hospital like him.
He did a conscious intubation on this lady and she was not liking it, even though she had asked to be tubed. She's a COPD-er and was having alot of trouble. Once he tubed her you could tell she was fighting it bad... she had the whole red/wild-eyed thing going on. She was freaking out. A day later and she was still fighting it because they didn't have her sedated properly.

By the time Monday rolled around, I was suffering from ER Burnout. I was just sitting around bored, playing Spider Solitaire on one of the nurses computers, talking to my mom and my sister (they were running with QVA and had just brought in a CHF/COPD) when the "Incoming" alarm sounded on the Communications System. The usual ER buzz continued as the Ward Clerk answered the call; in the background I could hear Resource, and they sounded somewhat excited. I couldn't hear what they said, but I found out about 2 seconds later when the ward clerk shouted "Code 99, everybody SHUT UP!" (Code 99 = Full Arrest). Resource patched the responding ambulance through and they proceeded to tell us that they had a 44 y/o male, found unresponsive, pulseless, apneic, CPR in progress and Asystolic on arrival. ACLS protocols in progress, Negative ET tube x 2 attempts, 8 minute ETA.

I asked the Doc if I could have a shot at the tube and she answered with "Not on a 44 year old". Well, Phooey.

Prep the cardiac room, everyone enter stage right, take positions, "Here's the ambulance", press the blue button, hear the famous "Code Blue in the ER" x 3 come over the PA, followed by umpteen sets of tones as the switchboard notified the Resp. Tech's, supervisors, and whoever else they hit. That was kind of a waste of time and breath though due to the fact that we had 10 ppl standing around waiting for the guy.
The ambulance brought him in, transferred him to the bed, I took the compressions position and got thumping. I figured if i couldn't tube, may as well put my muscle to use. The nurses have their own system of administering drugs, so i'd just be in their way. The girl who's job it was to do CPR did not really want to do it. She said that if i wanted to, it was fine by her. She told me later that this was only her 2nd code and she'd never done real CPR and didn't really want to. Maybe I should have let her do CPR, maybe not. All I know is that once I get in my groove, i'm all set for a while.

This guy was a mess. Distended abdomen, puke filled airway, etc. The doc tried to tube him with no success. I guess his throat was swollen pretty bad or whatever. Add a mounting air pressure in the stomach and this guy was really getting messy. He was chunkin up this reddish nasty crap that looked like half-digested blood and smelled like a heavily sauced pasta salad. I said that to one of the nurses and she got totally grossed out. It was kinda funny, in the usual twisted code humor kind of way.
Eventually, the anesthesiologist showed up and dropped the tube (the same ding-dong from ICU a day or 2 earlier). He made it look way too easy and was a total prick about it to the doc and other ppl in the room. He also tossed the laryngoscope onto the guy's chest or stomach and in the process smeared the very messy laryngoscope right across my wrists just above my gloves. I was not happy. It coulda been worse though. some of the nurses and the ER doc at the guy's head got splattered with chunks a few times... better them than me i guess.

Going back a little bit, as soon as we got the guy on the bed I looked at his eyes and knew this was most definately an FPO. He had the classic death stare. You know, eyes wide open, staring straight ahead, pupils blown with that milky glaze... he was gone.

We had been working him for about 40, 45 minutes when they let his wife into the room. I was doing compressions, saw the door open out of the corner of my eye, looked over, and in walks a nurse with her arm around the guys wife. I was thinking "Oh, WTF. She doesn't need to see this." looking back though, maybe it's a good thing... I guess it probably helps with the whole closure process, seeing with your own eyes that everything possible is being done. So we continued working him while she sat at his head, sobbing, kissing his forehead, begging him to come back and not leave her and all that stuff... That was kind of hard to watch. After a few minutes, the nurse leaned down and quietly told her that he'd been down for so long, IF he came back, he'd have massive brain and organ damage, etc... The lady asked him not to leave a few more times, then said "Stop... Stop! Please, just stop!" And that was that. DC the bag from the tube, stop compressions, silence the monitor, wash up, go outside.

I felt really bad for her. We all know the chances when you've been down for a while. By the time the wife told us to stop, he'd been down at least an hour and a half. Figure however long he'd been down before she found him, she called 911 and did CPR for 15 minutes til the ambulance got there, they called the hospital with an 8 min eta, so i can only assume they had him for at least 10-15 minutes prior to calling the hospital, then we worked him for 48 minutes, i think it was.

She was really blaming herself bad. For not finding him sooner, for not making him go to the doctor earlier... He had his gallbladder removed about a week earlier, had fallen a few days before the code and said he felt something rip inside, but didn't bother going to get checked out.
There was some other stuff going on that we found out after the fact... the guy pretty much had a death wish.

A few of the nurses took the whole thing kinda hard... mainly the wife's reaction. It was weird...
I've dealt with plenty of family on codes before, but this was really different and i can't totally place why.

Anyway, that was my weekend.

Then yesterday I brought my car to the shop because my power steering bit the dust the other day. I was hoping it wasn't the Rack, but I figured it probably was, cuz Taurus's are notorious for blowing the Rack and Pinion.
Sure enough, the mechanic looked over the car, fiddled with it for a few, then came and got me. He told me that it was the rack, I was looking at about $500 to replace it, but that i could drive it in the meantime as long as i kept fluid in the system so the power steering pump wouldn't fry. Then he said they were gonna wrap up, that they were trying to get some steering back, etc etc... I went back in the waiting area and 5 minutes later, the mechanic was calling me again. I walked back and he said "We got a problem." Right then, I smelled burning power steering fluid and thought "This is not good." We walked around the corner and I saw power steering fluid everywhere. all over the floor, all over my car... and all over the other mechanic who was standing there with a shop towel trying to clean the power steering fluid off of his glasses. Apparently the defective boot/seal on the rack decided to explode right then. So my car is parked until i can get the money to get it fixed, which i hope is soon. I can still sort of drive it, the only problem is that without power steering fluid, the pump will eventually seize, which will in turn snap the belt that runs the whole car.
I love cars.

Well, i gotta run. I sat up all night writing this because I wasn't tired. I've got more to write about, but we'll save that for another day. Cya

U.S.M.C. Sgt. Elisha Parker, 06/25/84 - 05/04/06

2006-05-08T07:58:00.000-05:00

This guy was one of the best. I didn't know him that well, but every time I talked to him, I felt accepted. He would listen, he always had something nice to say, and he had a good head on his shoulders from what I could tell. It is incredibly sad that he died, and I wish his family the best and they are in my prayers. I can only imagine how many lives Eli touched, home and abroad. He is and will be sorely missed.

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Camden Marine killed in Iraq
Flags were lowered to half-staff today as mourning residents of this small, proud, patriotic community shared tears and memories of a lost son. Marine Corps Sgt. Elisha Parker, 2002 graduate of Camden High School, was killed Thursday during active duty in Iraq. He died in Fallujah when an Improvised Explosive Device was detonated, people close to the Parker family said. Parker was trained to clear mines. Parker is the fourth member of the U.S. military from Oneida County to die in Iraq since the war began on March 19, 2003. There was grief in the classes and corridors at Camden Central, too. School officials plan to reach out to the family and the community to help ease the tragic loss, Superintendent Rocco J. Longo said. "Our entire community is saddened by the loss of a fine young man," Longo said. "Eli was an outstanding student involved in many activities at our high school. He was well respected by his peers and our staff." Those who had Parker as a student remembered his spirit and willingness to respond to any great challenges. Patty Kimball, Parker's former 11th and 12th-grade English teacher, recalled Parker as a very bright student who could have attended any college. But instead, Parker felt a strong need to serve his country, she said. "He was a person of conviction and he had a strong will," Kimball said. "Joining the Marines was something he wanted to do, and we respected his decision. He had a sense of moral obligation and that was very admirable." As the teacher recalled special memories of the fallen Marine, she remembered a favorite hero of Parker's. "When I asked the class who their heroes were, Eli always said he loved Spider Man," Kimball recalled. "I bought a poster of Spider Man purposely to put up on my wall and that became his symbol." Track coach Steve Campbell remembered Parker as a boy who always wore shorts for practice, no matter how cold it was. The coach laughed as he recalled Parker shaving his head senior year so he could be more "aerodynamic." "He enjoyed competition and pushing himself to the limit," Campbell said. "He could have done anything with his life - he was a 90-average student - but he chose to serve his country instead. He was an amazing person to do what he did." Former school counselor Carl Goodwill said he was with Parker's family Thursday night after receiving news of Eli's death. The young Leatherneck leaves behind his father Renny, mother Donna, sister Briana and brothers Isaiah and Andrew. Goodwill said Marines who are alumni of Camden Central told him that arrangements would be made soon to have Parker's body flown to either Syracuse or Rochester. Parker was a combat engineer who specialized in explosives, he said. "He was recognized for his bravery by his commanding officer" who spoke to the family Thursday, Goodwill said. Goodwill remembered his former student as a long-distance runner and member of the Nordic ski team who was admired by his peers. He said it was the tragic events of Sept. 11 that provoked a personal need for Parker to serve his country. "Eli was looked up to by the younger kids, and he was a very nurturing individual," he said while trying to hold back his tears. Jeffrey Bryant, principal of Camden High School, said Eli followed in his father's footsteps and joined the Marines because "that's who he was." "Eli possessed a deep patriotic sense for his country," Bryant said. "This is a significant loss. "Eli was also the founder of the Bike Rack Club, a non-official organization that required students to walk across the bicycle rack at school to become members, said friend Molly Kimball. Kimball was two years younger than Eli. "He was the most genuine kind of guy you'd ever want to meet," Kimball said of her friend. "The Bike Rack Club - that's Eli's kind of humor. It's terrible we're not going to see his face or hear him talk again." Al Gilsenan, a member of the LZ Old Marine Corp League, and Mayor Cristen Harlander said plans to honor Parker were in the preliminary stages. LaRobardiere Funeral Home is handling arrangements. Trooper James Simpson, spokesman for State Police Troop D, said members of Troop D will escort the body of the soldier; he did not yet know details. Over the next couple of days the focus of the school district will be on supporting the Parker family and students, Superintendent Longo said. "The Camden community is a very close community and I'm confident they will reach out and put a safety net around the family and the people who were close to Eli," he said. Counselors and a Crisis Intervention Team have been placed at the high school. Counseling will be available throughout the day and will be extended into next week and as long as needed.

Spring Break! (Yeah, right.)

2006-04-29T06:29:00.000-05:00

Busy busy busy.
This is what I love about going to school or a really long training course. no time to be bored. Strangely, though, I still find time occasionally to be bored. Mainly because my study habits suck. I bought Ace Combat 5 for my PS2 a few weeks ago. You want to talk about wasting study time? That game is awesome, which also means it is a huge distraction.

Class is going good so far. I'm way behind in my clinical time though. The whole class is. So far I've done my time at the 911 Center, 2 ER rotations, and Part one of my mandatory rotation with our medical director. That was actually pretty cool. The Med. Dir. wants 2 rotations per student; one near the beginning of our clinical time, one at the end. Evaluation of our skills progression, they say. Anyway, the first thing I got to see when I got to the hosp. was the Doc setting some woman's elbow, whcih she had seriously dislocated while moving hay. That was pretty cool. Never seen a joint (or bone, for that matter) get set before.
After that, Doc and I were talking and I was asking questions and after a few minutes, he looked at his computer screen and said, "Go check out Mrs. So-and-so in Rm. 4, then come back and tell me what's wrong with her." So i did. I talked to the lady and her daughter for a while, got the HPI (history of present illness), PMH (past medical history), etc. I went back to the doc and told him she had A-Fib (atrial fibrillation. basically, the top part of your heart, the atrium, is quivering instead of rhythmically contracting.), I told him that i thought she had pneumonia, given her symptoms and lung sounds and all. He then said, "Alright, lets go find out." He hadn't even seen her yet. I was told before hand that that was his teaching style. It was pretty cool actually. I don't particularly like doing hospital time because usually you just follow the doc or a nurse around. Plus I just don't like hospitals.
Anyway, He agreed about my pneumonia diagnosis, which was cool.

After a while, he sent me in to another pt. This one had SOB (shortness of breath), also stomach pain. The stomach pain was from the liver cancer she was just diagnosed with 2 days earlier. She also had some CHF going on. I felt bad for her. She was really nice and she knew her days were numbered... I told the Doc when i came back that she probably had some CHF, plus there is always the possibility of lung cancer. Cancer usually doesnt start in the liver, i've been told. Usually it metastasizes from the original cancer and then sets up shop in the liver. This lady said she had been coughing for several months and it hadn't been getting better, soooo...

I got to bring my medications knowledge into play, too. I was looking at the monitor (you know, the ones that are in the ER that show all the rhythms of the patients who are hooked up?) and I saw bradycardia, multiple A-Fibs, and a Rapid A-Fib, which was chugging along at about 154. I pointed it out to him, his eyebrows went up and he said, "Well, we can't very well let her keep that up for too long, can we? What are we gonna give her?"
She was too slow for Adenosine, which probably wouldn't have worked anyway, so I said "Cardizem." "Good choice!", he said, and wrote the order.

I then went to see a guy who had passed out earlier due to a Sinus Bradycardia in the mid-upper 30's. He had been given Atropine, which brought him up to low 40's. The guy was relatively asymptomatic, except for weakness and dizziness. His pressure was around 80/50 when we got him... I'm wondering why he wasn't on Dopamine. Maybe because he wasn't having any major symptoms? Still, he'd had Atropine and a couple fluid bolus' and still his pressure sucked. They did slowly start to get the pressure up, i think it was in the low 90's when I left. I did get to do an IV on him though! Hospital policy dictates the removal of field IV's and then reestablishing access in the hospital if the pt. is going to be admitted. Something about sterility and infection issues. Anyway, the nurse was going to have one of the nursing students (it's a teaching hospital/Level 2 trauma center) do the IV, but he disappeared, so they gave me the honors. The guy had good veins, which was nice. I told them (the pt and his wife) that I was a paramedic student and i asked if i could do the IV... the guy looked at me and said, "It ain't your first one, is it?" I laughed and said no, that i'd done one or two before, so he let me. Got it on the first try, too!

So that was the fun for that rotation.

I've done a couple of rotations at the ER we go to alot with QVA, and i've seen some pretty interesting stuff there, even though it's kind of slow. I've seen some nice stitch jobs. It's strange though. I can deal with all kinds of madness, mayhem, blood, guts, and gore in the field, but make me sit through someone getting stitches and I turn green. The girl came in with a nasty lac on her thigh... about 2" long, 1" wide, and 0,5-1" deep. They called me in to help when they were cleaning it and numbing it. She started crying when the doc started cleaning around and in the wound, then really started howling when the doc started numbing the site. I wouldn't have been too happy myself... Jab a needle 20 times into the middle of a lac like that will get anyone a little steamed. Anyway, she was only crying for a minute and then calmed right down as the pain went away. She then said, "Mom, you can let go of my arm now." Mom was more freaked than her daughter, i think, because when she let go, you could see the red mark and indentation from how hard she was squeezing.

So anyway, we don't have class again til May 8th. I'm gonna use some of that time to get some rotations out of the way. I'm gonna do respiratory time tomorrow afternoon. I'm gonna try to get Resp. and ICU out of the way this week if i can.

Last week sucked. It was spring break from school, so I had the week off... buuuuuttt, i had to take the 30 hour bus driver safety course all week. And what a week it was. Not a cloud in the sky all week, mid 60's to mid 70's, and there I was, sitting through this class at BOCES. It was, most of the time, an interesting class, but i would soooooo rather have been fishing.

Today and tonite should be fun. My F.D. Installation Banquet is tonite. I am soooo behaving this year. last year was fugly. I almost got myself in trouble last year. Anyway, I'm moving up in the world... As of tonite, I'll be 3rd Lieutenant/Medical Officer. I was 4th Lt. but we had a shuffle this year so everyone moved up a spot.
Our Car 3 turned down his chiefs spot this year, he wants to go back to yellow hat. So one of the LTs (the one who works nights and is usually around during the day) got promoted to Car 3. One of our captains had to leave the Dept. to to an insurance issue... He hurt his back (for the 82nd time) and had to have major surgery and he got the surgery paid for and got a settlement, then the insurance said, "You're too much of a liability now. Goodbye." So he's joining a neighboring FD now, from what I heard. They aren't filling his Captain's position, so we're down to one captain (who also happens to be the county fire coordinator). They move all the LT's up a spot and The Chief's daughter is getting my old spot as 4th LT. i'm happy for her. she's calmed down alot since last year. She and I both went to the same college in the same fire protection program, had alot of the same classes, etc. She know's her stuff, i'll definatly say that. This is not a case of "My daughter is gonna be a LT this year because I said so." My dept. is good about staying away from brown nosing your way into a position. If you get an officer's spot, you earned it.

Anyway, the banquet is tonite. After the official stuff is over, i'm either gonna hang out there for a while or go to a bar for a bit with the friend I'm taking to the banquet. Then I'm gonna split around 11 and head back north of here for a concert/friend's birthday. It should be a fun night. I don't have a DD though, so I won't be drinking much, if anything.

Well, I gotta get running. Gotta go get some car parts and stuff.

ramblings?

2006-04-13T09:41:00.000-05:00

Ok, i don't even know what to write about, i'm just in the mood to write i guess...
so maybe we'll start out with some jokes...
Warning, some of these jokes are gonna be pretty cheesy.

What did the farmer say when he lost his tractor?

Where's my tractor?

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What did the fish say when it swam into a wall?

Dam.

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What's the difference between unlawful and illegal?

Unlawful is against the law and illegal is a sick bird.

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Why did the chicken cross the road?

To prove to the possum that it could be done.

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Johnny's elementary school class starts the school year with a show and tell day.
The teacher told everyone to bring in something significant from their summer break and talk about it.
Sally brings in a seashell and talks about her vacation to the ocean.
Ronnie brings in a giant pinecone and talks about his big camping trip in the mountains.
When it's Johnny's turn, he walks to the blackboard, picks up a piece of chalk, draws a small dot on the board, and walks back to his seat.
The teacher sits there for a minute staring at the dot, trying to figure out what it could mean.
She knows she needs to be careful asking Johnny questions, because he can be pretty crude at times. Finally, she gives in and asks, "Johnny, what's that supposed to be???"
Johnny replied, "It's a period!" His teacher asked, "What's so significant about a period?"
Johnny replies, "Hell if I know! My sister said she missed one, Mom fainted, Dad had a heart attack, and the guy next door shot himself!"

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Random thought now.

I saw something disturbingly hilarious tuesday... driving through farm country on our way to go fishing, we (My sister, my brother and his gf, a guy from paramedic class, and myself) saw a cow mounting another cow. No big deal, we thought as we saw it from a distance... Until we got closer and realized that cow number one had mounted cow number two "Backwards" and was humping its head... strange.

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OK, one last joke and i'm gonna call this a night.

Steve was going to be getting married, so a week or so before the wedding, his 3 best friends, Joe, Al, and Dave were sitting around talking about the wedding night pranks over a few beers.

Joe, a carpenter, said "I'm going to saw through the slats in their box spring, so that when they start going at it, their bed will break!"

Al, an electrician, said "I'm gonna wire up the springs in their mattress. When that bed starts moving, the springs will all contact and give them a nice little jolt."

Dave, a doctor, just smirked and said "I'm not telling you guys what I'm doing, but trust me; they will never forget it."

The wedding comes and goes and 3 weeks later, the friends all get letters in the mail. The letter reads:

"To my friends.
I want to thank you for your support and all, but there are a few things that I need to address.

To whomever sawed the slats in our box spring: It was funny, although was mildly inconvenient.

To whomever wired the springs in our mattress: We definately caught a few chuckles from the jolt...

But I SWEAR I am gonna kill the son of a bitch who put the Lidocaine in the KY Jelly!!!"

:-D Goodnight everybody!

Goodbye Cardiology!

2006-04-11T05:28:00.000-05:00

FINALLY!
It's freakin OVER. No more cardiology. We had our Module yesterday. It was a pain in the ass. There were some seriously BS questions on that exam. But I just keep telling myself that I passed. I'm done, I could have gotten a better score, but i'm content with what I got. Now I can sit back and take a few deep breaths. Next up is Endocrinology and Neurology. I can't see them being much worse than cardiology. Are they? We'll see, I suppose.
Wow. Anyway... I'm so relieved cardiology is over. Having that exam hanging over my head for the last few weeks has sucked. This next week is gonna be nice and relaxed. I'm going fishing today and tomorrow if all goes well. It's supposed to be in the mid to upper 60s today and tomorrow, so it sounds like good trout weather. I might see if one or 2 of the guys from class want to go fishing as well. A few of us were gonna go yesterday, but we didnt get out of the exam until late. I think i started the test at 1230 or so and i didnt get done until 1545 or so. It might have been even later than that.... It sucked. It REALLY sucked.
Anyway. Did i mention that my cardiology exam SUCKED???
Ok, enough. It's over. move on. sheesh.

So yes, fishing. I want to try this river up in North Nowhere that looks very attractive. I think I shall brave the horrifying back roads (dirt bike mogul course is more appropriate) and go try my hand with the fish in North Nowhere. That is if I do not have to go on duty. Mom is feeling sick this morning, so I may end up going on with my sister BLS. We'll see.

So i'm still looking for work... I like driving bus, but the hours are way too sporadic. If it wasn't for the class I have to attend next week, I would be so pissed. I didnt work yesterday, I'm not working today, and the next time I definately work is Thursday afternoon. Thank God next week is the bus class i have to take, so i'll be getting paid 35-40 hours for that.
I really have to go job hunting. I need a steady job so that I can budget myself.

Oh yeah. I'm on the quitting smoking kick again. Sort of. I went out saturday night and met up with a friend I haven't seen in a while. We had an absolute blast. Had a few at his place then went up to my house (He was driving because he was not drinking), grabbed a few things, went up to the bar for a bit. Just as we were about to leave, a sheriff went whippin by so we pulled back in... we were gonna go to the bar up the road because they had a big concert going on, but apparently the sheriffs knew that too because they were everywhere.
Plus my friend has a big, bright red, pimped out dodge truck, so he didn't want to tempt fate, even sober. We wound up heading back for his place, rocking out to Metallica. Ain't My Bitch is a really good song when you're drunk and pumped up. lol So is Turn The Page... and one or 2 others. Anyway, we just wound up hanging around and catching up and all that good stuff.
Wow, i got a little off track from the smoking thing, didn't I?
Anyway, I smoked way too much that night. I have a tendency to do that when I'm drinking. I woke up the morning with wooden lungs. And the sinus infection that had been nagging me for a few days kicked into high gear. Yeah. It's been a pleasant 2 days so far. lol
The way I felt sunday had me in nooooo mood to be smoking. I wanted to, but i knew how i'd feel if i did. I wound up buying a bunch of those Creamsaver candies and I've been living off of them since sunday afternoon. Not very good for my teeth, but I guess my lungs are a little more important. :-P Anyway, yesterday went good as well for the most part. I didn't smoke until I was doing the cardiology module and one of my friends/classmates who smokes showed up. I wound up bumming a few off of him. But I haven't had a cigarette since then, which was about 1530, 1545 yesterday. Small time period, I know, but it is a start.

So what's new with everyone in blogland? I haven't done anything on here in a while now because i've been so busy with class and everything... I should have some time to breath now. At least for a day or 2.

Velcro Jumpsuits, Ball Gags, and other random thoughts.

2006-04-01T22:35:00.000-05:00

I'm guessing maybe the title of this raised a few eyebrows? Maybe, maybe not. This post will most likely be quite random. My brain feels like a beehive in fight mode right now... 2 million things buzzing around, stumbling over each other, frenzied, confused, aggravated, frustrated, etc.

As for the velcro jumpsuits and ball gags, I think those items should be standard issue to any kid who rides a school bus. Tell em when they get on: "You can ride as you are right now, but if you get out of hand you're getting stuck to the seat and getting silenced." I covered the same route for several days last week. These kids were pretty cool, but they got way outta hand friday afternoon. Especially the elementary kids. The High school/middle school kids were pretty well behaved, but after the elementary run friday, I swear I just about had to clean footprints off of the ceiling of the bus. The whole week was kind of crazy in the kid department on all the runs I was on. The whole week was crazy, period.

I started my ride time last friday. I rode from 0800 to 2130 and I caught one call, an MVC rollover at 1915ish that wound up being a sign-off. It got me out of Phase One anyway...

Sunday, I went and started my ER time. The day started out pretty slow, then a few walk-in's started coming in. One lady came in and was a perfect example of why you should listen to your doctor when he gives you instructions for medication.
She was on Digoxin and her doc told her no stimulants at all. So what does she do? She starts her Sunday morning with 2 cups of coffee and some chocolate chip cookies. Reeealllly smuckin fart.
She was pretty sick. I was later told that she was admitted and put on Dig. withdrawl protocol or somethin like that... We had a few other run-of-the-mill pts come in, several frequent fliers... I got to watch one guy with bad kidney stones get 50 mg of Demerol with 30mg of Toradol. yeah. sleep tight, sunshine. I followed one of the nurses in when he went to check on the guy and he was out cold. The nurse walked up to try to wake him up to check on him and the guy snapped "awake". He was in a royal med funk. You could see how thick the haze was as he was lookin around with that "WTF is going on and where am I" glazed over look.

Then we were sitting there being bored when a guy walks up and asks us to help his wife. He tells us that she cut her finger off. We asked how and he rolled his eyes and said "She was picking her nose and I punched her in the mouth". We laughed and went over to check her out. It turns out that she had started to fall, reached for a solid object to catch her balance with, and just happened to grab a heavy steel door, which just happened to be open, which just happened to slam shut and lop off about 1/4" of the tip of her left middle finger.
The doc asked if they recovered the fingertip and the husband says "Yup, got it and brought it with us". I'm thinking maybe they have it in the car still, but the husband reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a ziplock bag with her finger in it! I found that kind of amusing. The doc was able to stitch it back on and everything.

There were 2 docs on that day. The one who did the stitching was the one I wanted to work with, because he's a real cool guy, a great doc, used to be the Medical Director for the region, etc.
He didn't really seem in a big teaching mood. I asked him some questions and he answered them and everything, but he wouldn't voluntarily explain stuff, so i just followed him and watched for a while. When the second doc came in at 1100, he got himself settled in, asked me who I was and what I was doing, and once I told him I was a paramedic student he told me to stick with him. He went into deep detail on everything. He was asking me questions about patients we saw, quizzing me on stuff, explaining stuff in great detail... It was great. He seemed genuinely interested in helping me out with stuff. When we had our lunch he was asking me all sorts of questions about class, my plans after class, my background, etc.

I got to try for one IV, which I missed. The lady had crap for veins. The nurse wound up having to use a 22 ga. to get the IV, so I didn't feel so bad about not getting the stick with a 20 ga.

Then of course my white cloud status struck again. 2 hours after I left, a 37 year old came in with chest pains and wound up coding in the ER. Go figure. It was a save, too.

After I left the ER, I went to visit a friend. We went out to dinner at Applebee's. It was a pretty good time. We just hung out, talkin and stuff... I was soooo tired. I only slept like 3 hours saturday night/sunday morning then I had to be at the ER at 7. After sitting around all day at the ER I was drained. Anyway, we had just about finished eating when I heard clapping coming from the kitchen area. My first thought was "Somebody must have a birthday today". Followed by "Hey wait a minute, my birthday's tuesday... Nah, must be someone else." Then I saw the entourage of employees coming out of the kitchen toward our table. I was like "Oh hell no." Then they started to gather around our table and I said "You have GOT to be kidding me." I'm not big on the whole restaurant birthday recognition thing, so I sat there beet red with my head in my hands for half of the song. I think I stayed beet red for about 10 minutes. The song was pretty funny, I got a chuckle out of it. I think my friend thought i was pissed because of my reaction. I assured her that I wasn't pissed and I said thanks. I was in a weird mood that night on top of being exhausted anyway, so I'm not surprised that I might have come off as a bit irritated.

Then on tuesday, I had a bus route that came equipped with a Monitor, Aide, whatever you want to call them. Halfway through the elementary route she said "Hey, isn't your birthday today?" I said yes. No use denying it, it was on the transportation bulletin... So as we pulled in to the elementary school to drop the kids off, the bus monitor said "Ok kids!" and 60-something elementary kids sang happy birthday. That wasn't as bad as the restaurant. I guess you could say it was kind of cute. Most of the kids I drive for like me. I've been on at least 3 bus routes where the kids have asked me if I could be their permanent driver. I tell them that i'm just a sub and their regular driver will be back and then the kids tell me I should take the route, make the regular driver switch routes, get them fired, make them quit or retire, etc. I keep telling them that it doesnt work like that and they get all disappointed. A very common complaint that I hear from the kids is that their regular driver is mean, screams at them all the time, etc. I've seen a few of the drivers in action and it seems like they think they're driving a prison bus. "Get in, sit down, shut up, and don't move" is the mentality that alot of the drivers have. I guess i'm still young enough that I remember what it's like to be a kid. Sit down, shut up, and don't move are not words commonly found in kids vocabularies. I do try to maintain relative order while I'm driving, but the way I look at it, driving safely is more important than babysitting. Friday afternoon, the kids were running up and down the aisles, jumping around like rubber balls, and generally going bananas. It got to the point where I quit trying to tell them to calm down and stay in their seats because I was losing my voice trying to make myself heard over them.

The other thing they like is the radio. Alot of the drivers will put the radio on country and leave it there. Now, I like country, but i understand how you can only take so much of it. Usually when I get in the bus, especially in the afternoon, I'll turn on one of the rock stations. Alot of the kids like rap/hip-hop and similar noise. I'll occasionally put that on for them, but that usually requires me to be in a good mood. even then, as soon as the bus is empty I turn on the country. Country is the antidote for that rap crap. So on a rap day, i'll be listening to alot of country for a while after work.

Just as an insert, i've cooled off quite a bit. My little brother and I were just chillin for a while and talkin and stuff, plus i put a whuppin on the punching bag he's got out in his lounge (for lack of a better word), so i feel alot better. I've got the skinned knuckles to prove it. :-P

Anyway. I did more ride time earlier. I'm riding at 2 ambulances. My preceptor works for 3 area ambulances and I can ride at 2 of them with him. One ambulance is based in a village and covers an area that's a mix of village and boondocks (the one I rode at last week) then the one I rode at earlier today (Saturday, actually) is based in a small city and they cover a huge area with a little bit of everything.

We had some good calls. The first one we had came in as "unresponsive, pt is breathing". We got there and city rescue told us that the guy was bradycardic, but awake. We got him on the monitor and at first glance it looked like he was in 3rd degree AV block. Once we looked at it though, it was more like an irregular sinus brady. His rate was in the mid 30's to mid 40's, he was weak, somewhat diaphoretic, and that was all he was complaining of. 0.5 mg of Atropine didn't do anything, so we got him loaded and headed for the hospital. We found out later that his Potassium level was 7.9. Normal is like 5.5 or something like that. The nurse told us later that she was shocked that he didn't code on us because 5.8 is usually the pucker factor threshhold.

Then we brought in an elderly woman with a nasty case of cellulitis on her lower leg.

After that we got called for a possible cardiac. It was most likely anxiety related. His rythm looked clean, he had been experiencing burning and pressure in his chest earlier in the day and had told us that he's gone in for it before and they just tell him it's stress. So most likely it was a repeat. As my preceptor said; "If you hear hoofbeats, assume it's a horse, not a zebra."That goes alone the same lines of; "If it looks like a duck, flies like a duck, and sound like a duck, it's probably a duck."

Our last call of the day came in as injuries from a fall. Elderly woman fell outside and sat ther for about 2 hours because she couldn't get up and none of her neighbors heard her calling for help. I think she had some alzheimers or something going on, because she wasnt quite with it, but it didn't seem like an abnormal "not with it." She was a simple ALS because for one, she was outside in mid 50's temps for 2 hours with a stiff breeze, plus she thinks she might have passed out, but wasn't sure.
My preceptor started the IV and stuff on the last lady and then just plopped himself in the captains chair at the front of the box and started writing. He hadn't really asked her any questions, so it was obvious to me that he was handing the reins over to me, at least for the interviewing side of things. I'd already done the assessment on scene, so I guess he just decided to see how I could do for the rest of the call.

By the end of the day, he decided that I was ready for phase 3. The only problem is
that I can't start phase 3 until I successfully test out of cardiology on the 12th of this month.
On the evaluation form for the call, he wrote "Adam is ready for phase III". That's all he wrote on it. Good enough for me. Hopefully I can keep up the pace when we get into phase 3 and 4.
I'm loving this so far. I just have to be cautious because it's easy to get confident in yourself on cake calls. Throw me in charge of a call that is circling the drain and it could be a different story. We'll see. I will do my best, whatever the situation. I'll probably do another shift or 2 in phase 2 just to make sure i'm brushed up and everything.

Things got kind of weird during the last hour or 2 of my shift there. I got this really bad feelling. I mean REALLY bad. Bad like I was kind of concerned about the drive home, bad. It was just this knot in my stomach that said "something REAAALLLLLLY bad is gonna happen." I was seriously worried about the ride home. I called home before I left and made sure everything was ok there. I get feelings like that from time to time. Sometimes I find there is a reason, most of the time I don't. But I have learned to listen to those feelings. Those feelings have saved our (my family's) butts in the past. And mine individually, as well. I started for home and the farther away from there I got, the better I felt. I didn't feel totally better, but it eased up a bit. That feeling threw my whole evening into a funk though. Alot of other stuff that has been bothering me kicked into overdrive and I was in a really dark mood for a while. Then I started talking with Matt (my oldest little brother) and the darkness started to lift. Then I started using his punching bag while we talked and that helped relieve the stress even more. So now I am in a good mood with skinned knuckles on my right hand and and mild headache from laughing so hard during the conversation Matt and I had.

I'm going fishing this afternoon (sunday). It should be interesting. My friend called the other day and said he has a new spot, some place that i've never seen before. "The only thing is," he told me, "that we have to watch out for the bears." "Excuse me, did you say bears?" "yup, bears." "Ok, i'll make sure I wear my bells." Sheesh. I don't think it is a coincidence that the opening day of Trout season and April Fools Day just happen to both fall on April 1st every year.

It's 0130 now. I'm gonna head to bed because I have to get up at 8. I've gotta get some sleep so I can outrun the bears while trying to catch fish.

Nothing new

2006-03-12T00:49:00.000-05:00

What's new, Blogland?
Not much here... We're still in Cardiology, covered the different kinds of rythms so far. We were supposed to start treatments on Thursday, but our instructor was sick so we got the night off.
I've been doing absolutely nothing this weekend. I'm totally broke (i have like $4.90 for gas money and I don't get paid til Thursday and i'm below 1/4 tank.) so not much is happening this weekend. I really have to dedicate tomorrow to studying my rythms.

I just fell in love.... I clicked on a link for the '07 Yamaha sleds... oooohhhhhhhh. B-E-A-utiful!!!
The 07 Phazer and the 07 Nytro ER. ooooohh. nice nice nice. I'd love a sled. I had one several years ago, it was an 88 or an 89 Phazer. I loved it. Of course, the year I bought it only saw 3 weeks of snow. Go figure. I like the Yamaha SRX's as well. And the 06 Polaris 900 Fusion. 900. That's alot of sled.
The 06 Polaris 550 Classic trail sled is nice, too. And it only MSRP's at $5,799.
I think maybe a sled will be a project once I'm working a good steady job.

However, a 4-wheeler would be alot more practical because you can ride it 9 months + out of the year. I think i'm gonna concentrate on getting back into mountain biking this summer, though.
Cheap (compared to all the other toys i just talked about), fun, and practical. A good, fun source of excersize, also.

Speaking of exersize and general health, I'm bracing myself to quit smoking again, for real this time. The last 2 days have been gorgeous. low 60's on friday (albeit it was raining and windy) and in the mid 50's, sunny, with a breeze Saturday. This morning I slept in. Once i got up, i took the dog out for a walk and was feeling pretty good. Later in the day I had a smoke and I was totally winded. I then realized once again that if i'm planning on excersizing and getting into shape and enjoying the outdoors this summer, I have to quit smoking. I get winded so easily when I smoke. Just yesterday morning was a fine example. I had energy, I could breath in the morning, then I lit one up and poof, I felt like a slug yet again. I'm sick of feeling like a slug. I wanna be able to breath, move, etc. without feeling like i'm suffocating.
I can talk the talk, now it's time to prove that I can walk the walk. I'll keep you posted.

So there isn't much going on right now to talk about, so I think it's time for an episode of past calls of note. I'm gonna cover a few tonite. Not exceptionally detailed, but ones that stood out for one reason or another. I'm kind of going by Department with my stories right now, but since these stories were of my first FD, it's kind of going in order right now anyway. It'll be later that I start to jumble the time line. Anyway.

The FD I started out with usually did not fool around when it came to MVC's. If WAFD got hit for an MVC, you usually knew you were going to something "good".

We got hit for an MVC on the state highway that cuts through the town, came in as personal injury, vehicle is well off the road. It had been raining all night and sprinkling that morning and it was right around freezing... you know that point, where some spots are glare ice and some spots are just wet... Anyway, we (Mom and I) rolled up on the scene in our POV. We couldn't see the wrecked vehicle at first, but we knew we were there because of the chief's truck. I also think there was already a piece from FD there, I can't remember for sure. We hit the brakes and promptly discovered that the road was pretty slick at this particular spot.

As we came to a stop, we were looking but still could not see a wrecked vehicle. Then we saw it, on it's side, underside towards the road, vehicle right up against the woodsline.

One Pt was in a vehicle that stopped to help, one was trapped in the truck, which was a small pickup. I ran around doing the usual Jr. FF go-fer stuff while mom attended to the woman still in the truck. I then got assigned to get the girl's info who was in the car of the person who stopped to help. As I was interviewing her, I found out that her mom and her had been coming back from the Carolina's when they hit a patch of black ice coming around the curve, went off the road, hit a culvert embankment (you know, take a ditch, lay down a pipe, cover it with dirt so you can get vehicles to the other side. Logging trucks in this situation), went airborn, and came to rest against the woodsline.

This girl got out of the car in bare feet (late fall/early winter, i think it was), got up to the road and started flagging down traffic. She said she was trying to flag the traffic down for 10-15 minutes before anyone stopped, because you could not see the vehicle at a glance from the road and people are usually paranoid about stopping for apparent hitchhikers in the middle of nowhere.

It also dawned on me that this girl looked exactly like my best friend's girlfriend. They also shared the same first name. (It later turned out that it was not his gf).

Our chief had called for a chopper due to the mechanism and extrication time for the mom. Once he decided what he needed on scene, he took a few guys from our dept and a few from our neighbors to the north, put them on an engine, and sent them down to the convenience store/gas station that we usually used for an LZ. (The combo crew was due to the fact that the FD that mom and I were with had only about 15 people on the roster, and you were lucky to get 5 during the day. We didn't get a huge turnout from our neighbors either.)

The engine left for the LZ and we on the scene went about our business. A few minutes later, we heard the chopper coming in. It circled the scene, then continued on for the LZ, which was about 4 miles down the road. A few minutes later, the sound of rotors edges its way back to my consciousness and I heard my chief yell "Oh, WTF is this Bullsh-t!!!!!!!!!!!" I turned around and saw the State Police helicopter (one of the medivacs that cover our area) landing in a field with a barbed wire fence between them and the road... They touched down, then immediately pulled back up, scooted sideways, and landed right in the middle of the highway. The chief started screaming into his radio "FIRE POLICE! SHUT DOWN TRAFFIC IMMEDIATELY, THE HELICOPTER JUST LANDED IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD! LZ CREW! GET BACK HERE NOW!!! THE BIRD JUST LANDED ON SCENE!!!"

He continued his tirade as the chopper shut down and the flight medic got out and started walking toward the scene.

Everything worked out pretty good though. Mom and daughter both got out of the hospital quick and nobody plowed into the chopper or anything, so it went well. Later in the call, the chief was showing me what exactly happened. When they went off the road, they hit the culvert, went airborn for over 100', and hit a tree about 12' up, then the truck landed on its side at the base of the tree. You could see right where the truck had hit the tree. It was pretty impressive. They're lucky they weren't hurt worse.

We had another MVC hit in the middle of the night in the dead of winter. Have you ever have those times when you're sleeping like a log and all of a sudden you just snap awake, look at your pager, and right then it goes off? Happened to me that night. It was weird.

Our tones dropped, PFD's (our neighbors to the west) tones dropped, and the ambulance tones dropped. This is how the dispatch went:

WA and P rescues, ***** Ambulance, report of an MVA, minor injuries, only location given is on State Highway, somewhere between the villages of PFD and CFD (CFD is the neighbors to the east)"

My thoughts? "Oh you have got to be kidding me. There are 19 miles of middle of nowhere highway between PFD and CFD!!!"

Mom, Dad, and I called enroute to our chief and asked for orders and he told us to stage at the convenience store (same one we use as an LZ. It's on the eastern border of our district) The various chiefs and rescue units call enroute and state which sections of the highway they're searching. It eventually ended up being in our district, about 2-3 miles up the road from where we were staging.

It was all minor injuries, 3 pretty nice looking girls coming back from a concert down in Syracuse lost control of their car and went through the snowbank.
That call stood out mainly because of the dispatch information.

Another call we went on was one of those calls where you stand there scratching your head going "How the hell did you get out of that without getting TFU?"

My Dad decided to join Mom and I in WAFD because he usually chauffered us anyway, plus he was a Vol. FF when he was younger. The night he got accepted, we (Mom, Dad, I, Car 2, and his wife, who was also in the FD) were all standing around outside talking after the meeting.
Then all of our pagers went off. It was kind of funny, because we were all standing there looking at each other like "Why's your pager going off?" Car 2's wife actually said it out loud (admit it, you throw more than 4 vols in a group together and you're bound to have one of those moments even if you are all in the same dept.)
Then the siren went off and all those little screws that must have shaken loose during the meeting fell back into place and we started for the station. Over the siren, I heard "Car vs Tractor trailer, possible car fire" Ooohh, this doesn't sound very good.

We all jumped on various pieces of apparatus and started for the scene. When we pulled up, I looked ahead at the scene and saw a pickup on the side of the road with the roof and windshield pushed up against the back window, a guy sitting on the ground in front of his truck looking kind of stunned, and a semi pulled into a lot.

Turns out that the driver of the pickup was most likely intoxicated, to what extent I am unsure, but you could smell the alcohol on him. Anyway, he was going west on the State Highway, into the sunset, and according to him, he couldn't see anything because he was driving into the sun. When he found a shadow, it just happened to be that of the semi that was sideways across the highway, backing into the lot where the owner kept it at his house.

The pickup driver said that he realized that a very bad thing was about to happen, so he immediately laid himself down across the seat of his pickup just before the laws of physics joined his A-posts with his B-posts. Other than a few scratches and being a little shook up, he was fine.

Another MVC we got hit for came in during the wee hours of the morning, reported as a head-on with injuries and entrapment about 1/4 of a mile from the firehouse. Car 2 was immediately on scene, requesting EMT's, manpower, and traffic control from PFD (west neighbors) WFD (north neighbors), and I also think that one or 2 other depts were brought in for traffic control, but I don't remember. We also wound up bringing in 4 ambulances on this one. We wanted a helicopter, but it was snowing like crazy and they wouldn't fly.

What happened was a lone male driver was heading east on State Highway in something along the lines of a Chevy S-10, overtired, returning from a long day somewhere. Heading west was a GMC Jimmy with a 17 y/o girl driving, her mom riding shotgun, her aunt in the back seat, and they were either going to or coming from a skiing trip. It was snowing like crazy out, as I said before. Coming around the curve, the guy in the S-10 fell asleep, drifted across the highway, and CRUNCH. Head-on.

There was some hardcore front end damage to both these vehicles. We had to break out the Jaws to get the doors open on the Jimmy. I think they used the Jaws on the S-10, but i'm not positive. I know that the S-10 driver was in PBS (pretty bad shape). The women in the Jimmy weren't hurt too bad, but they were banged up. The girl who was driving was totally freaked out. She probably thought she was going to get in trouble. They did get her calmed down eventually though.
That wreck went incredibly smooth. I still wasn't medical though, and not yet old enough to play. So I did the usual go-fer stuff again.

Another call we had was for a working structure fire about 2 miles from our house.
As we approached the end of our road, we were looking for signs of fire and not seeing any. Then we rounded a curve, got away from the trees, and saw a very impressive column of smoke and cinders. We pulled onto the scene, dad called 911 with the address (it came in as "in the general area of Routes 17 and 17a"), Mom and I tried to do a quick walk-around just to make sure no one was hanging out of any windows. We could not get within 30 feet of this house. This house was RIPPIN when we got there and the heat wouldn't let us get anywhere close to it. That job was just a surround and drown. Turns out the house was built with rough cut timber and had sawdust for insulation. Can anyone say "tinder box"?

The next one will be the last for the evening. I know it's been a long read, so thanks for bearing with me.
This call imprinted into my head the necessity to listen to someone even if they are at a lower level of training that you are.
We got called for a severe headache. Mom and I got there, Mom did her assessment and everything, and eventually the ambulance got there. It's stationed about 15-20 miles away, so it takes a few minutes for them to get there. Mom gave her report to the medic (the county WAFD is in is blessed with the convenience of every ambulance in the county having at least one ALS crew on duty at all times. Pretty much the only time you might get a BLS rig is if it's a call-in crew that could only get an EMT). Anyway, mom reported her findings to the medic. Mom also told the medic that she was pretty sure this lady had a brain aneurism brewing because of the signs and symptoms.
This is how the conversation went:

Medic: "Ma'am, do you think you could get up and walk to our ambulance?"
Pt: "I don't know... my head hurts so bad"
Mom: "Medic, I don't know if you heard me, but I think this lady has an aneurism!"
Medic: (Nose up) "Hmm. If you say so. Ma'am, do you think you could at least walk to the front door and get on our stretcher??"
Mom: "Medic, I think she has an aneurism! Having her walk to the ambulance is NOT a good idea!"
Medic: (Dramatic sigh) "Okay, Fine! Driver, go get the stair chair please. The EMT thinks this lady shouldn't walk anywhere."

Driver gets stair chair, brings it in, sets it up, sets it next to Pt.

Medic: "Ok Ma'am, go ahead and get up and move over to our stair chair"
Mom: "I think we should pick her up and move her over."
Medic: "No, she can stand up."

The ambulance driver took the pts arm, pt started to stand up, got up halfway, let out a very odd sound, and DFO's right in front of us. She went totally limp, her lips were flapping every time she exhaled, her respirations got fast, and even I, with nothing more than first aid and CPR, knew that something very bad just happened. The Driver caught her on her on the way down, set her on the stair chair.

Medic: "Aww sh-t."
Mom: "I told ya!"

I don't remember how the lady turned out. I think she made it, but I don't remember for sure.
I also believe that my mom had a little chat with our chief about that call and he supposedly had a little chat with the ambulance corp about the actions of the medic on the call.

Ok, it's 3 am and it's time to go to bed. Cya

Attention: Would the pilot of the illegally parked black cloud please immediately MOVE IT!

2006-02-28T20:48:00.000-05:00

What a week.
This last week or so has been totally NUTS, both from a personal standpoint and from the effects of the black cloud hovering over the area.

Last weekend, a 21 y/o girl died in an MVC just outside of VO's district. She was going down some back road in her little Matchbox car, lost it going around a curve, and started spinning like a top. Not a big problem, in and of itself. The problem was the bread truck that was coming around the curve from the opposite direction. He saw her spinning, stomped the brakes, went sideways... They collided, she got knocked into the ditch, and the trunk ended up on top of her car. Either way you look at it, it was pretty much a lose-lose situation... Getting T-boned by the bread truck would probably have hurt pretty bad too.
News story link: http://www.syracuse.com/news/poststandard/index.ssf?/base/news-2/1140947974325290.xml&coll=1

Also over the weekend, a 21 y/o male died when he went head-first into a corn shredder. Noootttttt pretty. Apparently all that was left intact on him was from the waist down. The OIC from the FD requested "Bring the jaws, cancel the ambulance."
Here's the link to the news story. http://www.news10now.com/content/top_stories/default.asp?ArID=60751

Then the worst news around here in a long time...
A local police officer was killed in the line of duty last night. It happened not very far from where my paramedic class is located and it actually happened during class. Sad situation. The first PD LODD in the county since 1969.
Here's the article.
http://www.9wsyr.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=0B1BCEAC-003F-495D-8980-8FE25D0A0267

So yes, this black cloud has worn out its welcome and needs the GTFOH.

The craziness on the personal level is much more mundane that the newsworthy stuff.
I went on a "vacation" last weekend. Went to see a friend of mine about 110 miles from here, we were gonna chill, go to a big party friday night, etc etc. None of that happened. Except for the hanging around part, which there was alot of. He had some stuff going on when I got there (at like 0230 friday morning). I didnt get to bed til about 0530 and he was up all night and didnt get to bed until 1730 or 1800 friday evening, then he slept straight through until about 0900 saturday morning. The party got cancelled anyway because the host moved. So obviously, it wasn't happening. Sooo, we just hung around his place for the most part until I left saturday evening. We did go a few places here and there, but nothing of note.

The whole drive home saturday night was slow because it was snowing like crazy.
Then I worked an 08-1700 at VO. That was an OK shift. We had 3 calls during that time span, one for each crew.
My partner and I got called for a 77 y/o Female with injuries from a fall. We got up there, and FD already had her packaged. We were told that she was standing on a countertop hanging drapes when she FDGB backwards and landed on her right side. C/o right shoulder pain, originally also complained of right hip pain, but that was pretty much non-existant when i did my P.E. on her.
I did, however, notice obvious forward displacement to her right shoulder. Her shoulders were not equally shaped and there was a large lump protruding from the front of her shoulder, obvious pain on movement and palpation. I was looking at her and thinking about how to immobilize it best and I decided to leave it as it was. FD had strapped her arms down when they secured her to the board, she had good distal CMS, so i decided to leave it secured as is. Why disrupt a perfectly secured limb just to resecure it slightly different, right?

We transported, I gave my report when we got to the hospital, and I told the nurse about the shoulder and how it was secured and asked her to use caution when they took her off the board.

The rest of the shift went pretty uneventfully. I went straight home because I was supposed to go on duty at 1800 with QVA. About 3 minutes shy of 1800, we had a call. Stacey called me and asked if i wanted to take it (she was on til 1800) and I said "sure". It was one of our justified frequent flyers. He is a Duchenne's M.D. patient and apparently he has lived longer than any other D.M.D patient has ever lived, at 23 years old.

We took him to the same hospital that we took the FDGB patient earlier with VO. After we transferred his care over to the ER staff, I tracked down one of the nurses who was there earlier and asked how the lady made out.
The nurse said "OMG, she had a horrible arm fracture."
I said "You serious? She didn't have any major swelling or anything, other than lump on the front of her shoulder... You still have the X-rays?"
Nurse said "Yeah, let me bring them up on the computer." So she brought them up and this fracture was BAD. She had a complete oblique fracture of the upper Humerus and the distal end of the fracture basically slid up the proximal end and lodged itself in her shoulder socket, partially dislocating her shoulder. Ouch. She was admitted upstairs and scheduled to have surgery the next day.

Other than that, the sheer joy of Cardiology is in motion. Our first lecture on it was Thursday the 23rd and it wasnt too bad. My instructor in the Basic-Orginal class I took in 2001 beat the crap out of the A&P of the heart, how the electrical system works, alot of the more basic but important stuff. That was what we covered on Thur., along with going over Sinus Rythms. Then last night we covered Atrial Rythms and we're learning the appropriate meds for each condition as we go. Right now he's telling us which drug is used for which problem as we go and we have to study up on the appropriate drugs along with learning what each rythm is. Starting this coming Thur., we'll be getting into Heart Blocks, then Ventricular Rythms.

I also learned some new words Monday night. Verapakill (which I've heard before. For the non-Med. people out there, there is a cardiac drug we use that is called "Verapamil" and "It either works, doesn't work, or works too well and kills them. So they call it Verapakill.), and then "Misconscrewed". One of the guys in class asked about what can happen if you misconstrue (sp?) a rythm and call it "This" vs "That"... And as our instructor started answering him, he starting saying "Misconscrewed". He has issues with pronunciation at times, but after he said it 2 or 3 times, i realized that the word Misconscrewed can actually be pretty accurate from time to time and that I may need to add that word to my vocabulary.

Ok, it's 2330 and I need to start thinking about getting some sleep. Good night to all.

An interesting few days.

2006-02-23T03:49:00.000-05:00

I did my 911 time on Tuesday. It was interesting. I went to an adjoining county to do it, just because I wanted to. This county has everything from city (small cities, though) to absolute EBF country.

I left the house around 0530 because I wasn't sure how long it would take to get there. It only took me about an hour. I went in a little before 7, got introduced to the 3 people working the night shift (they normally only have 2 on at night, but the way they do scheduling, there's three people on once a week or so). I learned some interesting stuff about that county from those guys.

One thing I learned was that the county is about 28 miles East-West and 90 miles North-South.

At night, there is one, MAYBE 2 State Trooper cars that cover the whole county... There is a sheriffs dept., but they pretty much just cover the correctional facility and the courts. There are a few town/city PD's, most of which will or do respond to or cover other areas of the county.

The guys told me about one call in the far north of the county... You're gonna laugh, but you can't make this stuff up. There was a cardiac call up by one of the lakes to the far North of the county.
The ambulance responded, parked part of the way there, the crew got their stuff off the rig, GOT ON A RAIL CAR (I shit you not... I believe we're talking one of those old hand powered jobs.) and took the rail car up the rest of the way and got to the Pt. Then they loaded the pt. onto the rail car, got back to the rig, then transported. The guys told me it was like 2.5 hours from Alert to Arriving at Hospital. Either that or 2.5 hours until they got back to the rig. I can't remember which. I'll never make fun of North Nowhere again. Welllllll, maybe. We'll see.

I also learned about a place called the Adirondack League Club. It is almost a compound. This huge chunk of land is fenced and gated, owned by a bunch of rich people, and patrolled 24/7 by their own security force. The place is one of those rich people's paradise places, with alot of land and alot of multi-million dollar homes. This place is so secretive and exclusive that the members won't even allow 911 personnel in to assign addresses and find out what's on the property. But I'd be willing to wager that when one of those places goes up, the owners want FD there yesterday. Then again, maybe they're just so hell-bent on staying private that they'll let everything burn and rebuild?
Maybe you're curious as to the clientelle up there? Kevin Bacon has a place there. The phone number is even listed in the area's phone book. Figure that one out. Also, several NASCAR drivers snowmobile up there during the off-season. Someone said something about Shania Twain having a place there too, but they weren't sure. I know she used to own a farm up near Lowville, I believe was the town. This state is full of stuff no one would guess. I've also heard that Charlie Daniels owns land in North Nowhere, but I don't know for sure. I guess that would be a good explaination as to why he puts on a concert every year in North Nowhere.

There were some interesting calls, too. I think the first call after I got there started out sounding like a code, then got downgraded to difficulty breathing. The caller had a really heavy accent. Then there was some mix-up with the ambulances. It was one of those deals where the call was in another county, came to this county's 911 center, they called the county the call was in, etc etc etc. It worked out though.

After the day shift showed up and took over, there was a 3rd party call for a 75 y/o female possibly with a gun to her head. Turned out to be nothing. No gun, probably just looking for attention from the sound of it.

Shortly after that call, some guy called 911 because his dog was having a seizure.
The dispatcher was like "What do you want me to do??? About all I can do is give you the number to the dog control officer or tell you to take it to a vet!"
Then the guy started getting pissy with the dispatcher and the dispatcher said "Sir! 911 is for actual emergencies! Human emergencies! I can't send an ambulance because your dog is having a seizure!" Then the caller went off about how "Well, you're 911! You're supposed to help people AND animals!!!" Dispatcher said "Sir! 911 is for HUMAN EMERGENCIES!" Caller then said "Well we'll just see about that!" and hung up. After laughing and shaking our heads for a few minutes, the dispatcher got on the radio and asked for the Trooper car to landline. When the trooper called in, the dispatcher told him about the call and asked him to go have a talk with the caller to "Remind him what 911 is here for".

Other than that, nothing really big happened. A few calls here and there, a lot of talking, alot of sitting around doing nothing. It was pretty fun though. Alot of cool people working up there. Some of the other dispatchers showed up to talk, a trooper and his wife came over for lunch, the wife of one of the dispatchers came over for lunch and brought cake cuz it was her husband's birthday.

After that, I went over to VO for an overnighter. You know, some people that i've mentioned before are getting more and more tolerable. I'm noticing that the BS factor is alot less on this Supervisor's shift. Then again, a few of our more rambunctious employees weren't working Tuesday night, so that had alot to do with it. Plus, I think this S.S. lightens up a bit when you present yourself as willing to learn stuff and asking for advise/info. He still has his moments, but it doesn't seem as bad.

I was on with a paramedic and we only ran 2 calls. Well, 2.5. We got hit for an MVA rollover with entrapment, and my partner and I were up in rotation, so we got rolling. Then the other rig took the call because they went to the SS's house to get something a little while earlier, which put them about 5 miles closer to the scene. The call wound up being nothing though. No injuries, anyway... FD cancelled the ambulance right after the FD got on scene.
Then we had a call at the local hot spot for S.O.B. We walked the stretcher through what seemed to be half the building, through hundreds of people.
Our Pt. was an elderly English guy. He was a riot. We ALSed him, so my partner had the pleasure of talking with the guy on the way to the hospital.

Later on we got called to the local ER for a transfer to Syracuse for an 86 F. with a leaking AAA. (Abdominal Aortic Aneurism). We weren't really surprised, because my mom and sister brought the lady in on QVA an hour or 2 before we got called. We ran into them at the hospital right after they had dropped her off and they told us she had a AAA, so we were thinking we'd probably be taking her to Syracuse sometime that evening and sure enough, we did.

After the hotline rang for the AAA transfer, I asked my partner if they had labelled it a Stat Tranfer and he said "Ehhhh" while doing the "So-so" hand wobble.

We got to the hospital, walked in, the nurse pulled us aside and said "I just want to let you guys know that there is a very real possibility that she may not make it to Syracuse." Lovely. She then proceeded to tell us the vitals and other info and ended her report with "Lights and Sirens, guys. Get her there fast and have a safe trip." THAT got our attention (the very little bit that might have still been wandering after the "She may not make it to syracuse" part). I have worked for VO for 2 years now and I have been on plenty of transfers that have been obvious "Deisel Drip" trips, but I cannot recall one trip where the hospital actually used the words "Lights and sirens". And the nurse who said that to us is one of the most level headed, unrattleable nurses at that hospital.

So we got the lady loaded up, her son jumped up front with me, and we got going. We had a safe, fast, and rather adrenaline inducing trip to syracuse. With the exception of the nice gust of wind that broadsided me as I came past a Semi and started to change lanes. That was a little hairy.
Our times for that run were quite impressive. Made to from the local hospital to the syracuse hospital in 32 minutes. :-D Total time from when the hotline rang until we pulled into the hospital in syracuse? 50 minutes. Those are some pretty impressive times. We were at the local ER for maybe 10 minutes before we left.

My partner told me "This is crazy. I've been in EMS for 6 years, 2 as a paramedic. I have never seen a Triple A before today, then I get 2 Triple A transfers in one day."

By the time we got back, I was not tired at all. I don't know what the deal is, but for the last few months, whenever i work a night shift at VO, I don't sleep. And if i do, it's from 0400 or 0500 til 0700 or 0730. I wound up getting to bed around 0500, woke up at 0745, got up, washed and mopped the rig out, and left. I got right home because I went on duty with QVA at 0900. As soon as I got home I went to bed because I was really tired. I was hoping to get up at 1300 or 1400 and do some studying. Yeah right. I woke up at 1445 because my pager was doing the dying battery beep (and it had been in the charger the whole time. figure that out) I got up and changed the battery out and I was so tired that I was half numb. I laid back down, fell asleep, and woke up at 1740. I rolled over, looked at the clock, and said "Well this is gonna be a long night." It's 0500 now and I'm barely tired.

We have had a few calls so far. We got a call around 1750 (literally 30 seconds after I got in the shower. I hate when that happens.) for a 7 month old with difficulty breathing. We (Driver, Paramedic, and I) got up there and the baby was doing these little grunts with each breath. The mom said that she was feeding the baby, then right after feeding, the baby started grunting with each breath, turned blue around the eyes and mouth, and his legs got mottled. By the time we got there, there was only a little bit of blue around the mouth and he was still grunting a little bit, but he quit grunting before we got in the rig. Gave him some blow-by O2, kept an eye on him, and had a safe, uneventful ride to Syracuse. That kid loved that O2 tubing. spent the first 10 minutes of the trip chewing on it and looking around the rig, then decided to take a nap. This kid was incredibly calm! He only whimpered when the paramedic stuck him for a blood sugar check. And it wasn't a sick calm either. Color was fine, breathing was fine... I was glad. A shitty peds call is not my idea of fun. It isn't anyones idea of fun.

Once I got home, I pulled out my drug cards and my notebook and started working on memorizing some stuff. So far I have Methylpredisolone, Metaproterenol, and Terbutaline down pretty good. What sucks is I have to know about 15 more for class 13 hours from now, and i'm gonna have to sleep sometime today. I got a feeling I am not gonna know them all by tonite.

While I was studying, I watched Mythbusters and Dirty Jobs (yes, i can do both at the same time). Then we got called to North Nowhere for weakness and abdominal pn. I went down to the station, pulled out the rig, sat there for a few, then the paramedic (Andy) pulled in. We sat there for a minute and looked for our destination on the map while we waited for the driver. Apparently he didn't hear the call come in, because he was not showing up. So we called en route. We got up there and finally found the house after some confusion with the addresses. We heard what was going on with the pt., then Andy looked at me, smiled, and said "She's all yours, get in there."

She told us that she felt a little better, but there was still some stomach pain, etc etc.
We got her info, got her into the rig, and Andy got up front to drive and off we went.

I was asking her questions, talking to her, and all the while I had this strange inkling that this call wasn't going to stay BLS forever. I took her vitals and got 80/50 and 88 and irregular. Hmmmm. No mental status change, no color change, she's still alert, talking, not complaining of anything... I asked her what her normal BP was and she told me that she had been to the doctor the other day and her pressure was "In the 70's". I asked if the doc had given her anything for it and she said no, that that was pretty normal for her. Ok... Maybe I misheard the pressure due to road noise and bumps?

Then she said that her right arm was kind of numb, so I did a recheck of her vitals....
Now I get 70/44 and 100 and very irregular. Ok, I'm not liking this.
I ask her again about her BP and this time she said that it's the bottom number that's normally in the 70's. Ok, that's what I though. I told her I'd be right back, that I had to talk to my partner for a minute.
I popped my head up front and said "I don't know if you're interested or not (I knew he would be. This call has definately entered ALS territory), but now we've got right arm numbness, a BP of 70/44, and an extremely irregular pulse of 100". He replies "Uh, yeah, I'm definately interested. Hang a bag for me, get the IV stuff and the monitor ready while I find a place to pull over." I pulled out the IV stuff and started getting everything set up while I told the lady that we were gonna pull over and Andy was going to take over because her BP was low. She asked how low, so I told her and she said "Oh wow, that is pretty low, isn't it."
I got a bag spiked and hung, got the IV start stuff out, and got the monitor in place. By now, the rig was pulled over and Andy jumped in back. Got the monitor fired up and I saw 148 for a rate. Andy says "Whaddya know, A. Fib!"
So he got her ALSed and told me we were ready to continue our trek to syracuse.

The fun was not over. It's been a while since i've been to this hospital. It has a horseshoe drive for the ED entrance, first driveway is the entrance, second is exit. Guess which one i picked? Yup. As I enter, I see the "Do not enter" sign. Too late now. As i'm going around the horseshoe I hear Andy laughing and saying "you're going the wrong way, you know that, right?" No shit, Sherlock. (not my actual response) So I take the driveway back toward the road, get really strange looks from the pts family (or friends, whoever they were) because they must be wondering where the hell we're going... Pulled out onto the road, backed up a little bit, then went down the correct part of the drive. I had noticed the first time I drove past the ambulance bay (which had 2 rigs in it already) several people watching my screw-up. So I backed into the last spot, shut off the rig, got out, and just as I got out, who walks around the back of my rig with a big smirk on his face but one of my friends from paramedic class. He says "What the hell was that maneuver???" and I immediately responded with an upturned middle phalange. (out of site of the pt, of course.) He started laughing and as he walked back toward his rig he said "You won't be hearing the end of this one anytime soon, trust me." By now I had the stretcher out of the rig and Andy heard the last little exchange there and said "Dude, it's crazy. This guy (referring to me) can get us to the far reaches of North Nowhere without a map, but you get him into the city and he gets lost in the hospital parking lot!" Thanks, Andy. Thanks a bunch. He repeated that phrase again in the hospital because one of the docs or nurses had been smoking outside with my friend and his partner when I pulled in the wrong way.
Then to top it off, as we were leaving, Andy asked if I had trouble getting dressed earlier. I'm checking my fly, looking to see if maybe i have 2 different shoes on or something, then he points out that my shirt's inside out. Nice. This whole call has been back asswards.

So that was the excitement of the last few days. Hopefully I can get more of these drug cards memorized today. After class though, my short vacation begins. Once I drop my sister off at home after class, I am going to visit a friend near Geneva. I'll head out tomorrow night and come back saturday night because I have to work the day shift at VO on sunday. I've got a feeling there is going to be some alcohol flowing this weekend. There may even be some ink in my future. More on that later if it happens. Have a good weekend.

I think I just shat myself....

2006-02-18T23:53:00.000-05:00

Yes, it is a memorable line from Mr. Deeds, a halfway decent movie in my book.
It also sums up how I felt on my way to work today.
I was on my way in to VO. i'm working a "Backwards 24" (aka 5pm tonite to 5 pm tomorrow night.)

I was going through a small village that is pretty quiet this time of year. The place is nuts during the summertime, but this time of year it's just the locals. It's a vacation magnet during the summer because it's on the lake and everyone goes there. Anyway, i'm getting off track.

I went through town (which is a 30 mph zone), crossed the bridge, and headed out of town (40 zone which switches to 55 after a short distance). I was a just out of the speed zone when I caught a glimpse of something in my rearview. I looked up... lo and behold, a State Trooper is coming up on me with his lights on like I was standing still. I promptly started to pull over, saying to myself "Please go by me, please go by me, please... Aww, shit." Sure enough, he be after me. I'm thinking to myself "ok, what'd I do..." The only thing i could think of was maybe I was going 45 or 50 near the end of the speed zone.

Anyway, I pulled over, turned off the radio, shut off my car, rolled down my window. By this point he is getting out of his car and I am reaching for my wallet.
This is the conversation that ensued:

Me: "Good afternoon, Officer."
Him: "License and registration please."

I hand him my license, reach up, pull out the sleeve with my registration and insurance info... I start praying he doesn't ask for my insurance card, because my new one is still in my room. oops. I get the old cards out and put them on my seat, but I can't get the registration out cuz it's stuck to the inside of it (I dont know why, quit looking at me like that. Yeah, you.)

Him: "Don't worry about taking it out, just give me the whole thing. You know why I pulled you over?"
Me: (Thinking hard) "Nnnnooot really, no..."
Him: "You seriously don't know why I pulled you over?"
Me: "No." (I am honest with police, but I do not make it a practice of volunteering possible infractions just in case he missed the one thing that I mention)
Him: "Well, several reasons, actually."
Me: (Thinking) WTF?
Him: "Were you talking on a cell phone?"
Me: "No Sir!" (I reach for my phone, hold it up) "You're more than welcome to look at it and see when my last call was."
Him: "No, that's ok... Any idea how fast you were going in that 40 zone back there???"
Me: "ummmm, 45, maybe 50?"
Him: "How 'bout 58?"
Me: (Thinking) F----ck me...
Him: (As he walks to the front corner of my car, looking at my registration and inspection)
"Any suspensions or revocations on your license?"
Me: "No sir."
Him: (Holding up my brand spanking new CDL Class B that really needs to stay clean so that I can keep my job... I believe 15 over the limit also goes down as Reckless driving. I could be wrong, but if i'm not... bad news either way.) "Do you use this for work?"
Me: "Yes sir."
Him: "Okay. Do me a favor. Slow it down and pay more attention to where you are and what you're doing."
Me: "Yes sir."
Him: "Drive safe and be careful of traffic when you pull out."
Me: "Yes sir! Thank you, sir! Have a good day!"

That was my excitement for the day. Took about 2 years off my life. When he said "58", my stomach just dropped. "Suspended license", "large ticket fee", "losing my job" and "skyrocketing car insurance" were all running circles around my head laughing at me. I was incredibly relieved when he handed my stuff back to me and let me go. Thank God for warnings. The Troopers are usually relatively hard nosed about stuff around here, especially new ones. This guy looked like be probably had a few years under his belt though.
So I spent the next several miles laughing at myself and going 50 mph. I tend to laugh at myself in situations like that. It helps diffuse the stress quite a bit.

I got my ride assignment for paramedic class thursday night. It's weird. I didn't ask for this agency on my three choices, but it was one of the original ones that I thought of.
So I was pretty surprised when I got the ambulance that I did. It should be cool though. They run a pretty good call volume and cover a pretty big area.

I'm going to be doing my dispatch time on Tuesday. Gotta have at least 8 hours at the 911 center, observing how everything works. The 911 center I'm going to has a reputation of putting you in the hot seat after you observe a few calls and letting you run the call from when the phone rings until the unit(s) call back in service. That would be pretty interesting.

Well, i'm gonna call it a night. I just realized it's almost 2 am.
cya

Turn the freaking page!

2006-02-14T00:21:00.000-05:00

Here is the song of the day. Not really due to mood or anything, but due to the very useful message "Turn the Page"

Turn the Page
By Metallica (originally Bob Seger
If you want the lyrics, http://www.darklyrics.com/lyrics/metallica/garageinc.html

That is, by the way, one of my favorite songs of all time, especially Metallica's rendition of it.
So why did I choose to put this song up as the subject of my post? Well, because I forgot to turn the page today. I can see the "???" looks out there. relax, i'm getting to it. :-)

Today was the day of our Trauma Module Exam. I was kind of worried because I didn't get my planned studying done. The plan was to study while at VO on Sunday, then after my shift, then this morning.
Wellll.... Stayed up a little late Saturday night visiting some relative who were here from out of state.

Sunday, I woke up, vaguely to my alarm clocks (yes, plural) but specifically to my dad waking me. I rolled over, looked at the clock... Uh oh. 0725!!!!! My shift starts at 0800 and I usually like to be there at least 15 minutes early. Not happening today, folks. The shortest route to VO is about 20 miles, about half of which are back roads.

So I shot out of bed , threw my uniform on, poured a cup of coffee, and ran out the door. I pulled out of my driveway at 0738 and pulled into VO right at 0800. I moved right along when I could... not at stupid speeds, but definately burning fuel.

So I got there, did the chores, etc. Then we got sent on a 3.5 hour tour (one of our longer regular interfacility transfers at VO...) and by the time we got back, I was even more tired than I was when I got up in the morning.

I wound up just hanging around and talking with the people I was on shift with and getting pestered by the company prick... It was quite the crew sunday. Myself, 2 other paramedics who are pretty cool, then the Company Crab Apple, the Company Prick, and the Red-headed stepchild of the organization. It's fun, watching the antics of the C.P. and the red-headed stepchild. They can be pretty amusing. They are always antagonizing each other.

So that shift shot right by, I came home, and still couldn't study. I wasn't tired enough to go to bed, but I was tired enough that had I tried to study, it would have either not been retained at all or I would have passed out on my book.

Sooo, I did what any logical young male would do. I went to the bar. I wound up spending about 2.5 hours talking to the girl who was bartending. She's pretty cool. She is quite animated. Not my type in the dating department at all, which is fine because she's taken anyway. Cool person to talk to though. She said I was her 11th customer of the day. This was at midnight. She had been working since 1600. THAT sounds like it's about as boring as you can get.

Anyway, going to the bar kind of nixed any plans of getting up early. I rolled out of bed around 1130 this morning. Stacey (my sister, who is also in the class, if anyone didn't know) and I left around 1245 because it was snowing pretty heavily, plus we had to return the helium tank from my parents' anniversary party. We got out to the Training Center right at 2.

I got the exam, sat down, started taking it. Our Instructor lets us take breaks during exams, so i usually break it down into thirds and break after each third just to keep from getting overwhelmed. I need to work on breaking that habit though, because I don't believe we get that freedom during the state exam.

Anyway, I felt pretty good about the 1st third of the test... Then the 2nd third... then the final third. There were a few questions throughout the course of the exam that I wasn't sure of, but overall I felt pretty confident. It was especially nice because he had told us on Thursday that it was going to be 225 questions. Well, it only turned out to be 170, er, 175.

I dropped my finished exam off on his desk and by the time I had finished it was about 1645, so went to Arby's, got some grub, then came back.

I got back inside and I asked where the instructor was. One of the other guys in my class said that he was in the other room grading the exams. So I hung out in the hallway, then heard the door open. I looked over, out he comes. He looks around, looks at me, and says, "You did goooood. It's on my desk."

I went into his office, looked on his desk, and saw a beautiful "90" looking at me.
YES!!! YES YES YES YES YES!!!!!!!!! I needed that 90 sooooo bad. My first module average was an 88 or 86, then my second module average was only 75 or 76. Between the 90 on my Trauma/shock/burns module exam, the quiz grades of 88 and 100, this module makes me feel sooo good, especially going into Cardiology. I absolutely HAVE TO study my ass off for that.

Anyway, I was trying to figure out what questions I got wrong. Some were stupid, some weren't. Then I noticed something strange... I got 170-175 wrong. ???
So i looked a little closer... There was nothing filled in on 171-175! WTF? No... Nooo way. I didn't.... I DID! How the hell did I do that?!

So that is where "Turn the page" comes in. I forgot to check and make sure there were no questions on the back page of the test booklet. Oooohhhhhh, was I pissed at myself.
There I was, all excited because I got a 90, then I realize that it could have been a 93 or so had I answered all the damn questions... I have no idea how that slipped by me. I can gaurantee it'll never happen again though. Plus some of the questions that I had wrong were kinda BS... One, I really disagreed with, but my instructor wasn't in much of a debate mood tonite.

We had a lecture after the test at our normal class time. A respiratory doc came in and did a lecture on pulmonary diseases/disorders. Really informative lecture, it was.

Then after she was done, our instructor went over the list of meds for airway and respiration.
I have to have the following drugs, their classes, descriptions, indications, contraindications, precautions, and Dosages/routes memorized by next Thursday:
Succinylcholine, Terbutaline, Vecuronium, Pancuronium, Oxygen (that's a hard one, eh?), Methylprednisolone, Metaproterenol, Ipratropium, Racemic Epinephrine, Isoproterenol, Isoetharine, Hydrocortisone, Fentanyl, Etomidate, Diazepam, Dexamethasone, Aminophylline, and Albuterol.
I have to look and see which of those we can give in our region. I know we give Albuterol, O2, Solu-Medrol, Valium... I'm not sure which of the other ones we can. I know we are probably getting a few more of those drugs with the new protocols... We're supposed to be getting at least Etomidate and Vaponefrin, not sure what else.
Did you notice how I went from generic names to trade names there? How bad did I mess you up? :-P

So yes, that was my excitement for the evening, being a doofus and overlooking the last 5 questions on the exam.

The instructor was not a happy camper tonite. He said the scores ranged from 90's (He said that I had the highest score in the class on this one) to the 60's. I think he said 2 people flunked the exam. He was pissed. He and I were talking after class and he was saying "WTF am I doing wrong here? I'm busting my ass for everybody and this is what I get? 90's to 60's. I dont f-ckin believe it." From what I gathered chatting with my classmates, alot of the people in class scored in the 70's. I felt kind of bad for him, because it's gotta make him wonder what's going on. I think the best way to sum that up is "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink." Some people tried hard and did pretty good, some people just kinda threw it away. What sucks for them is that we only get one retest. For all of our modules we have one retest and thats it.
You fail 2 modules, it's "see ya later".

I know Stacey did well on the test also. Congrats, little sister. :-)

Ok, it is officially past my bedtime. Gotta bring out the dog first.
Oh, and it's finally snowing again. :-D we got about 10 inches today, i do believe. We're supposed to get more tonite and tomorrow also. We shall see!!!

Busy weekend!

2006-02-10T23:17:00.001-05:00

What up, blogland?
It's been a fun few days.
Class got cancelled Monday due to weather (somewhere. it wasnt snowing at our place). Being as how it was a trauma lab, I figured I would leave early and get some last minute cramming in because I have to make sure I do good on this Trauma Module. My quiz scores were 100 and 88, and I want this module to be in the 90's.
So I left my house at about 1315, went to visit my grandfather (he's in a home at one of the area hospitals. Had a bad case of hyponutremia (low sodium), which got corrected but then went to hypernutremia... kinda messed him up a bit. he wound up back home for a while, but because a few screws got knocked loose, things weren't going well... my grandma was getting sick because grandpa was keeping her up all night and not even realizing it. so now he's at the home in the hospital). I visited with him for a while, then headed out to class. Stopped at Arby's and got some grub, went to the training center, sat in the car, ate, and cranked some Metallica until about 1500, then went inside. My theory was that I would study for an hour or 2, take the exam, and get outta there. I studied until about 1630 and then I was told that we were having a lecture instead of the test. I was slightly peeved because I blew several hours of my day (I did not consider the visit to Grandpa as wasting time). So anyway, I got quite a bit of studying done, picked another one of the paramedic instructors' brains, and hung around.
At the end of our first break we heard our instructor screaming on the phone, to the tune of "YOU HAVE GOT TO BE F*CKING KIDDING ME!!!!!!!", followed by "EVERYBODY GET IN THE F*CKIN CLASSROOM!" followed by an impressive slamming of the door. He then began pacing the front of the room. After a few laps, he asked if anyone has started any IV's lately. Turns out someone has been pre-empting ride time and starting IVs with their home agency, somebody blabbed, and ratted them in to a MAJOR name in area EMS... You know, that one figure who's name induces a pucker factor?
So we got a nice loud lecture about ONLY starting IV's with our preceptor and no one else, or he'll have our asses for malpractice. He was slightly pissed, to say the least.
Anyway, got done with class and that was that. I talked to our instructor for a while, then with my sister and one or 2 classmates, then went home.
I went on duty at midnight last night with QVA... hung around online until about 2 am, and just before 4 the pagers went off for a cardiac. Wound up taking her to Syracuse, got back around 6ish... took a shower, went back to bed. I had some plans for the day, but I slept a weee bit too late... woke up at 1530, looked at the clock, said "Oh crap", got up, got ready, and came out here to VO where I'm doing the overnight (1700-0800). My partner and I had one call a while ago, but it was nothing big.

Tomorrow I'm going to be doing a standby for the "Old Dog Races". My bar is having snowmobile races for sleds 1979 and older. It should be fun. There isn't alot of snow though. Hopefully it goes well.
Then Sunday I'm working the day shift (0800-1700) here at VO again.
I'll be heading in early Monday afternoon to take the trauma module, so hopefully I can get a solid amount of studying in Sunday and early Monday.

Then we have a week or 2 of Pulmonology and then we get into the big stuff. Good old Cardiology, all 2 months of it. I'll be surgically implanting my book to my face for that section.

Other than all that, not much is happening around here.

Here's my second major call of note. This is the call where I learned the true meaning of the term "dead weight" and that the hardest part of a code is the family.

This call was only a month or 2 after the fatal MVC I was broken in on.
About 3am on a really snowy morning the pagers went off for an Unresponsive female, unknown if breathing... aww, Nuts.

Got up, headed up to the scene (it was just around the corner and down the road from where that MVC was)
We got there (Mom and I... Dad chauffered us) and an elderly gentleman told us to come on in when we knocked. We walked in and there was an elderly lady lying in a recliner with an eyes-closed death mask.

Mom and I tried to pick her up, but you all know that freshly dead people are quite limp and hard to pick up. We tried to get the chief inside to help us move her, but he was more than content to stay in his truck and play with his radio, so dad came in and between the 3 of us, we got her on the floor and started CPR.

As we were doing CPR, the husband told us that his wife had woken up, stated she didn't feel well and wanted to go outside and get some fresh air. So they got up, and on the way to the front door, she DFO'd. Now the impressive thing was that when the wife dropped, the husband picked her up by himself and put her in the chair. They were both in their late 60's and I was quite impressed that he got her in that chair by himself, yet it took 3 of us to get her off of it gently. (Doing the 'Grab the feet and pull' trick isn't very PR appropriate, ya know?)

So mom and I did CPR til rescue got there (I don't remember if dad was in on it or not.) and as soon as rescue got there, I immediately got displaced. I was still a Jr. Member, so they didn't like me getting my hands dirty (at least after there was enough help to bump me to the side).

As I was standing there with 2 other Juniors in the kitchen, the husband was walking around looking lost... trying to find his shoes and whatever else it was. We offered to help him, got him a few things, then as he was shuffling across the kitchen, he stopped, looked me square in the eyes with tears rolling down his face and said
"I feel like I just lost my best friend..."

I'll tell you what folks, that statement hit me like a baseball bat. It almost physically hurt. It was painful to watch him too because he just looked so lost and stunned... As his wife was making CPR noises, he kept asking if that was her breathing or coughing or trying to come back...

Codes don't usually make it out of this fire district. The ambulance that covers it is about 20 miles away, so figure in 20 miles, 3 am, snowing with slick roads. NOT a good prognosis.

Sure enough, they got there, hooked her up, and called for permission to call it. I really felt bad for that guy.

That call bothered me a bit for a day or 2. It's alot harder to let a call roll off your back when the family is involved that directly and you see their reactions to the situation.
It still bugs me when the family is there, especially at the hospital.

After a recent code that I was on, we had dropped the lady off at the hospital and myself, the driver, and the EMT from rescue that we grabbed had finished cleaning up the rig.
We were outside talking and smoking when the family walked out of the ER doors to leave. They were, of course, red and moist in the eyes, walked up to us, shook our hands and said "Thanks for trying." I understand that they mean well when they do that, but it sucks. How do you answer them? Hey, we tried? Sorry we couldn't save her? I'm sorry for your loss?

I don't know. It just sucks. I guess because when the surviving family is there, it's alot more real, for lack of better words... If it's just a dead patient and no family is around, the only reactions are those among your crew. Nice try, She was dead before we got there, blah blah blah, all the justifications we use to keep ourselves somewhat impartial so that we don't lose it every time someone bites the big one.

I would really like to be on a code save one of thse days.

The code I wrote about a few posts ago did not make it. We were in the time frame, but when your number is called, time's up.

Well, there's my thoughts for the night.
Stay safe, blogland.

CAUTION: This is a vent.

2006-02-07T21:23:00.000-05:00

This blog is a vent and probably nothing but a vent. I doubt there is anything here anyone will find constructive, so read at your own discretion.
I don't know why, but I am in an INCREDIBLY dark mood tonite. I'm almost scaring myself.
There hasn't even been anything abnormally bad happenning lately. I'm really getting stressed though.
It feels like everything is just taking a giant shit on me all at the same time.
I'm stressing about class, finances, personal stuff... it seems like anything that could possibly bother me just kicked into overdrive today.
If you haven't noticed, i've kind of taken to posting songs that reflect my mood. Well, here's the song of the night.

The Unnamed Feeling
By Metallica, for lyrics, http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/metallica/theunnamedfeeling.html

And i think that is the end of my rant. I was gonna be going alot
farther than that song tonite, but i was bailed out by a friend.
I'd like to say thanks to Cindy, she just came online as I was putting
the finishing touches on the lyrics there.
There's nothing better in life than a good friend who understands
what's going on, almost without having to tell them.
I did kinda spill my guts on her, but she cured my night with about
3 sentences. God bless her. :-)
Well, now that i dont have anything to vent about anymore, I'm outta here.
I'll try to write something constructive this weekend.

Who the hell paid off the zebras?!

2006-02-07T00:47:00.000-05:00

Was it just me, or was the Super Bowl XL officiating a joke? Think maybe someone payed them off? Maybe, maybe not. Why is offensive pass intereference even a penalty? He stiff-armed
that guy before he had the ball and there goes a touchdown.

Then that freakin Roethlesberger TD.... don't even get me started on that shit. WTF! That right there proves that referees are blind. How could they call that a touchdown? That ball was a foot from the line until he was down, looked around, brought the ball up, and that damn ref called it a TD. Bull.

Can you tell I was rooting for Seattle? I do kind of like the Steelers, but not as much as the Hawks. It is kind of cool that Bettis got his ring in his hometown, but still. Those calls... I knew after the B.R. TD that it was over. And the farther it went, the worse it got. I was hoping for a high-scoring, down to the wire game. Didn't quite turn out that way.

So there's my rant.

I was surprised how many people around here were rooting for Seattle. Probably 2/3 of the crowd at the Ridge were rooting for them.

How about some of those commercials though? I liked the Caveman commercial. I REALLY like the Ameriquest commercial set in the hospital. I almost died laughing when I saw that.
Then there was the 'touching moments' commercial, with the young Budweiser Clydesdale. The folks at the bar liked that one. there were alot of "awwwwwwww"s floating around for that.

Not much new in the world of EMS here... We didn't have class tonite... We have a nice lake effect band pounding the general area and our instructor said he didn't see the sense in risking lives for a Trauma Lab. I do believe our Trauma Module is Thursday. sheesh. i've been doing
some good studying so far for trauma, i just have to make sure i get more in.

Just thought i'd post, show some signs of life...

Anti-Stress Techniques

2006-02-03T00:11:00.000-05:00

I love the de-stressing gurus. Meditate! Yoga! Soft classical music! Nature sounds! Yanni!
Yeah, ok.
You know how i de-stress? Either a nice long walk in the woods, either silent or arguing with myself, or full blown, flat out assault on the senses. That's what I'm doing right now. I have 2 major de-stressing bands:
Disturbed and Metallica. There is something extremely theraputic about "Ain't My Bitch" at near ear-bleeding inducing levels.
At the moment I'm on the Disturbed kick. More specifically, Just Stop, Stricken, and The Game. All very loud.
Repeat multiple times over and feel the stress melt away. Is it strange that I find that soothing?

So anyway.
I really screwed up big time at work. During my application process (for the bus job) i had to get fingerprinted.
Well, guess what i did? Or more specifically, forgot to do? I forgot to sign the form with my prints!
So i got a phone call around 13:45, with my boss telling me to come to the office and sign the form. Sooooo, until they call him back saying that i'm ok on my background check, I can't drive. He said (boss) that if all goes well, i'll be driving again by tuesday, but still. Freakin pisses me off.
So tomorrow I am gonna finish the application for the ambulance job and i'm also going to fill out and mail the app for the civil service test for the dispatch job.

Saturday we have an all day class. Trauma labs. cool stuff. We had our quiz tonite. I did ok i think. there were 4 or 5 questions i wasnt sure of. i hope i got most of them right because it was only a 20 question quiz.
Our trauma doc was doing the lecture tonite. It was on Trauma during pregnancy. There's some pretty crazy stuff involved in that.

I think i'm pretty much out of stuff to say. Constructive stuff anyway. I could probably vent a novel right about now, but i'm not really in the mood to lay it out in the open right now.
So have a good night, blog land.

just another day

2006-02-02T05:57:00.000-05:00

This week is really sucking bad from a work standpoint.
Monday, I covered someones route (we're talking about cheeseboxes obviously, not meat wagons at the moment)
Tuesday, I covered an afternoon run that goes all over creation, Last night I took a bunch of skiers to West Nowhere (Next town over from North Nowhere if you were wondering), and now it is 0555 and no call from the bus garage yet. So unless they get a last minute call-in, i'll have the day off. Which is good and bad at the same time. It's bad because I need the money. It's good because I really need to study for our quiz tonite on Head, Face, Spinal, Thoracic, and Abdominal trauma. And if they don't call by 0630, I am going back to bed for 2 hours or so. I am tired. Been a long couple days.
As I mentioned last post, VO called me in for a shift Tuesday night. I didn't sleep a lick. It was by choice though. I got on a roll studying and i studied right through to about 0530, 0600 yesterday morning before my eyes started going in different directions. The only call we ran that shift was a call for chest pains about 4 or 5 blocks from the station, and they self-transported before we even got there.
Anyway, I came home from there, passed out for a few hours, went on the skiing run, came home, went to our scheduling meeting with QVA, came home, watched Mythbusters (love that show), got online, started chatting with a female friend of mine, and the next thing i knew it was 0040.
I've been up since 0500 today because I like to try to get up before the bus garage will call, that way it saves the phone from waking the whole family up.

I have to talk to my instructor tonite. I think i mentioned it earlier, but I'm planning on taking the civil service exam for a county dispatch job. I just discovered a small problem. I think. I may have class on the day of the civil service exam. The exam is 3/18, which is a saturday. 3/19 is listed as a Cardiac Lab covering Protocols/Treatments/CPR. That could go one of 2 ways. It could be saturday, or it could be Monday. I'm thinking it's pprrrrrroooobably supposed to be monday the 20th, because for one, i don't remember any major March holidays... oh wait... St. Patty's Day is the 17th... That's about as good as it gets for my instructor and most of the class. Hmm. I still think he meant to put Monday the 20th down, especially since it doesnt show any class on the 20th, it goes from the 19th to the 23rd. I'll ask tonite.
I had my first real lesson in paramedic brainstorming Tuesday night. Well, Wed. morning actually.
The paramedic I was on with kind of helped me along on a brainstorm of the possibilities of problems our pt had. it was cool. He said that a huge part of paramedic care is thinking, figuring what the problem could be and what it could be connected to. pretty cool.

Well, work isn't calling, so I'm going to go get some more shut-eye.
In closing, I just figured I'd put up the lyrics to a new song that I find freaking awesome.

"Just Stop"
By Disturbed, for lyrics, http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/disturbed/juststop.html

Does "Sorta quit" count?

2006-01-31T22:32:00.000-05:00

Yep, if you didn't guess from the title, I caved.
I was doing pretty good until class Monday night. Had a pretty stressful ride in to class, blah blah blah, excuses excuses, and I bummed a few over the course of the night.
Then today went good for most of the day. Got home from driving the cheese box (school bus), jumped in the shower, and halfway through someone knocked on the door and told me that VO was looking for coverage for the overnight, so I came in.

I made it until about 22:15. We were on our way back from a cancelled call and I stopped and picked up a pack. Shame on me, I know. I suck. I'm not gonna make plans or excuses about why I did it or how I'll restrict myself. I'm just gonna do what I can and I'll let you know how I did, how's that sound?

It's snowing! We pulled out for our call and it was snowing pretty good. I doubt it'll last though.
The call turned out to be nothing. For us, anyway. Call was for chest pains about a half mile from the station. We pulled up behind city rescue, they came over, told us that "The patient decided to drive himself because it hurt so bad he didn't wanna wait." Turns out the guy is like 22 y/o.

Cardiac problem? possible. More likely scenario? I dunno... anxiety, drugs, maybe. People are lacing some pretty nasty shit into drugs nowadays.

My rig and the rescue took a few different routes to the hospital just to make sure the guy got there ok, which he did.

That was an hour or so break right there... Did some IV practice and some ETT (Endotracheal Tube) practice. We have a pretty cool practice mannikin here. I do need some more IV practice. plus, the caths i was using here are shit. We apparently get the "Dollar Store" version of IV caths here from what I'm told.
I guess the practice part really kicks in with the 12 or 16 hours that I have to do on the IV team at the hospital. I've done good so far, back when we were practicing IV's alot. Ah well. practice, practice, practice.

I think I'm gonna call it a night.
Stay safe.

Gggrrrrrrr 2

2006-01-29T16:16:00.000-05:00

OK, I am now 38 hours into the smoke free section, with mixed emotions.
Physically, I feel great (except for the congestion from the cold I mentioned last post.)
I can breath, my lungs don't hurt, and I don't smell like a chimney.
Yet mentally, I feel like someone is dragging my teeth down a chalkboard. I have that sensation, plus that annoying, irritating feeling like there are 4 people running close circles around me poking me with their fingers and laughing (you know how little kids like to do that to torment you? yeah, thats the vibe i've got right now.).
Weird descriptions, aren't they?
I know there are probably some ex-smokers out there laughing at me, calling me a wuss, but I don't care.
Everyone quits differently. For some people, they just put the smokes down, walk away, and never have another craving. Then some people lose their minds, go postal, and start killing people (ok, maybe not literally). All I have to say is this: 1. I am glad i work for peaceful little QVA, and not some huge high-stress place. 2. If i keep up at this rate, i'll be doing pretty good by mid-week.
The real test will come tomorrow night at class. That's gonna be a tough part to kick.
I have always been a firm believer that addiction to smoking as 5% physical, 95% mental. The hardest part of quitting smoking is breaking the routine of it.
Class goes on break, go outside and smoke. Hang out before and after class and smoke.
The real fun part will be Feb 10th, which is my next shift at VO. All we do there when we aren't running calls is watch TV, or hang out in the garage, smoke, and chat.
Then again, maybe it won't be that bad, because by then I should be over this. The hard part is going to be avoiding that "occasional" smoke. You know, you've been quit for a week or so, then you bum one off of someone to "ease the craving", but instead it just makes it worse.
But yeah, to make a long story short; so far, so good.
I just saw an interesting ad in the paper. Check this out.

Caretaker/Handyman needed for security and general upkeep of 125 acre wooded private recreation property with 18 acre lake, ideal for hunter, fisherman, or trapper. Modern cabin, garages, and workshop provided. Should be employed and have good credentials. Call blah blah blah for more info.

So i called on it today and got some interesting info.
For starters, it's in my fire district. once they told me where it was, i realized that it's the place that anm acquaintance of mine was caretaking for a while back. i will not be mentioning his name when i talk to the homeowners, because the reason he quit was a falling out with the owners that was mostly his fault, from the sounds of it.
Anyway.
It's a live-in position. They have a small cabin, they told me about the things that come with it, It's wood heated and the caretaker has to collect his own wood from the property.
They provide you with a 4-wheeler and some other stuff for recreation and work...
All they ask is that the caretaker keeps an eye on the place, keeps other people out, and keeps the property looking good (aka keeping the trails clear, lawn mowed, roof shoveled, driveway plowed, etc etc etc.)
Now here is the interesting part.
There's no pay. I'm assuming they have the attitude that the place is so nice, and staying there is such a privelage, that they'll let you stay there if you keep the place lookin good.
Being as how i'm familiar with the place, i know this is true. This is like my dream house. The actual house is huge, there's bass, catfish, etc. in the lake, there's freakin deer EVERYWHERE, and it's a heluva lot close to the firehouse.
So anyway, they expect 30 hours of labor a week in exchange for living there. I can deal with that.
They're going to be making phone calls in the middle of next month to do interviews in person.
The lady i spoke to is the owners next door neighbor, and she is also their P.O.A. I guess this place is their vacation home, because they live out of state, and they'll be back in Feb. so their doing the interviews then.
I think i impressed the lady, because she asked what i do for work and stuff, and i told her that i live in QV and i'm a bus driver and i also work for several area ambulances as an EMT, and i'm a paramedic student. That's when i heard her ears perk up. She said "Oh wow, that's very good. see, this couple is in their 70's, so they would really appreciate having an EMT around when they are home."
So we will see how this turns out. it'd be nice, having that place all to myself. She said that the owners can get kind of annoying though. In her words, "The old guy will call you over to 'give him a quick hand' or something and the next thing you know you'll be painting the deck and have 2 days of work ahead of you"

If i do get this position, I'll be getting myself a dog once i move in (as long as they don't toss in the no
pets card, which would really piss me off.)

Well as long as i'm on a roll, i think i'll start with my call history that i've been putting off.

My mom and I joined an extremely rural fire dept. back when i was 16. She was an EMT and always hearing this FD calling for mutual aid for medical personnel, and it was only about 8 miles from our house at the time, so we joined up.
My first actual call came in on a sunny Saturday morning. I had just about finished a shower when the tones dropped for an MVA, unknown injuries. I still pick on my mom about how fast I was ready. All she had to do was go upstairs, get out of her nightgown and into her clothes and come back downstairs.
I got myself rinsed, dried, dressed, downstairs, and out the door before she even came downstairs.
Anyway, we got moving and after a few seconds of deliberation, decided to head for the scene. The scene was about 4 miles away, versus the 8 miles to the station then 4 miles back to the scene.

We pulled up on the scene and our chief was already there. We got out of the car, mom grabbed her kit, and we started walking up. From the angle we were at, we could see a pick-up and a Caddy, both off the side of the road. As soon as the chief saw us, he jumped out of his truck and started doing the Steal Second sign. We got up there and he said to my mom, "Check on him, I think he's fatal."
I'm thinking "Oh, WTF. My first call is gonna be a fatal?" Sure enough, we walked around the corner of the chiefs truck and there was a body between the 2 vehicles (Which were about 10' apart) and it was covered in a blanket with one leg sticking out. That's when I realized that body blankets look a lot different when they are real. Talk about goosebumps.

We went over to him, saw the occupant of the other car (he was sitting there staring straight ahead, with his car door open and obviously not trapped) Mom asked if he was ok and he said "Yes, check on the other guy, don't worry about me".
We uncovered the guy on the ground, log rolled him onto his back, and saw that he had the works. J.V.D., (jugular vein distension for the non-medical readers out there... basically looks like 2 garden hoses under the skin in your neck) Blue Hood (this really shitty looking bluish-greyish-purplish color that runs from your collarbones up), bulging eyes staring straight ahead, and a very swollen tongue.
Mom was doing a quick check on him when she thought she heard him gasp or grunt or something, so we started working him.
This was turning into a pretty crazy first call for a 16 year old kid with basic first aid and CPR.
Mom took his airway, I took compressions and also a nice case of tunnel vision.
After a few minutes, I heard sirens coming from both directions (one direction was our FD, the other direction was the next FD north who our FD called for mutual aid alot.)
I swear that those sirens sounded like angels singing. Once the trucks all pulled up, things got weird.
I still had the tunnel vision, yet at the same time, I had this viewpoint that seemed as if i was leaning up against the big maple tree about 15' away, watching everything. As I was doing CPR, my field of vision pretty much ran from the guys neck to his belt. Yet at the same time, I saw 3 guys from our neighbors up north come running by with a backboard and EMS bags and start working on the guy behind us in the Caddy. It was strange.
Then 2 EMT's from our M.A. dept. came up with an AED and bags and I got out of the way.
After that, the whole thing was kind of blurry. I remember just kinda wandering aimlessly around, seeing what everyone was going and whatever. Mom wound up riding the ambulance to the hospital while they worked the guy. As i was walking around, one of the medics from one of the ambulances there came up to me, put an arm around my shoulders and asked "How's Adam doing?" I told him I was alright, and he said that if mom or I needed to talk, he'd be at the other ambulance he worked at (where mom and I also volunteered) that night, so come on up.

Once we were done at the scene, I drove our car back to the station. I hung out there for a while while i waited for mom to get back. After a while, I decided I needed the restroom. In the process of taking care of business, i looked down and saw blood on my knee. I started looking at it, trying to see where i was bleeding from, when i looked at my pants and saw that the right knee of my pants was soaked in blood, about half of the circumfrence and about 6" above and below my knee.
Turns out that gun racks and MVA's don't mix well. This guy had a gun rack in his trucks back window and when he collided with the other vehicle, his head snapped back and got impaled deeply on the gun rack right thru his upper occipital region. If he did have a heart attack right nefore the wreck, that would explain why that wound didn't bleed. Mom did a pretty thourogh inspection of the guy and she said she felt something on the back of his head, but he was not bleeding before we started CPR.
By the time i swapped off with the EMTs, we'd perfused him enough to get blood from his head to my knee.

What we were told eventually was that the now-dead guy (who was driving the pick-up) was pulling out of his driveway when he apparently had a heart attack (which would explain the lack of bleeding from the head injury) He crossed lanes and popped the Caddy just about head on, then they went into the ditch on the opposite side of the road from his house. He then proceeded to get out of his truck, walk around the back of it, and then collapse between his truck and the other car. Throw in the trans-occipital implantation of the gun rack and you have one shitty Saturday morning.

This call was a little extra stressful due to it's location. The dead guy and his wife lived on one side of the road, and their son and his family lived right across the street from them. So there was a wife on one side of the road and a son and his family on the other side, all watching in horror. Looking back , we would have done CPR anyway. I'm a firm believer that a chunk of the CPR we do is more for the families closure than it is to try to revive the pt. Anyone agree with me?

So that was my introduction into fire/resuce. I'm normally a white cloud, but every now and then i catch some serious 'oh shit' calls. I'll cover more later.

GGGRRRRRRRRRRRR

2006-01-29T00:22:00.000-05:00

SONG OF THE DAY:
AIN'T MY BITCH
by Metallica. for lyrics, http://www.darklyrics.com/lyrics/metallica/load.html#1

Yeah. Now that I got that outta my system...
I'm a little wound tonite. Ok, more than a little.
This is one of those "C'mon, f-ck with me. I dare you" nights.

"Adam," you ask, "What's the deal? You're normally a little cheerier than this."

Yep, you're right. I am normally cheerier than this. The reason for this?

Well, one of several reasons for this is the fact that it has been almost 24 hours since my last cigarette. Quick, someone pat me on the back, I swear I won't bean you. Nah, no pats on the back necessary. I've been looking for some motivation to quit for a while, and this really pleasant cold/sinus infection provided it.

Yeah, I know. I'm an EMT, paramedic student, blah blah blah, I know what smoking does to a person. And like every other smoker out there, I know what it does to me.

I send a big fat "get your head out of your ass" to every person who says that they didn't know smoking is bad for you. Helllooooooo, heated toxic smoke and fumes and chemicals entering your lungs! Why do you think animals run away when they smell smoke? Because! Smoke usually means something bad is coming!

So I've been smoking since late in my 17th year of life. I'm almost 23 now. So about 5 years. maxed out at a pack, pack and a half a day when I was in college and living alone at the fire station (all there was to do was sleep, study, smoke, watch TV, and eat. Really healthy time in my life) I had a few times where I had just straight-up quit, no nic fits or nothing. Just woke up one morning and said "ya know Adam, I'm not in the lung-pickling mood this morning." One time, I stayed quit for a good month... Then driving by one of the places I regularly got smokes, I said "I'm in the mood for a smoke." so I bought a pack, and off we go again. When that happened, I wasn't even craving. Just wanted a smoke. Stoopid Stoopid Stoopid.

Between the 3 Stoopids and now, we had a call. Came in "Chest pain and sweating, guy met us at end of his driveway, took him in, no problems. He did have inverted T waves though. But that's normal for some people.

So I have yet another job lead. Saw a civil service announcement for an exam for "Public Safety Telecommunicator" (aka the beloved "Dipspatcher". No offence to any PST's out there. :-D)
I'm gonna go for it. Why the hell not, ya know?

I went down to the Ecnalubma that I was talking about a post or 2 ago and picked up an application. Get that filled out and turned in, see what happens.

I was gonna write more, but I'm finally getting tired... It's 0411, and I've been nic fitting so bad that I haven't been tired, but I'm finally ready to get some sleep. May as well say goodbye to any productivity that may have been accomplished today.

Peace.

Shot myself in the foot.

2006-01-21T22:55:00.000-05:00

Yeah.
Module 2&3 results came in Thursday. I passed, but that's about it. I got a 75 on it. 76 average for the module.
ohhh, the pain.
2 problems with this module.
1. I barely studied. It was on airway, history taking, assessment, PCRs, radio BS. I studied airway, but that was about it.
2. I think I screwed up on my answer sheet. I got 21 out of the last 25 questions wrong.
I have to say, I'm usually a pretty good test taker. Even if I'm BSing a test, I can usually eliminate answers that are really wrong and have a 50-50 shot or better. I learned a lot about how to take tests in college. And I have never had a stretch of questions that long be wrong. Yes, maybe I just screwed up by not studying so bad that all of those being wrong was the result, but I'm a little more inclined to think that I messed up on my answer sheet somewhere. Oh well. I'm going to go over the trauma stuff we covered this week tomorrow.
We went over hemorrhage and shock, blunt trauma, penetrating trauma, and ballistics. Our instructor is one of those guys who's done everything. He was a deputy fire chief, EMT, paramedic, and city police.
He did the ballistics portion, talking about how bullets do their damage depending on their speed, caliber, velocity, etc.
One of the medical directors for the area did the trauma lecture, and I think he's teaching all of the trauma lectures. He's a trauma surgeon at the area trauma center (level 2 trauma center, to be exact).

So yes. It is time for me to quit talking about studying and actually begin to study. I'm on with QVA for a 24 starting in about 38 minutes, so as long as we don't run calls all day (which I really wouldn't mind), I will be studying, along with continuing the overhaul of my bedroom. I've never really moved myself into it so there are boxes everywhere.
Then Monday, I probably wont be driving bus. They said they don't need anything as of right now, plus I have a mandatory bus safety class at 0930 Monday morning. So I will spend the time between class and, well, class, studying.
I've got a possible lead on another job. One of the guys in my class said that the ambulance he works for is looking for FT basics and it's almost on a pick your shift basis. If he is correct in that, that could work out nicely. Maybe 2 24s or a 12 and a 24 each week, drive bus on the side, and still have time for field training.
We will see. I'll keep you posted.

It is quite windy outside. It snowed a dusting earlier, but it's been windy all day. It's supposed to start snowing again sometime in here... I don't know man, this is one extended January thaw. Is it going to be like this all winter, or is old man winter just reloading? We'll find out soon I guess. We're usually into springtime weather by the end of march. Every now and then it waits until sometime in April though. Who knows. Time will tell.
Ok, that's enough for me tonite. It's about bedtime.
Cya

talk about jinxing myself.

2006-01-17T17:09:00.000-05:00

I royally jinxed myself with that last post.
From the weatherman perspective, not only was it freezing cold all day, it started to warm up (to mid 20's)
and then started raining. And we all know from grade school that when water comes into contact with a surface below 32 degrees, you get ice. I was reminded of this today when i was getting out of my car after work and almost fell flat on my ass on the driveway. Then looking at the forecast it is supposed to warm up and start raining heavily, to the tune 1.5 inches of rain by tomorrow afternoon, along with winds of up to 40 mph. lovely. New York is driving me nuts this "Winter".

Now to the jinx part.
Remember when i said how quiet it's been for me on the ambulance lately? Yeaaah. that was an Oops.
Sunday night about 22:09 we got hit for a male pt. unresponsive and not breathing. Nuts.
Beat feet for the station, follow the squad and the blue-light brigade to the scene, watch people run around in circles for a minute while they try to find out which house it was, get bitched at by our driver as i'm standing there with the stretcher waiting to find out where the house is before i take off... thats long winded.

Lets break it down step by step.

1. Beat feet for the station. We did very well this time around. En route in 3 minutes, which is excellent with everyone responding from home.

2. Follow the squad and blue-light brigade to the scene. Actually, it was more in this order: Squad, Meat Wagon, Blue light brigade. I've been on calls that have had 40 POV's on scene. and the scene was about 1/4 mile from the fire station. Figure that out. Anyway, in this case it was welcome. The more the merrier, when it comes to codes. Usually.

3. Running around in circles and pissy driver.
Squad calls on scene with us right behind them (If you're keeping time, this is another 2 minutes, so we're still at the tail end of the BLS link in the chain of survival) . I'm in the back of the rig getting equipment together, we stop, my driver and medic jump out, medic grabs some equipment, asks me to get the ET kit and follow him in. I dig around, find the ET kit, jump out of the rig... I take a look around. I see 3 houses, all either dimly or not lit up, and not a single person. No one doing the steal second sign, no rescue personnel loitering around, nothin. So i pick the nearest house, head toward it with the ET kit, when out of the shadows come about 12 people from rescue. Everyone has that confused, Bugs Bunny style "Which way did he go, George?" look on their faces, and they were asking questions like "Which house is it? Do you know what house it is? Cuz it isnt this house!"

So i do an about-face and look at the other 2 houses, still no sign of my medic or driver. Now I figure it would be safe to get the stretcher out of the rig since we've ruled out the house on one side of the road.

I threw the ET kit on the stretcher, pulled the stretcher halfway out when I heard the same round of questions; "Which house is it?! There's no one out here! There's no lights on! Is this even the right f-ckin address? WTF?!"

FINALLY someone comes to a window or something and signals that we were at the right house. I mean, people were about 1 second from splitting up and knocking on doors. (some people around here do not like marking their houses/mailboxes.)

I hear the calls of "It's this house!!!" so i start pulling the stretcher out the rest of the way, when one of the many things on the stretcher starts to topple off.

Here i am, by myself because everyone else is running toward the house, trying to hold up the stretcher with one hand while trying to reposition equipment with the other hand, when Mr. Driver comes around the corner, starts to shut the back door of the rig, sees me there, offers no help, grabs the front of the stretcher, shoves it (and me) backwards, and says "Get this f-ckin thing out of my way so i can move the rig into the driveway! Jeez!"

My thoughts at the moment? "Whyyyy i oughtta......"

So i grabbed the stretcher, started wrestling it and all the equipment that is on it across the nice, rutted, heavily sloped driveway toward the house.

Finally got some help about 15 feet from the door. The overflow effect was starting to kick in (where you have too many people inside so a few get sent out), and they told me they'd take care of getting the stretcher in, so i grabbed the equipment we needed and went in.

CPR in progress, asystole or fine PEA (Didnt get much of a look at the monitor), Paramedic from rescue drops the tube, IV's get flowing, Epi goes in, get the pt on the board, on the stretcher, in the rig.
Pick up a few ppl from rescue to assist with the code, and off we go.

Halfway to the hospital, it struck: The dreaded case of code cramps. I'm not the only one who's had it, right?
You're bouncing down the road at a high rate of speed, assisting with a code, when your stomache says
"Mwah ha ha ha haahhhhhh. Shouldn't have eaten THAT earlier, eh pal?"

We got him to the ER, got him into a room, and i did the 15 yard dash to the bathroom once the staff took over.
As I was walking out of the bathroom, i heard someone say "He's got a rhythm". A few minutes after that, "He has peripheral pulses", then "His pressure is dropping" then (Doc)"So give him some Dopamine."

When we left, he was holding his own. Haven't heard if he's gonna be pulling out of it or not. Didn't look too promising, but we did get to him in time, so depending on the reason for him coding, he may have a chance.
The medic doesn't think he'll make it out of the hospital, but we'll see.

So that was that.
And now it is dinnertime, followed by study time.
Cya

Brrr.

2006-01-15T17:25:00.000-05:00

I love new york. We've been enjoying temps in the 40's and 50's all week, then we wake up this morning to 2 degrees. i don't think it's gotten out of the single digits today. We're in a wind chill advisory with the W.C. Factor in the -15 to-25 range. It's a little chilly.

I'm on a 24 with QVA today and we have not had anything so far. The whole county has been relatively quiet, actually. A few calls here and there throughout the county, but nothing too big as far as i know.

I haven't been on any calls of note in quite a while now. When i've been on with QVA lately, it's been either BS calls or nothing at all.

Paramedic class is back in motion and we've been going over assessments, history taking, stuff like that. I think we start trauma on thursday, i do believe. We have a module exam tomorrow night on Airway, History Taking, and Assessment. The last 2 classes have been medical and trauma assessment labs. Mostly BLS, but starting to integrate ALS into it. We're going to be starting hospital time in a week or 2, just gotta get our physicals done first

The bus job has been going pretty good. I've got the hang of the route i'm subbing on and from the sounds of it i'll be on this route for several more weeks. The regular driver hurt his back and the doctor won't let him come back to work yet. There are a few kids on this route that are a handful. The high schoolers are pretty good. I only pick up about 30 in the morning and usually only about 10 ride home in the afternoon.
My elementary run, on the other hand, can get pretty crazy. Somewhere between 67-73 kids from Pre-K thru 6th grade. It can get a little aggravating from time to time, especially in the afternoon.

Nothing new is going on other than work and class. Except for the NFL playoffs.
My team got knocked out last night. New England lost to Denver 27-13. N.E. was not on their game at all last night. Turnover after turnover sealed their fate last night. It was almost painful to watch.
Today, Pittsburg beat Indianapolis 21-18 in a very good game. I was on the edge of my seat near the end. Indy missed a 46 yard FG by a mile near the end of the game.
I'm ok with both teams, but i like pittsburg a little more than indy.
I would like to see Seattle get to the Super Bowl, but i'd also like to see Pittsburg win it all. I think it would be pretty cool if The Bus (Jerome Bettis) could get a Super Bowl ring before he retires.
So as much as I like Seattle, i think i'm gonna have to root for pittsburg this time around.

I was going to get into some recollection of past calls of note tonite, but i have to study for the module tomorrow and do a little work in my room.
So maybe next time.
Stay Safe

Christmas/New Years break and Module 1 evals.

2006-01-03T21:16:00.000-05:00

How was everyone's Christmas/New Years? hope it went well for everyone.
Things went good here... it's been a weird winter so far though. It started snowin around Thanksgiving, kept snowing until a few days before Christmas, then warmed up and started raining. Snow in my back yard was knee deep before Christmas, now it's about 5 inches of slushy/icy/crusty crap.
The clear roads are nice though.

Anyway, i totally wasted the break from class. My plan was to catch up on making my flash cards (i was turning pretty much any definition in my book into flashcards), brush up on shock, pharm, and study up more on airway. I'm sure you can guess what happened though. Yup, had to blow the dust off of my book last night.
i dont feel too bad though, because my sister didnt crack her book at all either.

Class went ok, we went through history taking and the Q&A portion of Pt. Assessment last night.
We also had our module one evaluations with our instructor. (They had another one of the instructors teaching while our regular instructor pulled us into his office one by one and evaluated our performance and addressed a few issues before they got out of hand.

We'll be starting hospital time in a week or 2 from the sound of things.

The new job is going pretty good, i'm driving a route that i'll be on for a while, from the sound of things.
No real calls of note lately, either.

Wow, this is a boring post. lol

unfortunatly, i cant think of anything else to write.

Cya later.

C-Ville my ass!!! you can't get there from here!!!!!!!!

2005-12-17T22:50:00.000-05:00

Talk about the call of the year! Wow.

I 'm on duty tonite, 1400-0000. about 1800, i hear "QVA, snowmobile accident." The tones drop, then they come back and tell us it's on one of the trails in North Nowhere.

We get to the station, call en route, and ask for a better location. They come back with something along the lines of "QVA, it's on trail C-6, approximately 6 miles from the Sportsmans Lounge. Go to the Sportsmans Lounge on Michigan Mills Rd., rescue will meet you with the Pt."

So my crew and I are thinkin "WTF????? Sportsmans Lounge? Michigan Mills Rd? where the hell is that?! We dont know any of those places!!!"

So we ask for better directions... And this is what we hear... "QVA, per Lewis County, go into West Leyden, turn onto Rt. 26 North. Take that into C-Ville, turn left onto Highmarket Rd, follow that to Michigan Mills Rd, to the end. Rescue will meet you there."

There was a moment of silence on the ambulance.

All 3 of us were thinking "W....T....F!?!?!?!? C-ville? C-VILLE?! as in Constableville?!?!
Holy SH-T!"

The driver grabs the mic and says "Fire Control!!! CONSTABLEVILLE?!?!?!"

They respond with "That's Affirmative. stand by for more info and directions."

Driver "Yeah, OK!"

Through all this, you hear all the dispatchers laughing. We at QVA get called out to some real EBF locations, but this... Wow. We're talking about a 45 mile trip just to the Trailhead, then its anywhere from 5-20 miles past where the road ends to where the pt is on the trail. In the meantime, there are about 6 ambulances much closer, including one about 10 miles from the scene.

The problem here is the town of North Nowhere. The end we normally get called to is about a 20-25 minute drive due to the roads being very hilly, twisting, and turning. There are only about 15-20 ambulance accessible roads in North Nowhere, and they are mostly in the southwest corner of the town. Everything else is just seasonal access roads and snowmobile trails. Well doesnt it figure, this sled wreck is on the eastern side of North Nowhere (quite a large town, actually.) and there are only a few snowmobile trails connecting SW North Nowhere to eastern North Nowhere. The only road that totally crosses North Nowhere is the one we were taking, which is about 15 miles south of our scene, with only one very questionable road to even consider as a shortcut.

We call fire control back and ask if one of the 3 ambulances within 15 miles of the scene have been notified and they tell us that the pt is a few miles into the town of North Nowhere and since it's our district, they had to notify us.

So we told them to "go ahead and notify C-Ville and if they can cover it, go ahead and take the call and we'll cancel. In the meantime, we will continue on until we're told otherwise."

Apparently, shortly after that, the county EMS coordinator called fire control and asked
"What's all this ruckus going on with QVA?"

FC proceeded to fill him in and from what i heard, his response was like ours: "WTF?!", followed by, "Oh, HAILLLLL no!"

So he called Lewis County FC and told them to give that call to C-ville, because having us drive 45+ miles to this call was absolutely ridiculous when C-Ville was 10 miles down the road, and we had to drive through West Leyden and Constableville, both of whom have ambulances. plus there were like 4 other rigs besides them that were closer than we were.

They officially cancelled us about 5 miles from West Leyden (A solid 25 miles into our trip) , so we returned. We were just coming back into the village when we got hit for an EMS call right in town, which we handled without incident.

Last night, I was on with the same crew as tonite.
We got hit last night for an MHL transport. Girl had fight with Fiance, cops found her standing next to the river, staring at the water, wearing jeans and a t-shirt in temps of low-mid 20's.

When questioned, she wouldnt answer, then started gettin lippy i guess, so they decided she needed to go for a psych consult. She of course doesnt want to go, she just wants to talk it out with fiance, but as we all know, when the cops say you're goin, you're goin whether you like it or not.

After a few minutes, we convinced her to come with us to the rig.

We got downstairs and outside and she stopped by the back of the rig and launched back into her "I aint goin anywhere" speech. The other EMT asked her nicely a few times, then stepped forward and attempted to politely guide her towards the stretcher. She, of course, tried to pull/step away, so the police officer who was there took one arm, the other EMT on my crew took the other, and the wrestling match began. A few of us held her down, while a few more strapped her in, and once she realized she wasn't gonna win this one, she went into the 'lay there and sob' mode. Throw in a few "f-ck off"s and a couple sentences ending in "you f-ckin' retards" and you have a routine involuntary MHL (aka 941).

We got her dropped off and the other EMT was finishing up his paperwork when the medic came running in telling us we have another call, lets get moving.

That was a weakness/SOB call, and it turns out i know the lady. She's really nice, one of those "Everyone's Grandma" types... its sad. She's real sick, needs heart surgery, but she's been too sick to have the operation. Sad stuff. I didn't even recognize her til i saw her name on rescue's PCR. She looked downright haggard, drained, all that stuff.
She's such a nice lady, it sucks that she's so sick.

Not much else has been going on, except for paramedic class, of course.
The last few weeks have been all about IV's and Airways.
A lot of labs and practicing and stuff... we're off until the 2nd of January, i believe.

We were supposed to have class this morning, but our instructor told us we could have it off.
He said "This is my Christmas Present to you guys. Enjoy this break, because when you get back, the sh-t is gonna hit the fan. I suggest you enjoy the holidays, get some studying in, then on the day after New Years, say goodbye to your loved ones cuz you aint gonna see them again til August. Because after the first of the year, your hospital time is gonna start, then in about 2 months your ride time will start, and you're barely gonna have time to even sleep."

I'm going to do some more studying on break, specifically A&P, Shock, and Pharmacology.
After break, we get into Trauma for a while, then Cardiology starts and that runs from Feb. to April. I'm told that cardiology is what separates the men from the boys, so to speak.
I have to work my ass off here to make sure i stay caught up on my studies. I cannot and will not let myself be placed into the boys category here.

And now it is rant time. Read the whole thing before you get pissy at me.

Is it just me, or is this anti-Christmas bullshit getting out of hand? Give me a break. Holiday trees?! It's a CHRISTMAS TREE!!! The Christmas tree has been a CHRISTMAS tradition for how long? Whatever happened to freedom of speech and expression? People getting sued over nativity scenes? stores being forced to say Holiday Trees instead of Christmas trees because some bigmouth is offended by Christmas?

Look at the U.S. Constitution. See that part there about religion? Now look a little closer. It's "Freedom OF religion". Not Freedom FROM religion. Freedom OF. that means if you have a religion, you are free to express yourself in it.

But no. Some people like to bitch because Christmas and the background and beliefs that accompany it offend them.

Aren't these the same people who bitch and piss and moan about their rights being violated every time someone sneezes in their direction?
If they want their rights granted to them, then quit tryin to take other peoples rights away.

I could go on about this and rant and rave for hours, but i've said enough for now. As it is, i've toned this post down from the original. I was in a pissy mood when i wrote it and in hindsight i may have gone a little overboard on the original.
I'm sure some people are gonna get pissed reading this anyway.

I'm not saying that Christmas is, or should be, the only holiday out there this time of year. I understand that there's Hannukah, Kwanzaa, and other stuff out there, and I AM NOT AGAINST THEM, nor am I against the celebrations and beliefs that goes with those holidays!!!

Please don't take it that way. The people who get me so fired up like I was the other day when i wrote the orignal are the ones who try to squelch everything because they don't believe in any higher power, so they feel that everyone else should have to suffer through their miserable existence with them.

Ok, i'm done for now.
If I just pissed in your oatmeal and the disclaimer didn't
straighten things out for you, here's 2 words for you:

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!

And a very Merry Christmas and happy New Year to everyone.
I hope it's safe, healthy, and peaceful for all.

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

2005-11-30T03:27:00.000-05:00

"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

2005-11-28T05:56:00.000-05:00

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

2005-11-20T01:09:00.000-05:00

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

2005-11-18T13:39:00.000-05:00

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.

2005-11-16T23:11:00.000-05:00

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.

2005-11-11T14:40:00.000-05:00

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.

2005-11-11T02:21:00.000-05:00

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.

2005-11-08T23:44:00.000-05:00

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?

2005-11-04T15:55:00.000-05:00

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!

2005-11-01T23:14:00.000-05:00

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.

You've been in EMS too long when:

2005-10-31T01:39:00.000-05:00

My original purpose of having a blog was to put some EMS humor up every now n then. I'm sure some of you have seen this stuff before, but oh well. Here's the first of several installments.

You've been in EMS too long When:

When S.O.B. now means Shortness Of Breath and not necessarily how you feel about a person.
When your spouse/significant other has his/her hands on you and the reason is practicing patient assessment, not passion.
When you're on ambulance duty, you go home, and your own dog won't let you into the house because it no longer recognizes you.
When members of the opposite sex are in the same vehicle in various states of half-dress and nobody notices enough to mention it or to be embarrassed.
When the word "Latex" no longer immediately brings to mind safe sex, but the gloves that you wear.
When family pets clear a path when they hear the tones drop so they won't get mowed over.
When caffeine becomes a sedative.
When you meet a person and your first thought is "Wow, look at those veins".
When a silent and motionless child is no longer a desired sight.
When you notice that your worst Non-EMS hair day isnt even close to your best EMS hair day, and neither you nor your partner care about it anymore.
You know all of your frequent fliers' medical histories better than they do.
When starting your P.O.V. you reach for the "Battery On" switch. (I do know a few ppl that require a battery switch due to the number of lights on their vehicle)
When the utterance of the dreaded "Q word" on a slow shift causes people to start throwing objects at the person who said it.

Thats it for now, i'll do some more later.

"You'll have some of the best times you'll never remember with me, Alcohol"

2005-10-30T20:27:00.000-05:00

Ah yes.
Halloween weekend. one of the more popular party weekends.
This year was no exception. I wound up at the bar i usually hang out at after cruising all over the place... Went to a nice lil bar to start, not far from the lil city i work in... I got as far as the front door. Scenery was nice inside, but i wasnt in the mood to fork over 1/4 of my beer money for the evening for a cover charge... So i drove thru a lil town between here and there that has a few bars and it was pretty busy there... Except one bar had the good old cover charge again and the other place just looked kinda shady... So i figured i'd head back to check out some bars around home now that it was later in the evening... The bar i went to last year that was totally crazy only had about 5 cars in the parkin lot this year. sooo, i went back up to my regular place, which was actually pretty busy. Then shortly after i got there, a large group of ppl showed up ready to continue the party from the last bar they were at. When they started walkin in, i realized that among them was Cory, a very good friend of mine; his gf Tana, and a few other ppl i was familiar with. Cory was the same guy who i was supposed to hang out with that day anyway. Cory, Tana, and i went out wednesday night for a while and had planned on meeting up for the party last night, just never got around to callin each other. So anyway, we all hung out up there for a while, got good and tipsy, listened to a very well stocked jukebox (alot of the girls were dancin. i think this bar attracted most of the "skimpiest costume possible" girls), and just had a good ol' time. Except when i was stuck on the dance floor, beet red, while Tana tried to teach me how to dance. YAH. Aint happenin. i can do your basic slow dance, but anything beyond that, fuhgeddaboutit. Anyway, hung out there for a while, everyone piled into Tana's mom's van and drove back to their place. (Yes, the driver was sober. nobody was in any condition to drive, other than her). Along the way, we had to do a rapid pullover cuz somebody on the van had a Yack Attack. other than that, the ride back was uneventful. Back at Tana's mom's place, one of the girls continued the yack attack then passed out on the couch, then her sister lit her hair on fire (not Pukie's hair, her own hair). I'm not talkin a little flicker, i'm talkin i look up and there's a plume of white smoke lingering above the table. We all laughed our asses off for a while (including the girl who's hair got lit). What happened was she lit one of those big scented candles, pushed it in front of her, then during a spurt of laughter proceeded to flop her head down in mid-chuckle, dropping her hair right into the candle. No harm done though. just funny, but somethin ya dont want repeated.
Not much else happened after that, just hung out with Cory for a while then we all crashed. I woke up way too damn early this mornin. woke up at like 7:20 with a raging headache.
drove home a bit later and passed out again for way too long, which wasted most of the day. ah well, the price of partying. I'm gettin close to that stage where the aftermath of gettin drunk is starting to outweigh the partying and getting drunk... maybe its time to slow it down? We'll see.
Anyway, not much else is new, just enjoying paramedic class, spending every monday and thursday in stitches of laughter for half the class, and jaws dropped to the tune of "Did he just say what i think he said?" for the other half. He's a damn good teacher though.
Hopefully next time i write here there'll be something more interesting to talk about than drunks and halloween parties.

Ticketitus, Ice Pack Attack, and early snowfall.

2005-10-24T23:59:00.000-05:00

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

A&P is done, Paramagic is about to begin

2005-10-20T00:29:00.000-05:00

A&P is finally over. Phew. And i managed to do pretty good in it. I think i got a 96 on the final and a 95 overall, or maybe its the other way around. My sister is kinda peeved at me. I quote: "You totally Suck! I studied my butt off and you barely cracked the book and you still did better than me!!!" Those were her words when she heard my score. My mom kind of felt the same way. I suppose i ought to mention that my mom, sister, and I are all taking the paramedic class. My sister and i are takin the original which starts in...16.5 hours and my mom is takin the advanced standing class, because she's already a Medic (or Level 3, or Critical Care Tech, whatever ya wanna call it) That starts right after Christmas. So i think the sibling rivalry has begun. My sister already made mention of kickin my ass on our first module exam. We will see, little sister, we will see. I think it's all in what you study and how you take the test. some people read too hard into tests and that can bite ya in the ass. The way i test is i look at a question and if the answer is a "gimme", no problem. If its somethin i'm not sure of, i can pretty much knock out 2 possible answers using the process of elimination, then if i'm still not sure, i've got a 50/50 chance at it.
So anyway, life isnt that bad with the exception of no full time employment. I'm probably gonna be driving bus for a few months but thats probably gonna take a few weeks to get in motion (no pun intended). Then in january, barring any unforseen circumstances, i go full time with an ambulance. As much as i'd love to be a bum for the next few months, my car payment and insurance and other stuff kinda require the paychecks to start comin again. not to mention paying for paramedic class. One ambulance i work for only pays for full-timers classes, and the other ambulance would reimburse me at the end. Yah right. Pay for the class out of pocket, then get it refunded and be stuck in Sh-t town for 3-5 years? I'm sorry. I do kind of enjoy the conveniences of small town life, but not this small town. It's like a cross between Varsity Blues and Pleasantville. You know, high school football, N.Y. Yankees, and highly apathetic residents. You would not believe the level of apathy in this town. I'm not even gonna get into it this time.
I would really rather live in the middle of absolutely nowhere, surrounded by woods, fishing streams, the occasional field/meadow, and a healthy population of huge whitetail deer.
Remember that book, My Side of the Mountain? I've always kinda dreamed about doing that. I'm not really that much of a hardcore Boondocker, but the thought has always appealed to me.
Well, i gotta go to bed.
Tomorrow is gonna be halfway busy. Study for CDL permit test, hopefully go Take CDL Permit test, tie up some loose ends here and there, then go dive into the paramedic class.
Let the fun begin!

The easiest code I never worked.

2005-10-18T08:58:00.000-05:00

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

Mahogany Ridge

2005-10-16T01:41:00.000-05:00

I need to get a life.
I've closed the Mahogany Ridge 4 nights in a row now. No, i'm not a raging alcoholic, just an extremely bored guy who has found a cool place to hang out. Most of my money spent at MR has gone into the Extreme Hunting game the last few days. Yeah, i've had a brew or 2 a night, but i havent been getting wasted... I'm between jobs and bored out of my mind. The bartender/owner is cool, we've been hangin around, talkin about hunting and all that other good shit you talk about when you live in East Ass Adalia. So Anatomy and Physiolgy is over as i mentioned last time i wrote, paramedic starts thursday. Maybe thats why i've been just goin with the flow lately... enjoying my last taste of freedom until december on holiday break from class. Anyway, back to the bar. Wasn't even gonna go tonite. Friend of mine from the Geneva area happened to be a few towns over tonite so i went to chill with him at his sisters house where he's stayin... hung out there for a while, thought about comin home and going to bed before 4 am for the first time in 3 days, but i decided to go see how the bar was lookin. I got there, it was a moderate crowd for the size of the bar... nice little hole in the wall type... really picks up once the snow flies though. It's on one of the main snowmobile corridors, so it gets busy once the sleds start rollin.
Anyway, i hung out for a bit, kicked some ass at the hunting game, and in the middle of the game, the calvary arrived. in the course of 10 minutes or so, about 15 ppl showed up. Among them, a bunch of girls, which was nice. Some nice lookin girls too, which is unusual. The lookers don't normally end up in small, middle of nowhere bars around here.... Anyway, just hung around, closed the bar for the 4th night in a row, and here i am.
I've gotta be up at 0430, so i'm not even bothering layin down... its already 3 am.
I dont know why my internal clock has done a total 180 over the past few days... i'm draggin ass all day and ready to rumble about the time 11 pm rolls around... Odd.
So i gotta find time to study for my CDL over the weekend. Gotta take the test tuesday mornin.
Working the small city ambulance i per diem at for the next 2 overnights. should be fun. 5pm to 8 am. So i'm probably gonna spend 6am to 230 pm sleeping today... get up, go home, shower, shave, go to work. Gonna be a fun few nights. Tomorrow night we're runnin 3 crews. One of the medics on shift and I used to have problems... He has a tendency to go wayyyy overboard with the ball-busting. The past few shifts, he's been pretty damn cool though. Then again, we have a new FNG to harass... and let me tell ya, new FNG is a glutton for punishment.
Then monday night i'm workin with an awesome crew. 2 crews on monday night, and both of the paramedics are great. the other emt is pretty cool too.

So i worked a code the other day with the local small town ambulance i work for... young one. 53 y/o woman. way too young. has kids younger than me. I swear, of all the shit that goes on during a code, the worst part is the family. You're dealin fine, u get done cleanin up, sittin outside tryin to unwind, waiting for the ALS to finish the paperwork, then the ER doors open, and out comes the family of the deceased. They're all teary eyed, hurtin, and then they thank you for trying. WTF do you say to that? "I'm Sorry"? I've always hated that, especially when my grandfather died. WTF are you sorry for? you didnt cause his death. I know its all in how ya mean it, but still. What good does "I'm Sorry" do when it comes to a death? i know it's just a variant of "My condolences", but it sounds like you have something to be sorry about when you say it. Yeah, i'm sorry we couldnt save your (insert relation title here) who just had The Big One, but saying i'm sorry almost seems like an admission of guilt. Drives me nuts. And it's still hard to say I'm sorry, or my condolences. their loved ones' life just slipped through your hands like grains of sand, there was nothin that could be done about it, and nothing you say can make it hurt any less. UGH. i dont know. i think i'm starting to ramble. Just wanted to get that off my chest.
So lets see, on to happier things, if i can find em... Hmmmm...
Had our FD Open House today... showin off the new trucks. they are SWEET. Twin American LaFrance Metropolitans, Black and Chrome with FDNY style stripes. I know, i know. "WTF? Black fire trucks?!" Yeah yeah, kwitcherbitchin. The look amazing. They may not sound all that nice, but once you lay eyes on em, they grow on ya quick.
How did we end up with black trucks, you might ask? We had a vote. Our normal truck color has been yellow (Not slime lime, regular old bright yellow) and white. the decision was pretty much between our standard yellow/white, Chicago style (Black over Red), or Black. Black won the vote 8-5-3. Even the ppl who were bitchin about the trucks bein black were sittin there droolin with the rest of us when we got em.

Well, i'm gonna end this with a very random thought:

Have you noticed that in almost all of the recent movies and commercials with talking animals, the raccoons have Italian accents? Whats up with that?

Alright. Time to go make some coffee. My mind craves it's clarifying qualities.
Talk to you soon, and remember: A closed mouth gathers no foot. (That comes in especially handy on shit calls.)
Cya

Will this one work?

2005-10-14T02:35:00.000-05:00

Don't ya love it?
you spend an hour doing nothing but tryin to get a good intro blog together, you finish, hit publish, and...... all that work gets lost in the vast space of the internet. Yep, happened to me a week or 2 ago when i tried starting my own blog here. Oh well.
So I'm still trying to get used to this whole blog thing... Normally if i just start writing because i'm bored, it's on paper. It's alot safer, for lack of better wording... But who cares. Here i am!
I'm Adam, 22/m/ny. And no, not NYC. If i had a dollar for everytime someone hears i'm from NY and says somethin like "Ohhh, so how's life in the big city?" I wouldn't need a job... Which i need right now. Went in for an interview at a local relatively big city ambulance service today... well, yesterday now... My interviewers gave me the whole deal about all that was involved in getting started, and wow. LOTS OF TIME. So i'm gonna start there in January unless something 'uge changes... Now all i gotta do is find a job for the time between now and then.
I'm takin a paramedic class. We just finished up Anatomy and Physiology. what a cluster. I do extend some sympathy for the instructor because it was his first time teaching EMS students. Anyone familiar with this unique group of individuals (EMS personnel) knows that that is no easy task. The guy was kinda getting on some peoples bad sides because they did not like his teaching style, but then he pretty much signed his own death warrant when he commited one of EMS's biggest pet peeves. C'mon all you EMS people, you know what happened. He referred to us all as Ambulanc Drivers... He was talkin about how you gotta be careful collaring Down's Syndrome kids because of some ligament problem in the neck, then he said "I dont know if they teach you ambulance drivers that stuff or not, but i just thought it was an interesting fact." Ouch. Cold, doc... real cold. The thing is, i dont think the guy even realized that he was teaching paramedic students until about a week before the final... We told him we needed our scores asap so we could know how we did before paramedic class started and he was like "Paramedic class? what do you mean, paramedic class". Yeeeup, so much for the BSA motto of Be Prepared...
So anyway, I've been a basic emt for 4 years, firefighter for 5... currently Lieutenant/Medical Officer for the FD i Vol for... been there 4 years now. I like it. We have a bit of everything around us... Wilderness, State highway, rather popular lake with the boaters and the fishermen, its nice. The area is not too rural but not too overpopulated either.
other than that i work for a few area ambulances per deim... one in a small city and one within sight of the edge of the world... Anybody ever hear the phrase "Osceola, My Ass"? If you know which Osceola I'm talkin about, you will agree that it's pretty much on the edge of nowhere. actually, i think its on the other side of the border of nowhere.
Well, i have one of those useless job interviews tomorrow. Ya know what i'm talkin about... Only taking the interview as a screening for a job, but you have no intention of taking it due to that little fact of life named "Stuff changes"...
Well, it's 4 am and it is wayyyy past my bedtime... wait a minute... i think i gave up my right to sleep when i got that little multi-colored card that says EMT-Basic on it... so if you give up your right to sleep with your basic card, what do you give up for that card that says paramedic? I've heard various things.... A year of your life, the rest of your life, your sanity, pretty much everything... Whatever. Roll with the punches and kick some ass at whatever it is you do so you can laugh and send a one fingered wave to the dinks that laughed at ya when you announced your intentions. I've got a few of them myself to dish out once this is all said and done.
Talk to ya soon