Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to everybody.... Yes, I said it... MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! It irks the hell out of me when people say shit like "happy holidays" or "season's greetings." This did actually cause me to yell "Merry Christmas" at a crazy lady in a store today.

End of the year updates: I'm still working in this hellhole. The powers-that-be have decided since a change of hands that occured this fall that they are going to majorly limit overtime. So, I'm going to focus on getting my RN since I'm pretty much being forced to have time off from work. I'm also in an absolutely wonderful relationship with a great guy.

Brief overview

I realize it's been a long time since I actually posted anything on here. Life happens. I don't think anybody reads this either, so it is more just something for me to do in my spare time (which I don't have much of lately).

Let's see, this will be a brief synopsis of all my jacked up calls since last time I posted.

Really nasty fatality wreck that will definitely be going to court. Yeah, that's not fun. No, I'm not posting more on it.

Then a really bad wreck thanks to a drunk driver. The driver and the passenger (both adults) were both drunk as shit and went the wrong way on a one-way street, smashing into another car. Once we really got to look at the vehicles (after all the patients had been transported) it was amazing that we had anybody survive at all. Apparently the driver that caused the wreck is still alive (this was about a month ago), even though he's paralyzed from the chest down, had massive internal injuries, had both legs amputated, and is essentially a vegetable now because of his multiple head injuries.

Then I had a patient that apparently walked out of the bathroom, told her family she had a horrible headache and went unconscious. When we got there, she was having a stroke. We treated her and flew her out to a stroke center. On follow up, they said that she had a such a massive bleed that there really isn't anything they can do about it at this point accept make her comfortable.

Well, that's about all I want to post for now.

Well, I've had a lot of interesting trauma calls lately. I also had one really bad make-you-reconsider-your-job call. I'll post about those probably in the next couple days. Right now, I'm headed to the bar to drink with a few friends.

Pedi Tube

Well, I got my first pedi intubation the other day. I was actually supposed to have already been leaving work but we caught a late call and I was stuck with the paperwork. I had just finished the report when calls started dropping. A call drops for a seizing toddler and no trucks available. Calls to the 2 nearest towns for mutual aid get nothing because they are already all on calls in their own cities.

I get on scene and she is STILL seizing. According to the mom, the kid has a history of seizures and the mom already gave her some Dialstat (it's a rectal form of medication to make her stop seizing).

When I actually looked at her, she's mottled and her hands and lips are blue. Ask the mom some more questions and come to find out that she found the little one in bed seizing after putting her down about 30-45 minutes prior, gave her the Dialstat and waited 10 minutes to see if it would work before calling 911. Also, apparently since the kiddo hadn't taken a nap that afternoon and the mom puts her normal seizure medications in her nighttime bottle, the kid fell asleep after only drinking a few ounces. So, since the mom didn't want to wake her up and make sure she got all the medicine, she just put her to bed.

We ended up having to intubate the kid and transported her to the closest hospital that would take her.

When we get to the ER, the doc in the room (who none of us had ever seen before) starts bitching about her having a 4.0 tube. Doc says "Well, since you put too small of a tube in, I'm just going to retube her with either a 4.5 or 5.0." I told the doc, there's no air leakage and she's being ventilated fine, the 4.0 was a perfect fit for the chords and I think that the others would be too big. Kiddo chooses this time to start seizing again. Doc looks at her and goes "Well, I'm not going to tube her now. I'll wait till she's no longer seizing." I know, she's SO smart!

So, the doc orders Ativan. First dose doesn't stop the seizure. Doc orders more. Second dose doesn't stop it. Doc orders Dilantin. Dilantin doesn't top the seizure. Doc orders a THIRD dose of Ativan. The kid is still seizing. I tell the doc "The other med that we used stopped her seizure the first time. Maybe that will work better than the Ativan now." Doc gets all snarky and says "We don't use that medicine here on pedi patients. We use Ativan."

The kiddo is STILL seizing and you can tell the doc is starting to sweat about it. The doc from the PICU comes down and tells the other doc that they should go ahead and hang a maintenance drip of Phenobarb after they give Ativan and to call for them to come down and take her up to the PICU. (He didn't know that the kid had already had 3 doses of Ativan and one of Dilantin.) So dumbass doc says "Okay, will do" and the PICU doc leaves.

Yup, STILL seizing. We've now been there for about 40 minutes and she's been seizing for at least 35 of it. So then the doc says "Well, it looks like the Ativan is starting to work and break the seizure." and gives me this smug ass look. I looked at the kid and look at my supervisor and told my supervisor "I think she's posturing. She's still seizing AND posturing." Supervisor looks at the kid and says "Yeah, she is." The kid is now DECEREBATE posturing while still seizing.
Me to the doc: "I think she's posturing."
Dumbass: "No, we're breaking the seizure."
Me: "She's still seizing, but now she's posturing."
Dumbass"She's getting better. " Turns to the mom: "Don't worry, she's doing good. She'll be fine."
Supervisor tells me "DP, let's go. They've obviously got this handled."

I hate dumbasses! The mom is just standing there, not upset or anything. Just standing there like everything is fine. After all, the DOCTOR told her everything is fine.

More coming soon

I apologize for the lack of recent postings. I will be posting soon, have had some interesting calls recently.

Do you ever...

look at your life and wonder WTF you're doing? That's what I'm doing now. I look around at the situation at work and just can't believe the current situation that we are in. For the month of April, we will have lost 4 paramedics and a really good intermediate who is in paramedic school and supposed to finish in May. All because our management has their heads so far up their asses that there is no longer any chance of sunlight.

Then there's the whole relationship thing. ARG. I don't have the slightest freakin clue what to do currently. I feel like I'm at a real fork in the road, but can't help but wonder if I go down one fork if I will end traveling on the other fork anyway. Not sure if that makes sense, but eh, oh well.

We are so....

incredibly screwed.

It's not even funny to look at our schedule anymore. There are so many open spots that it's just nauseating. Of course, our wonderful leaders in management have decided that we need to add another truck to the schedule as a transfer truck but it needs a paramedic on it.

We can't even fill our current trucks and they are adding more????!!!!???? We have people with paramedic patches who I wouldn't trust with a dog that I didn't like who are in charge of trucks with basics that have just gotten out of school.

Of course, this just means that there will need to be even more screening of phone calls. It tickles me that some of our supervisors don't understand why people don't answer their phones when they call and ask for people to come in.

Ugh

I'm sick of the crap around here. There's more drama than I can shake a stick at.

I've figured out that we are probably going to have to change from our current schedule to a shorter time-off schedule. We have a supervisor and a couple paramedics leaving within the next couple weeks. We are also going to be putting up another truck. Another truck!! We can't staff the trucks we have now! So, we are going to HAVE to go to a shorter time-off schedule

When we were going to go a shorter schedule one time before, it was the same thing. They waited until a week before the change and then told us. We had a lot of paramedics leave because they didn't want to stay and work that kind of schedule.

Going back to this kind of schedule is going to be a real pain in the ass. We are already getting run into the ground with the massive increase in transport times. This won't help.

Burned out

I have come to a point in my life where I don't know if I want to keep doing this or not. I don't know if I'm not wanting to do EMS anymore or simply that I just don't want to work here anymore.

I think I still like doing what I do.

I just don't like it here.

I have to go take care of a sick family member and realized that this is a very good time to have some time away from this place.

I don't know what I want to do.

I've reached a point in my life where I can either look forward towards maybe getting a job with a local service and things might improve or I can look at the present and how utterly horrible everything is right now.

I quite frankly haven't decided.

While I really like some of the people I work with, there are a lot that I really don't care for. Somebody once told me that private services have much more drama than emergency services. I have to doubt this at the current point of life.

I just want to go to work, get along, and do my damn job. It's apparently a lot harder said than done.

I'm really at the point that I want to get the hell away from everybody and everything around here.

Doo doo doo.... BAM!

So, as I said in the last post, SS backed into another ambulance with our ambulance.

Here's the thing with that: In our SOPs, we are supposed to have a backer for ANYTIME we are backing up the ambulance. Of course, this doesn't actually happen unless we are on a scene and the fire department is there and they are doing it because we are patient-loaded. Is this practiced by our higher ups? Nope. By our administration? Nope. Is this ACTUALLY covered during orietation? Nope.

When I went inside to find TGO, SS came inside originally, then when I realized that TGO was dropping a deuce and went to get supplies, SS just went off to find something shiny I guess. She was avoiding going inside the building like it was contaminated. She didn't even say anything like "Well, I guess I have to do an accident survey report" or such.

So, when I told TGO that SS had backed into the other ambulance, I was told that we would both get a written reprimand because I should have been backing her up. I looked at TGO and said, "What? BOTH of us?!? I'm not the one that backed into another freaking ambulance. It's not like she didn't know it was there. I was about to tell her that she was going to far back when I heard the thunk." TGO told me, "Well, you know that SS has been in five wrecks prior to this one. That's just with our company. She's wrecked a truck with me in it because she just wasn't paying attention." I told TGO that it was obviously an ongoing issue, I only knew of her being in two previous wrecks, and that they should just fire SS.

Now, here's the thing that really chaps my ass about this: They KNOW that she has been in multiple wrecks with the other 911 and transfer services that she works for and she has been in multiple wrecks with this company.

So, TGO went out and looked at the damage and decided that nothing needed to be done since the damage was barely noticable.

When I talk to SS about it later and tell her that it DID need to be reported to TGO and she should have been the one to tell TGO, not me, she got all ass hurt. SS first told me that she isn't used to backing up without a spotter. Then she told me that she wasn't used to backing into any stations.

Then she told me that she forgot her glasses. When I asked where they were, she told me "Oh I was running late for work this morning and forgot them at home." Turns out, they are for DEPTH PERCEPTION!!!! You know, that thing that's REALLY damn important to drive safely. I told her she should have told me that and that if she doesn't have her glasses that she is required to wear while driving then she needed to go home and shouldn't have come in to work today without them. I had to tell TGO this and we figured out that if there were any more calls during the shift than I would drive to the scene and whatever patient it was, she would just have to ride it in so that she was never driving.

This kind of shit really pisses me off. If I walked into a job as a welder and wasn't wearing a facemask, it would be really friggen dumb to allow me to stay there and work. If I was a police officer and showed up without my gun, I wouldn't be allowed to go out on patrol. That's just the way it is. Other EMS places would have required her to go home and get her glasses and return to duty with them or told her to just take her ass home.

Of course, we're hurting so bad for medics, they don't say anything about this kind of shit. You can kill a patient and still keep your job here.

It so rarely happens

.... to actually have a "save."

The setting: The second day of my 72hr shift that I recently finished.

My partner: She has a paramedic patch on her arm, but she's really better used for my general entertainment and in general just annoys the piss out of me. I don't think she actually realizes how annoying she is or that when somebody walks away from her and doesn't say "walk with me" or "I'm still listening" then it means that they don't want to hear her. Earlier on this particular morning, she'd tried to follow me in to the bathroom at the station. It's a regular bathroom, it's not like there are stalls or anything. I'd actually had to tell her to leave the bathroom and then she stood outside the door and kept talking even after I had turned on the fan to give her the hint to go away. So, she will now be referred to as SS. Oh, she also has the similar first name as mine. This becomes important during the call. She thinks it's really funny and entertaining also. I do not.

Our first call of the day didn't come out until about 1600 that afternoon for an unconscious. Enroute, we are told that bystanders have started CPR. Now, keep in mind that the majority of the time "bystanders are doing CPR" either
a) they are actually running around the person and aren't doing shit to help or
b) they ARE doing compressions on an unconscious diabetic patient who ends up with a bruised or broken sternum and they just needed some D50 or
c) the "unconscious" person is actually flailing around and trying to get them to stop doing compressions.

So, FD gets on scene and calls out that CPR is in progress and they are getting ready to be shocking the patient with the AED. Now, THIS is a great thing! It means we might actually have something to work with.

So, we're looking for our nice big red blinking GPS locator dot. Hmmmm..... it's not where they said it was and we can't find it. I call on the Fire channel to ask where they are. The captain says "We're by the building. Just park behind us." Great! Which building???? From the opposite direction down this street comes our supervisor The Great One, as she likes to think of herself. SS says "OH! LOOK! LOOK! There's TGO! She knows where we're going. Follow her!" I tell SS "No. She's following us now. She's also looking for the fire department." So, we find out that this guy is actually on a dock, so TGO tells me to cut down a road that is actually a good block off of the address. After we get back to the docks, we actually can see the big red dot. I LOVE having a GPS locator like that!

On our way there, I had told SS that I'll handle airway if she can work on getting a line. The implied part of this, of course, is that since she will be closest to the patient's torso, that she'd also stick him on the monitor. I admit, I forgot that the implied part is only if I'm with somebody with a half a brain. Give me a good basic or intermediate any day! At least they know that the patient needs to be on the monitor during a code.

So, we pull up on scene and SS goes to walk off trying to carry the airway bag, monitor, and drug bag. That's nice and all, but it's not like this is going to be a refusal or something. So I toss a backboard on the stretcher as the fire capt is pulling it out and grab the portable suction (I have heard that this is kinda important for that whole airway thing). We have to walk around the building, through some construction stuff and down a ramp to get to the back of the building where the patient is. I tell SS to put some of the equipment on the stretcher. She started to argue with me that she had it (which is quite stupid when she's standing there with a good 70lbs of equipment hanging off her and can't walk right). So, I just took the airway bag and the monitor from her and put them on the stretcher. (I figure if she drops the drug bag, it's not nearly as bad as dropping the monitor.)

So, we walk around the back and yup, FD is doing compressions and bagging the patient. The guy was apparently walking around working and just suddenly fell over and wasn't breathing. The FD paramedic tells us that they already shocked him twice with the AED and haven't pushed analyze again within the past few minutes because they could hear us pulling up. Okay, that works for me.

I go to the head and start getting everything ready for intubating the patient. SS kneels down at the pt's left side and puts a tourniquet on him. The monitor is behind her at the pt's hip. I tell her "Before you stick him, let's put him on the monitor and see what we got." SS says "He's on the AED." I tell her "I want him on the monitor." SS: "But he's on the AED." DG: "I know that but I don't know what rhythm he's in. Put him on the monitor and put our pads on him." SS: "He's got their AED pads on him."

At this point, TGO is telling the two firefighters doing CPR that they need to do 2 breaths to every 30 compressions instead of just reaching over and putting the patient on the monitor. TGO obviously just recently watched the video to renew her ACLS. The FF that was bagging was looking at me like "WTF?" I told him he was doing fine and to just keep bagging like they had been (which was at 8 a minute, so it wasn't a problem anyway) until I had everything ready to intubate. The paramedic with FD reached around SS and grabbed our leads and started putting them on the pt while I pulled the AED pads off. I'm glad one of the FFs reminded me to turn the damn thing off also. That would be MY luck, to manage to defib myself with an AED.

So, put him on the monitor and see that we are in PEA at a rate of 34. Okay, NOW get the line since we can actually see what we have to work with. FF keeps doing compressions until I'm ready to intubate. I tell the FF to stop doing compressions and stick the blade in the patient's mouth. Another of the FFs is giving cricoid pressure (I tell ya, I LOVE THOSE GUYS!) and asking what else I need. Just as I see the epiglottis, I hear TGO tell the FF that was doing compressions "Hey. Keep doing compressions. Don't stop. Do 30 compressions to every 2 breaths. Allow for total recoil of the chest." I'm going "CRAP!" in my head. I said "No. NO. Don't start compressions. I'm trying to intubate him TGO." The FF paramedic by my head actually turns around and tells her again because she starts to tell the FF to keep doing compressions. I don't get this. She can clearly see that I'm intubating the patient. Maybe she missed that part of the video. Either way, he's tubed and all's good in that area. The FF starts compressions again after we confirm placement and start to secure the tube.

During this time, SS has gotten an IV started and is giving NS. I look up at the monitor and tell the FF doing compressions to hold so we can check the rhythm and for a pulse. The pt is in sinus tach with a strong carotid!!! YAY!! He even has good radial pulses. I'm looking at the monitor from the head and can see the ST elevation. TGO calls for a helo to transport the pt to the closest hospital that has cardiac capabilities. (She'd wanted to send him to the smallest closer hospital that I wouldn't even take my sick dog to and I'd told her that we needed to send him further up the road to a higher level of care.)

I now look over at SS and see her starting to push an amp of something. I yelled "STOP! WHAT ARE YOU DOING? WE HAVE A PULSE!" SS looks up with this total blank look and says "Oh we do?" Seriously, I don't understand how the hell she missed all of us celebrating the fact that we actually got a pulse back, she'd even CHECKED for a pulse (supposedly, unless she just randomly wanted to grab the guy's wrist for the hell of it). So, the patient ended up getting 0.5mg of Epi. I was just sitting there wanting the smack the shit out of her and praying that we didn't screw up what we'd just accomplished.

TGO is asking me "DP, do you want to give a Lidocaine bolus or just hand a drip?" SS looks up and goes "Oh. I don't know. Ummmm maybe?" I looked at TGO and said "Let's give a bolus then hang a drip for maintenance." TGO asked me "Do you want to give 1 or 1.5 mg/kg?" I said "Lets just go with 1mg/kg because of his age (we were guessing around 70 years old)." TGO: "Okay. How much do you think he weighs?" I'm looking at the guy and tell her probably about 200-210lbs. Now, here's the thing, you can just give the whole amp if he's about 220lbs and doing 1mg/kg. Its just easier that way. So, what does TGO administer? 55mg. I have NO friggin clue how she got 55mg. None at all. She tells me this after we get him c-collared and backboarded. I asked her about it later, and she got this blank look on her face, followed shortly by a "oh shit" look. I figured out later that if we did 1.5mg/kg and then halved it because of his age, it was at least close enough to not look like we totally suck at math. By this point, the patient is breathing on his own, irregular and shallow and at about 10 breaths per minute.

So, we get him loaded up and get to the LZ and hang the maintenance drip for the Lido. The patient starts gagging and is starting to hyperventilate and chew on the tube. I gave him 3mg of Versed because I can only hope that somebody would do the same for me in that situation. So, he stops breathing on his own, which is fine since we already have that handled, and stops biting and gagging. SS says "he's in wide complex tachycardia!" I didn't point out that he had been the whole time and he has a matching pulse rate. SS says "Maybe it's v-tach!" I tell her "No. It's not v-tach. That looks nothing like v-tach. It's just wide. Just like he still has the same ST elevation that he's had the whole time. He also still has p waves. It looks really good considering everything he's been through." SS: "But what should we do?" DP: "Nothing. We already have a lido drip hanging and his pressure is good (It was like 150/100 at this point). Don't mess with what isn't broken."

I mentioned to TGO and SS that we should do a 12-lead since we have time and since it is a true medical reason for the code. So, SS then dances around in her seat. It looked like she was trying to chase her own tail but couldn't turn completely. No, it wasn't that she was excited that we were doing a 12-lead, it was because she probably thought this would make her look busy (she told me later that she didn't know where to put the stickers for the 12 lead). TGO is telling me "DP, you'll have to show this dinosaur how to do it." Okay, she's not a friggin "dinosaur" in EMS. We have some that could be considered "dinosaurs" and they know how to do 12-leads and interpret them. Also, when she said "DP," SS had this "aw shit" look on her face until she realized that TGO wasn't talking to her.

So, we do the 12 lead and TGO is going "it says there's artifact interference! now we don't know what it is!" See, this is why I HATE when people rely on machines to do their job for them. I don't like the fact that on most 12-lead EKGs that are done now have the machine's interpretation on them. So, TGO looks at the lead II line and says "Yep! It's a bundle branch block. I knew it! I knew I saw rabbit ears." *sigh* There weren't any "rabbit ears" on any of the leads. There was a significant elevation in leads V3 and V4, in addition to lead II and lead III.

So, the flight crew gets there. The flight paramedic used to work for us and is a "dinosaur." He's also taken quite a few patients from me lately. He also remembers TGO from when she started here as a basic and has made her way up the chain. They step in the back and I start to give report. Then TGO and SS start talking over me. I just stopped because it wasn't doing a damn bit of good to try to talk over them. Keep in mind, all we had was a name and an approximate age, everything else was unknown. I hand the 12 lead strip over to the flight paramedic and he looks at it and goes "Ahh. You chose the right hospital to ask us to take him to." TGO is pointing at the strip in the flight medic's hand and saying "SEE! I knew it was a bundle branch block! See! It's a bundle branch block! That's what happened!" The flight medic just looked at her and said "Ummm yeah okay." Of course, then I had to ask for my 12-lead back since he wanted to take it with him and I needed it for my report.

So, the patient got a nice helicopter ride and was taken to the Cath lab and kept intubated and actually had to have a Fentanyl drip for continued sedation. YAY!

It's a call like that for why I stay in this business where I'm rarely ever appreciated.

Oh yeah, when we got back from the station, SS backed into another ambulance. I had the great pleasure of telling TGO "You know those days when things just seem to go right?" TGO: "Yeah...." DP: "You know... those days that things go right... and then somebody backs into another ambulance with their ambulance?" TGO: "UGH! I take it you weren't driving?" DP: "Nope. SS did it." More on this the next post.

Seriously?

So, my partner and I get called out today for a "sick" person. We find this elderly gentleman sitting in his recliner, in his pajamas and robe, talking on a cell phone. AFTER we walk in and start talking to him, he starts shaking. Not a seizure, not shivering, like actual I'm-shaking-in-my-boots shaking. He tells us that he woke up this morning and hasn't been feeling well, can't feel his legs (but is able to walk), and has a history of a-fib.

Okay, so we put him on the monitor and sure enough he's in a-fib with RVR at a rate of about 130. He says he's compliant with his meds (we frankly had a hard time figuring out EXACTLY what his meds were though since he had so many old bottles of his and his deceased wife's pills). He was continuing to tell me that his legs were numb and he couldn't feel them until I pulled out a needle when he denied being able to feel me touching them. I tell ya, it's amazing how quickly big ass needles can make feeling come back in people. He was able to stand up and walk on his own out of his really cluttered (and nasty smelling) living room and sit on the stretcher.

So we get him all loaded up. We're treating it as A-fib w/ RVR but haven't given cardizem because a little bit of O2 brought his rate down to 106 and he isn't symptomatic. After we're already enroute, then he said "Oh my heart feels like it normally does. My neighbor though told me to make sure to tell y'all that I had A-fib."

THEN he proceeds to list all his symptoms: low fever, headache, lower back and bilateral thigh pain, and "just hurt all over."

Seriously? I asked him if he had ever had the flu before. He said "Well, yeah. This actually feels like how it normally starts out. I got the flu shot this year though and I had the flu around Christmas time."

Hmmmm..... yeah...... so if you got the flu shot, got the flu, and this feels EXACTLY like when you get the flu, don't you think this might be, oh I don't know..... THE FLU?

If the guy had been nice the whole time, then it wouldn't have been so bad. He bitched the whole way to the hospital. "I'm cold" (this is now the part where DP, being the nice person I am, turns off the A/C in the back and sweats the rest of the way to the hospital). "The road's rough." "This stretcher isn't comfortable." and my most hated statement: "I need a pillow." We are NOT the Holiday Inn!!! Just be glad that the damn truck runs and that the A/C back here actually freaking works!

So we get there finally and he actually says "I'm glad I came by ambulance. Otherwise, I'd be like those poor schmucks out there (pointing to the VERY full waiting room) and have to wait for a bed."

ARG!

This shift is no where near done yet. This could be a very trying next few days.

Garfield Lady

So, I'm with a Basic and we get called out for a possible DOS at, of course, 4am. Enroute, we're told that the family is attepting CPR. Get on scene and find the guy on the back porch upstairs. Of course. He couldn't be in the front yard or something. So we start working and have to use a scoop stretcher to carry him through the house, down the stairs, and down to the stretcher.

As we are walking through the house, multiple family members are standing around crying and screaming. Not just talking or wailing, actually SCREAMING. One of the women is repeatedly screaming "Daddy!" then states "I'm going with him! I'm going with him!" and tries to get to the doorway. I told one of the cops that was with us, "Do NOT let her in the ambulance. We do NOT need that on the way to the hospital." She tells me, "Don't worry. Already taken care of" and nods at another officer who is moving to intercept the woman.

We get the guy loaded up and have one firefighter in back and one firefighter in front to drive us the 15 miles to the hospital. As I'm telling the FF up front that we are ready for him to start driving, I hear some yelling outside the back of the ambulance and a thump. I tell the FF to hold up and open the back door and look down toward the street.

At this point, I'm expecting to maybe see family standing there wanting to know what hospital we are going to, PD asking if we needed the patient's name, etc etc.

So, I look down, then look straight up. Eye-level with me is a woman, standing on the back bumper, holding on to the window pane on the other back door, screaming now and praying. It took me a minute to full comprehend that there was really somebody standing on the back bumper of the box. She looks like a very big Garfield cat with those little plastic things on their paws that hold them on to car windows

Me: Ma'am, please get off the bumper. We need to go to the hospital.

Garfield Lady: screaming and praying

Me: Ma'am, get off the ambulance. We need to go.

Garfield Lady: more screaming

Me: Let go of my ambulance! Get off!

Garfield Lady suddenly lets go of the window like somebody just popped the little sucker-things off the paws of one of the stuffed animals. She falls backwards, is caught by a family member, and continues to wail and scream.

So, we get to the hospital and he's still dead. The ER staff had to call for extra security because the dozen family members that showed up were SO hysterical and screaming so much that it was causing issues at the ER.

We ended up leaving right as the doc told the family that they'd pronounced him. We were standing outside the ER, and through TWO sets of doors, we could STILL hear the family scream.

I needed ice cream after that call.

Narcs

So, one of our trucks is pretty far away from any other service and at least an hour from any hospital. Since getting on this truck, there have been NO narcotics for sedation or pain management. Multiple inquiries to try to get narcotics on to this truck have been shot down with multiple reasons, none of which are really valid.

Today, we take this truck to one of the volunteer stations to get supplies. The chief at the station makes a comment about narcotics being locked up on the truck.

I looked at him and said "What are you talking about? We don't have any narcs over here."

He, looking very confused, says "Yeah, there is. In that black box on the wall."

I told him, "We don't have any way of getting in there and nobody ever told me that we have narcs."

The chief looks at me and then at my partner, the resident arrogant dumbass, and says "The keys to that box are in the Master box. You just put in the code and get the keys out."

At this point, RAD (resident arrogant dumbass) says, "Oh yeah. I've known there are narcs in there but never had the code." I just stare at him.

The chief goes out to the truck with me, tells me the code, and VOILA! A whole set of narcs are up in the cabinet.

The RAD continues to try to tell me that he has known all along that there are narcs on the truck. Keep in mind, this guy will change his story many times to try to make himself look as great as possible.

I asked RAD why the hell he never said that he knew there were narcs on the truck and always talked about how we NEEDED narcs over in this area but we were never getting them.

RAD just stared at me and flopped his mouth open a couple of times then walked away.

Arg! I despise incompetence!

Here we go

Howdy! Welcome to the Disgruntled Paramedic blog. I've found plenty of blogs out there for retail and restaurants, but have yet to find a blog by a paramedic or EMT that isn't through a business website.

Let's face it, if your employment is based on what you say on a blog, you're going to say all nice crap.

So, this will be my place to vent and, I'm sure, entertain some of you.