It could have been so much worse!

A rush of adrenaline...this doesn't sound good! I listen intently as the tones drop for our neighboring rescue squad. "Aplha Response! Respond for nursing home on fire, approximately 50 residents to be evacuated." Normally when the tones drop for another squad you wait until your squad gets toned out before responding because it is not technically your call. When I heard this dispatch I didn't hesitate in marking our Advanced Life Support crew en route to the scene to help out. I asked for more information from dispatch while I was on the way and was told that there was indeed already smoke in the residence halls and the staff was getting all the people out into the parking lot as quickly as possible. "Great! If the smoke doesn't get them they will freeze to death outside!" I was glad that we had gotten en route so quickly because half way there I heard dispatch begin to tone out for multiple squads all across the county to come out and help. This was a nursing home. It wasn't like we could announce to the residents to please exit the building and wait outside. Most of these people were in wheel chairs and could not be left alone anyway. We arrived on scene to find the small amount of staff that was working at 10:00 at night trying to take care of almost 50 residents that were cold and scarred out in the parking lot. Fire alarms were sounding and people were running everywhere.With the help of multiple different rescue squads we were able to get the people over to another building with minimal problems. Thankfully after the whole escapade we only ended up having three patients one suffering from smoke inhalation, one that had injuries from a fall, and one that was unresponsive from a condition that had nothing to do with the fire. All in all everything turned out very good considering what could have happened and it was great to see the community coming together to help us in our efforts. Some of the neighbors even came out and helped us calm the residents down and help in any ways that they could. After only about an hour and a half we cleared from the scene and were back in service with the residents back in their beds and all the rescue personnel very thankful that everything had turned out so well. It could have been so much worse!

The Small Details Count

My crew and I recently responded to a call for an allergic reaction. We had a small crew that night with only Eric, a student, and me. Eric was driving so it was just me and the student in the back. We arrived on scene to find a female that was basically "out of it". I asked her daughter what had happened and she said that she had taken an antibiotic that had been prescribed to her and she thought that she was having a reaction to it. In the case of an allergic reaction time is very important and getting medication into your patient to combat the reaction as soon as possible is very important because often times the airway is the first thing to be affected. We quickly brought in our equipment and loaded her onto the stretcher. Before leaving I asked the lady's daughter what all of her known allergies were. She replied and I repeated them back to her so as to make certain I had heard right. Asking a patient or close family member about allergies is a very important thing that is done with each and every patient encounter. We loaded our patient into the back of the medic unit and marked en route to the hospital. Once en route I started an IV and administered a medication to combat the allergic reaction. She seemed to be somewhat better by the time we got to the hospital so I was very much relieved. As we were unloading our patient and getting ready to take her inside the hospital her daughter came up to me and asked how she was doing? I told her what I had done and that she was doing a little better. The look of shock on this woman's face told me something was very wrong. She stated that she was very sorry, but she had forgotten to tell me that her mother was severely allergic to the medication that I had given her.I couldn't believe it! Wow how could you forget something like that! Praise God that nothing had happened and the medication had actually helped her like it was supposed to. There was no way I could have known that the lady was allergic to the medication, but I sure was happy that God had been with me in the back of that ambulance and that everything went ok!