Hard time of year.

I hope this post finds all of you happy, healthy, and excited about the new year having had a wonderful Christmas! I know I certainly did! :) I'm not going to write about one specific call this time because to be honest I don't know which one I would choose. The holiday season can be a very hard time in EMS. It is, believe it or not, the time when we have more deaths/suicides than any other time of the year. That rule has certainly held true this year as I have run more codes this month than I have all year. It is really sad and I'm not sure exactly why this happens. Some ideas that float around are that it is a high stress time of the year, people are sad or depressed that they don't have family around, or even that the diet of the average American is fattening to say the least during the time period of Thanksgiving to New Years. Whatever the case may be it is very sad to see so many people lose their lives in what could be the most happy and exciting time of year as we celebrate the birth of out Savior. 

What a night!

Squad 6 respond for a 78 year old male chief complaint difficulty breathing. My crew and I marked en route and were on our way. We knew this would be a very long call because our patient lived in our 4th due response area. We arrived on scene 40 some minutes later. The patients driveway was so steep that we had to put the ambulance into four wheel drive just to make it to his house. Finally at the top of the driveway we realized that there was no place that we could turn around at, but figured we would go inside and get our patient then figure out how to handle that problem later. After we got our patient loaded and out to the ambulance we marked en route to the hospital with dispatch and our driver began to try to turn around. After a good ten minutes of maneuvering the unit every way possible we finally figured that we would have to back down. It was so scary! The entire time I felt like we were falling off the edge of a cliff. We were running over things and clanging and screeching all the way down. When we finally got down to the bottom we realized that something was very wrong with the medic unit. We could not get out of four wheel drive no matter how hard we tried! Our patient was having a harder time breathing as every minute passed. Finally on our way the truck made a loud clunking noise and stopped in the middle of the road. After some checking the guys figured that the only way to continue on was to keep in in four wheel drive making it difficult to go more than ten miles an hour. We decided to call for another crew to come pick up our patient and we would call a tow truck. We didn't want to have to drive the medic unit any further for fear of severely damaging it. A few short minutes later the other ambulance pulls up. I started getting ready to transfer our patient and asked the driver of the ambulance that had just arrived what level they were to make sure I wasn't downgrading care by handing over my patient to a crew that was not Advanced Life Support (ALS). He proceeded to say, "Oh no it's just me. I will drive and your crew can ride with me." Oh wow could this night get any worse? So we did what we had to do. Eric and I climbed into the back of the other medic unit and began patient care out of a completely different truck. Once at the hospital (after an hour and a half ordeal) we wrote our report then sat there and waited on our driver to get the ambulance taken care of then drive to the hospital to pick us up. It was quite an evening! We were extremely tired after it all, but in the end the outcome was the same as any other call...you do what you have to for your patient. 

Miracles still happen!

It was the day after Thanksgiving and Eric and I and another crew member were on call 6pm-midnight. Nothing had gotten toned out all day and we were beginning to think we were not going to get a call that shift. We had just sat down to eat when we heard the tones drop for a 61 year old male that was unconscious and not breathing and that CPR instructions were being given to the family members on scene. The residence was right down the road so we jumped in the medic unit and headed down the road lights flashing and sirens screaming. When we got there we already had another member on scene that had taken over CPR for the family. We got a quick report of what was going on then set to work alternating CPR rotations, inserting a breathing tube, getting an IO established, placing the patient on a cardiac monitor, and starting the rounds of drugs that we would give. In no time at all we had 10 people on scene working tirelessly to bring this man back. After 25 minutes of working on him the Paramedic got up to talk to the family and tell this man's wife that we were going to have to call his death because there was nothing else that could be done. I was so disappointed! We had so many people on scene and circumstances could not have gotten any better. I started praying for this man and his family; pleading with God to give us a pulse back. Just as the Paramedic came back into the room to tell us that we could discontinue treatment I heard Eric say, "We got a pulse!" Praise God! We all knew that the likelihood of us getting this man back after 25 minutes was very small, but I also knew that God still works miracles and am so thankful that he chose to bless us with one that day! As of today this man is doing fine!