Stop Moving!

Good evening, just got back from a call. Kind of funny, kind of bad at the same time. So here's my day:

I'm sitting down in the nice, quiet day room watching TV (Over There) when I was rudely interrupted by dispatch.

The tones go off (sounds kind of like pager tones), followed by a loud beeping, and the lights flickering on and off. Apparently the people that designed our communications system thinks that they can get our attention by making the lights act like strobes and causing us to have a seizure. "Station 8, Station 8, respond for a BLS high priority illness."

I get up, put my boots on and run on out to the ambulance.

Our squad leader calls, "Dispatch, 184 acknowledges, enroute."

Dispatch crackles on the radio, "184 enroute at 1850."

This call is in one of the more remote areas of the county. Even though it isn't that far away, there are no roads that lead directly there. So we're responding code 3 (lights and siren) wondering what exactly the call is for. A "BLS high priority illness" could be anything from a stroke to a cold. A medic was also dispatched, but he was on the other end of the county and would be about 25 minutes away.

We arrive at the residence and go in. The patient is around 80 years old. Our initial impression is a man with a slightly altered level of consciousness (he doesn't even look at us when we walk in) and he is vomiting continuously. His wife hands me a piece of paper and as I look down at it, I read "transient ischemic attacks."

"Oh great," I think to myself. "Ma'am, you're saying he has a history of TIAs?"

"Yes."

"Alright, let's go ahead and get oxygen on him. He's a high priority." I don't take risks when they aren't needed. It's better to let the hospital deal with it as soon as possible than to be wrong and have to worry about it. The altered level of consciousness combined with the vomiting makes me wonder if he's having a real stroke this time. I run back to the ambulance and get one of the firefighters to help me get the gurney. Oh great...the ambulance is at the top of a gravel driveway on the side of a fairly tall hill. Anyone who has ever used a gurney in EMS on gravel, mud, or sand, knows how a farmer in the 1800's felt trying to plow a field. But it's not really the farmer's point of view that one experiences, it's the mule's; as you pull along. the wheels drag themselves deeper and deeper into the mud, until you finally reach the back door with a freshly plowed field behind you. "Would you like us to plant corn or soybeans there?"

Ah, but that's not all, this driveway terminated in a covered shed with a parked car in it. Luckily for us, the car was located in such a way as to almost completely occlude the path into the house, but not enough to keep us from trying. So Bravo, being the kind and courteous person that he is, places himself between the gurney and the car as we pull the stretcher on through. That kind of hurt because the thing kept shifting its weight onto me. I would still do it again though, it saved the car a lot of damage.

But just like a bad infomercial, there's more. At the front of the car is one of those concrete block-type things that you see in parking lots to keep the car from moving forward and just like those, it's anchored in the ground with rebar. We manage to overcome the obstacle course and get the gurney to the patient. It really didn't take as long as I made it sound, this happened over the course of 3 minutes.

We get the patient on the gurney and for some reason or another he keeps wiggling around. Even strapped down he manages to wiggle his way down the gurney. We keep moving him up again and again and he keeps moving down. After a while we manage to get him into the ambulance and begin our transport. He keeps wiggling around and time after time works his way to the bottom of the gurney. He has some aversion to not falling off.

As we're transporting code 3, we continue the ongoing assessment. Pupils are equal and reactive to light. Vital signs are in normal limits. Patient is coherent, but there's still something weird about the situation. He says he just feels bad in general.

We arrive at the hospital, unload the patient, and take him into the ER. We're told by the charge nurse to wait in the hall with him since all exam rooms are currently full. As we wait he's still continuing to move around on the gurney. We move him back up and strap him down even tighter to the gurney.

One of the nurses and one of the physicians came by to talk with us about our patient and various random topics. Then...

*THUD*

Yep, that's right. The patient finally managed to escape the gurney and fell clear off the stretcher. That wasn't the greatest scene in the world. At least both the physician and patient were laughing.

I'm still trying to erase that from my memory.

Goodnight everyone and remember, stay safe.