Ambulance Driver

Our service answered 78 calls during my 12 hour, 5a-5p shift today. Since I spent a lot of time in suburbia, my unit was only dispatched to five of them.

• Call # 1 was for a young lady that couldn’t be awakened by her husband this morning. He thought that she had been drinking last evening and may also have taken an OD of her sleep aid. We were able to rouse her enough to make a determination that she was intoxicated, but could not find any pill bottle that could help us determined whether she had overdosed. We later learned that her blood alcohol was 0.35%. BAC’s of this magnitude are the hallmark of a chronic inebriate. Unfortunately we see a lot of this and in many folks one wouldn’t consider drunks.
• Call #2 was a nursing home patient with abdominal pain. Our exam discovered a prominent hernia that staff was unaware of and its presence did not appear in her history. She may have a strangulated bowel since the mass was hard and firm. Kinda weird.
• Call #3 was for a lady who went to a “stand alone” urgent care clinic with vague complaints of chest pain. Not obviously cardiac and EKG appeared normal. Women with cardiac problems, however, are notorious for being hard to diagnose so the physician opted to send her in for further evaluation.
• Call #4 was for a elderly fellow with a long history of emphysema. He had gone to his clinic for increased breathing difficulty over the past few days. The clinic treated him and thought he need to go to an emergency room. So what did they do? They sent him to the hospital in a private vehicle driven by his daughter (insert mirth-less chuckle by typist here). She gets lost and ends up at a gas station where she calls 911 due to her dad’s increased shortness of breath. By the time we arrived the poor guy is in pretty tough shape. Quiet chest on auscultation, no chest movement, can’t talk, is weak and has grunting expirations. We have a couple of treatment options but decided to neb him with atrovent and albuterol. This apparently was the correct choice since he was much better in a very short time.
• Call #5 was for a nursing home patient with persistent pneumonia that was not responding to antibiotics and had made several back and forth visits to the hospital in the past couple of weeks. This was just another one trip.

Well, that’s it. Just another run-of-the-mill day.

Quiet day at the ambulance service – just 56 runs during my 5am-5pm shift. We snagged only five of them.

• Call #1 was for an elderly man who fell out of bed at the nursing home. Had significant skin tears on both arms. Has been taking Prednisone for a while which makes a person susceptible to such injury.
• Call #2 was a lady who fell at another nursing home. She had left hip pain but no obvious fracture. Patient has a history of frequent falls.
• Call #3 was for a “one down” which usually turns out to be someone passed out in a drunken stupor. The police beat us to the scene and cancelled us as we arrived.
• Call #4 was an auto accident in a suburban community. Car was T-boned by an SUV at an intersection. The auto had very heavy damage to front passenger door. The car’s driver was complaining of right chest pain. Both drivers insisted that they had the green light when the accident occurred. Patient was taken to the hospital but will do just fine.
• Call #5 was a middle age male with chest pain with no other symptoms. He  had a normal looking 12 Lead EKG and pain not relieved by nitro. Did not appear to be cardiac in origin.

All patients were transported to area hospitals. Kind of a hum-drum day.

This blog will contain a diary of my work as a Paramedic for a urban ambulance service and musings concerning public policy.