Ambulance Driver

Steady day at the ambulance service. We had 77 calls during my 12 hour shift, the Ambulance Driver responded to 7.

• Call #1 Spent a delightful 45 minutes with a gentleman in his mid-90’s. Active, vigorous and with all his marbles. Had lived in the same house for nearly 70 years. The downer is that he stumbled on a doorway threshold and broke his hip.
• Call #2  One reason we have overuse of hospital emergency rooms is that our public health care programs in Minnesota incent people to do so. No co-pays for ambulance service, ER visits or medications in most cases. Goods or services that are highly valued, such as health care, will be over used if it costs little or nothing. Call #2 was a fella that had been constipated for 5 days. He walked out to meet us as we arrived.
• Call #3  was a female who got drunk last night, woke up woozy and fell in the bathroom. Nice shiner over right eye with a small laceration.
• Call #4  Even under the best of circumstances, nursing home patients fall down a lot. Female toppled over while using a walker. Forehead laceration. No other injury noted.
• Call #5  A road rage incident between 2 vehicles ended up with 2 innocent vehicles being run off the road. Moderate damage to vehicles, minor damage to 2 of the total of 7 occupants.
• Call # 6 As we have seen, not all chest pain is cardiac related. Male with chest pain, normal EKG, not relieved by NTG. Confirmed non-cardiac by ER later but still didn’t have a diagnosis.
• Call #7.  Isolated femur fractures are a relatively rare occurance. I seem to see one every 2-3 years. Today I saw my second one in three months. Young male slipped on an icy driveway while collecting his mail. Traction splint and morphine helped ease the pain during transport. He’ll probably heal fine but will have a tough time over the next 4-6 months.

That’s it. We’ll do it all over tomorrow.