Crazy Sundays

So I am now going to call Sundays..."Crazy Sundays." I figured I would call it that after the last two Sundays. This last Sunday was a crazy day for burns. First call of the day was for a burn patient that was burned by some type of camp fire was what the 911 caller said. The location of the call was at a business that was one of the auto vehicle salvage yard. Well we got there and found a pile of ruble that was on fire but that was pretty much all done burning and there looked like two cars were also burned, but didn't see anyone that was burned. As we were getting out of the truck I noticed someone laying on the outside of the burned area. Didn't look like he was moving and he wouldn't respond when one of the firefighters were trying to talk to him. He finally woke up and we put him on the stretcher and moved to the ambulance. He had a 1st degree burn on his back, and 2nd degree burns to both his lower arms and hands. Since his hands were burned to that degree he won a trip to Parkland in Dallas. This guy was very lucky to begin with that he wasn't burned more severely and that the workers who worked there came in to work on a Sunday. He didn't seem to be homeless and he gave us an address that wasn't any kind of shelter or anything. He's story also didn't make since as to why he was there to begin with.

Later on in the day we cleared from John Peter Smith and got a call for a burn patient from a house fire. It was just a few blocks away and got there quickly. This patient was very lucky as well as she only had some minor burns to her face and arms and singed hair. She wanted to go to one hospital but since she was burned that hospital wouldn't take her and she would have to go to a hospital that had the facilities to handle burn patients. Well when my partner told her that she couldn't go to the hospital she wanted to things went down hill fast. She became crazy and I mean crazy. She ended up being taken by the police to the hospital for treatment and psychiatric care and she was saying she wanted to die. Turns out that she was actually living under the house in the crawl space. The arson investigator told me that she had a nice little set up under there with bedding and all. It was her mom's house and the investigator was still trying to figure out if the fire was started on purpose or accidentally but was started with gasoline. The picture below shows me with the patient of the house fire taken by Glen Ellman. Her eyes have been blacked out to prevent her from being ID.

Third cardiac arrest and first respiratory arrest

So last shift (Sunday) was actually pretty busy for a Sunday. Ended up working 17 hours instead of the usual shift of 16 hours because we got a call five minutes prior to our end of shift and of course that put us the 16 hours.

The entire morning there just wasn't anything good going on call wise. Which really isn't a bad thing because if its something good for me then it's something bad for someone else unfortunately. Then we got a string of 4 calls in a row that were good.

So around oh, if I can remember, about 4pm we got a call for an accident involving a car vs pedestrian. Call notes showed the person hit to be a 4 year old boy. So of course I am thinking this is going to be a pretty good call but since its a kid I start to get that depressed feeling of oh no something poor is happening to this kid who's probably not even in pre-school yet. So we arrive on scene and of course fire is already on and there is a little crowd surrounding the kid, his grandmother, and the fire crew. I had to push my way past this little crowd to get to the kid. Turn's out luckily the kid only sustained an abrasion to his right side and no other serious injuries.

Second call was for a woman in labor. That's one thing that I have been waiting for, because I think it would be cool to deliver a baby in the field. Well we get there, baby not coming yet, but the patients husband who speaks English (patient doesn't) said that her water has already broke. So we hurry up and get her loaded and get going to one of the local hospitals. On the way I heard the patient not really scream but just a really loud moan, then she said something that I couldn't hear (plus it was in Spanish) but I heard my partner say something like "sorry I don't have any water to give you." And in my head I am thinking: "She's not asking for water, she's saying her water just broke." Well we get to the hospital and move the patient over to the hospital bed and sure enough her water broke during the ambulance ride because it was all over the stretcher. Soon after the baby was delivered there at the hospital and I got to see it. It's not the first delivery I've seen but the first natural (other was a c-section). It's a pretty cool ordeal but definitely after watching that, it's not something I want to do in the back of an ambulance. Oh and it was a baby boy! Yay!

Third call was for what started out as a call for an choking turned into a cardiac arrest call when we turned onto the street. We got to the house and the patient was on the living room floor (we have to find a new term for "living" room b/c every cardiac arrest or dead on scene person has been in the living room so far). And the patient wasn't breathing but had a pulse (respiratory arrest). So my partner quickly intubated him there in the living room and we moved him to the ambulance and got going. When we got to the hospital he still had a pulse which was very good thing because respiratory arrest turns into cardiac arrest very quickly. As far as I know the patient is still alive but on a ventilator. I hope he gets to go home.

Fourth call and my third cardiac arrest. Get a call for a diabetic problem. Arrive on scene to were the patient's roommate stated that he tried to wake the patient up about 15 minutes ago and couldn't. Then tried again and still couldn't so he called 911. There was no light switch where the patient was (bedroom this time) and the only way to turn on the lights was to pull the string on the ceiling fan. Which was no minor task as the ceiling was 9 feet tall and the string was about two inches. So I managed to get the light turned on and look down to my left to find the patient on his bed and he looked dead. There's just this dead look that you see on patients and you know there dead. I could tell he wasn't breathing so I checked for a quick pulse and there was none. My partner was just about to pronounce him when he took a grasp of air (known as agonal respiration's). So we attached the monitor and it showed v-fib. Shocked once and it went into asystole (flat line). I attempted intubation and couldn't get it. My partner attempted with a view scope and couldn't get it so we placed a King airway (future post to come on the King Airway) and my partner also got an IV using the external jugular vein. I pushed a round of epi and atropine and then off to the hospital we went. Pt was pronounced on arrival at the hospital by the doc right at 2200 hours (10 pm).

So as you see Sunday was eventful and all 4 of those calls were back to back. So it was a fun and long day.

Working

So I am currently at work right now sitting in the back of the truck. I am in the back because my new partner is a driver training officer and she's currently training a guy on driving the ambulance.

Today started out "great" with the first call being dispatched as an "unknown problem." Arrived on scene at the apartment complex where management met us. Management advised that she talked to this guys family and said the family hasn't seen or heard from this guy in days and that they tried to open the apartment door but the deadbolt was locked. As Fort Worth Fire is arriving the manager stated something to the effect of: "Oh and the neighboors are complaining of a fowl smell." At that point fire kicked in the door, yes kicked it in even though they had their tools with them, but hey, its their foot and knee. As soon as the door flew open this god awful smell came flying out. It's a smell that immediately smelling you know what it is. Poor guy was laying on the floor. I was only in the apartment long enough for us to call time of death and then I was out. I didn't really see the guy good enough (lighting was poor) but I thought he was a black guy, but management told us that he was a white guy. So that means that he's been down for awhile. So no idea what the cause of death would be, so I'll just wait on the TCME report to come out.

Also ran a stroke victim to far today. Not many of the calls we get for strokes actually turn out to be a stroke as they usually turn out to be a diabetic problem. Poor guy was truely having a stroke. Upon arrival at the ER we took him straight for a CT scan and he had a bleed in his brain. Hope everything turns out ok for him.

Well thats it for now as were just getting a call at a nursing home. Those are always fun.