It's been awhile!

It's been awhile since my last post. Not much has happened since that last post, which is actually a good thing.

As you all know we just had the worst ice storm last week in years. I had to work that day and I didn't let it keep me from getting to work. Of course I had to leave an extra hour and a half earlier to get there safely. I arrived to work without problem and safe, and that's what matters.

During the ice storm, there were just over 530 motor vehicle collisions in Fort Worth. Also during the storm emergency responses, lights and sirens, were suspended. The decision to suspended emergency responses is done due to our vehicles not being able to go any faster than anyone else on the ice, and if you can believe it or not it keeps the roads safer as other drivers are not trying to rapidly move out of the way on the ice and crash into something or someone else.

During my shift the ice only gave us problems once as we got stuck on a slight incline at a red light. It was funny as we were sitting inside trying to rock the truck back and forth in an effort to get the tires more traction. It never worked of course. But eventually with the tires spinning it eventually melted the ice enough to get traction and go.

So far in the year 2009, I've responded to a over a 100 calls already. On 1/12/09 I responded to a shooting. We had just finished with another call down the street when this one came in. So we staged down the street and PD finally said we were clear in. So as were driving up, theres houses on the left (were the shooting happened) and apartments on the right and theres about 8-9 police officers with there AR-15's/M-4's (assault rifles) and shotguns out heading into the apartment complex all spread out. I am thinking to myself, there armed with their big guns and walking towards where the suspects were last seen and live and they said we were clear in, something doesn't make since here because if they ran into the suspects and shots were fired, were behind the police officers taking care of the victim and if the suspects fire and miss the officers its coming into were we are. The victim was about 18 years old if I can remember and he was shot at with a sawed off shotgun. He had two entrance wounds to his leg and an abrasion to his left chest from a round that grazed him. He was a very lucky guy.

That's really only the "good" trauma call this month and that's not a bad thing. I've had some serious medical calls that were "good." They had CHF or congestive heart failure and there lungs were filling up with fluid (pulmonary edema). I applied whats called CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) that forces the fluid back out of the lungs into the circulatory system where it belongs. CPAP is a really good tool that lowers the chance of mortality in patients and lowers the chance of them being intubated and having a long ICU/hospital stay. It is something that I am glad MedStar has as a tool to benefit our patients.

Since I kind of stopped posting I am going to start blogging about safety tips and medical information.

Please stay safe out there, take care of yourself, and wear your seat belts while driving or riding in a vehicle.