Swiss gun control.

I submit to you my views:

Many of you who know me know I am a staunch supporter of the United States Constitution. I believe in the American people's right to do what they want without government interference, unless of course these actions harm another person. Want to be a Catholic, gay, Muslim, atheist, straight, gun owner, non-gun owner, rodeo clown, fat, or heaven forbid.... make your own health care decisions. Go right ahead and do it. Be or do all of those at the same time, I don't care. In fact I respect you for being an adult and finding something you do believe in.

I do have a few conditions however. Number one, work. Yes I have a job, I pay taxes, and I will gladly pay them to keep the country safe and REASONABLY regulated.
I will even allow part of those taxes to provide necessities for the unemployed under the condition they were formerly employed. Work as a dishwasher for 5 years after high school and lost your job because your restaurant closed? Fine, here's some help until you can get back on your feet. Fought for our country, then worked 50 years in the private sector? Awesome, thanks for all you've done, here is money to live on in your retirement years and health insurance until your very last day on this earth. Dropped out of high school, and got knocked up at 16 in the back of a Kia? Screw you, you're on your own. Your daddy and his "baby momma" on welfare, you never gave two shits in school, and you want your welfare check now that your 18? Screw off, get a job, sign up for the military, or go back to school. What's that you say? Your last dose of Heroin in NPW (normal puddle water) was bad and you have an abscess on your arm from when you shot up? Sorry dude, it's gonna be hard to hold up your sign and change cup with one arm. Want to come to the hospital and get treated? For free? Nope. Because my friend this is how we learn. I am a firm believer that if you put absolutely nothing into society, you should get nothing out of it. Other countries that do this are called "Socialist". Something that the White House assures us our president is not. His policies, ideals, and cabinet members seem like they are. But that simply because we are stupid, tax paying, heartless voters who simply just don't know any better.

There is one thing that will keep our country from turning into a complete and total failure. It is the Constitution. Our founding fathers weren't stupid. They saw all this coming. The knew all too well that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. They built safeguards into the system. The first ten amendments, the "Bill of Rights". Not just a list of rights the government grants us in the eyes of it's creators. But a list of rights that are given and ought to be given to every person by which ever god you believe in, that the government recognized and agreed not to screw with. I am not a religious person at all. But the right to assemble, protest, due process, protection from unreasonable search and seizure, and the right to own a firearm are rights we were born with. By that logic it is impossible for any government to take them away.

This youtube video tells it quite well. This is the telling video of methods of Swiss gun control. I think the commentary and stats speak for themselves.

Just checking in.

It's been slow lately. I haven't been able to write any entertaining anecdotes. I am refraining from writing about politics for a while, if I wrote what I felt about our current cluster of elected (appointed) leaders the Secret Service may be knocking on my door. The holidays are coming up. Maybe that will provide something interesting to write about. Either from stories at work, or injuries sustained while dealing with the ever expanding branches of the family tree. Only on Christmas day can I log a full tank of gas and 200 some odd miles on the truck. Off-road season is upon us, combined with the winter weather moving into the northern recreational areas I am sure I will but up at least one good story from a rescue. Lets keep our fingers crossed that the human race doesn't become smarter in the next couple of months.

Although I will take this downtime to plug my favorite podcast of all time. The 2 Guys 1 Brain show hosted by Randy and Andy (www.2g1b.com). They are two corrections officers from the state of Washington. Highly recommended listening. I can guarantee that you will enjoy their shows. They are better than just about anything else broadcast on the radio.

Nothing is ever what it seems.

This is a story from my very first shift working EMS. I had been riding with a senior member of our group and we had a few good calls that day. A couple traumas, one flown to a Level 1 facility. All in all it had been a good time. It was about 2100 when we recieve a call from dispatch. A man is reporting his girlfriend and her dog missing. This guy is parked in one of the lots near a river that is rather popular for tubers.

When we arrive we see the guy waiting by his car. He looks anxious, and oddly nervous. He is with a few bystanders that had been looking for her in their jeeps. He explains to us that his girlfriend who is in otherwise good health is suffering from an ankle injury she had sustained in a horse riding accident the weekend before. Her dog is a very young boxer puppy. Now the area she got lost in is not that large. We should have been able to hear the dog bark from where we were sitting.

Our guy told us he told her to stay there while he moved the car. Everything the guy said made perfect sense, except the reason he left her down there. He told us he wanted to move his car before closing because he didn't want to get locked behind the gates. When we asked where he moved his car from he pointed 10 parking spaces away in the same lot and said "right there". And there was no gate at this particular lot. After that his story started to fall apart even more. We had another one of our units show up and drive the beach area and look for the victim. A few moments later a cop arrived.

As we continue asking the guy questions we keep in radio contact with our other rescue unit. At this point we told him to start looking under bushes and similiar places where a body would be stashed. First rule of working in the field is; sometimes things aren't what they would seem. To make us even more nervous he kept getting in and out of his car looking for something. It wasn't long before the cop put a stop to that. He was quickly moving from the realm of "victim" and into that of "suspect".

At this point we were about an hour into the search. They decided to call the helicopter and see if they could pick up anything on their FLIR. They flew the river a few times and found her. She was about 3 miles from where we estimated her to be. We couldn't get a jeep to her where she was because of the rock faces. The helicopter was able to set down and pick her up. We told the guy to get in his car and meet us at the station where the helicopter was going to land and drop her off.

When we get there the helicopters rotors had just stopped. Our patient gets out of the helicopter with her dog. The guy we were with ran up to her to give her a hug. She turns around, looks at the nearest cop, and says "Get him the f*&% away from me". "That a#&hole left and told me he was coming back, he left me down there for 3 hours." As it turns out, they were enjoying a romantic, semi-moonlit evening down on the beach by the river. They get into an argument, and the guy tells his girlfriend that he is going to move the car, and never comes back. An hour or so later, Mr. Douche Bag feels guilty and comes back and says she got lost. She decided that she was on her own, and was going to hike the river to find someone to help her. We check her out, she signs a refusal and drives home. In her car.... he was left to walk 10 miles back into town at midnight.

A-hole.

Level 1 by Air...

Once upon a time I was out working again. A call came out for an injured person at the lake. The story dispatch gets is that a guy climbed up a rock face and jumped into the water. When his gravitational experience came to an abrupt halt he was flat on his back in the water. The 15 or so bystanders helped him out of the water and brought him up to the highest point away from the water. Unfortunately this meant I had to climb out of a boat, and up the rock face. If you remember my previous posts, you’ll no doubt recall a story called “Climbing up the Mountain.” Oddly enough, the same cop I hiked up that mountain with previously was the one who was piloting the boat I was on. Needless to say I will never answer up a call with this guy again.

Upon arriving, I see a young male on his back, unresponsive. As soon as I make contact with him he becomes awake and agitated. Pupils pinpoint, and displaying classic head injury symptoms. In the middle of his tantrums asking for water he would lose consciousness. Now, how to get a combative trauma patient collared, boarded, strapped, assessed, carried down a rock face, and into a boat with one EMT and 15 bystanders? This was gonna suck, and the suck was going to be bad. Fortunately I was able to hold it together long enough to use the radio properly. Thankfully I was in the one area of the lake with radio reception. “Medic 51, can you please have the officers responding expedite their response.” The next thing I learned was how loud those boat motors get when the throttle opens up, it was quite impressive. So with an army of bystanders, cops, and 2 fire medics we finally were able to get this guy secured to the back board. There really wasn’t any time or opportunity to do an assessment. We were able to look at his back before covering it with a board, and get a pulse and oxygen saturation. Back looked banged up, but no step-offs, Pulse of 43 and irregular, and oxygen saturation was about the only vitals sign we had within normal limits. Patient did admit to consuming alcohol and ecstasy. We get back to solid land, turf him to the flight medics, and that was that.

Please, take a lesson from this. If you ever decide to jump off a rock face while under the influence of a psychoactive substance, please, please, please do it near a dock or something.

From the blog : A Day In The Life Of An Ambulance Driver.

I thought this was a great tip for all those who have to deal with long bone fractures and haven't invested in a portable x-ray machine.

http://www.ems1.com/ems-products/Patient-Monitoring/articles/592414-Wait-a-Minute-You-Auscultated-What/

Thanks to "Ambulance Driver" for allowing me to repost this link.

PPE

I am going to share with you a e-mail conversation I had with my former manager.


Manager:

FWD:

Aspiring models needed. In addition to informational booths and demonstrations, as part of the National Safety Month celebration I am organizing a Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) fashion show. I am looking for a few models for fashion shows during the upcoming National Safety Month celebration at Campus 2 on Wednesday, June 17th from 10am to 2pm in the Campus 2 Conference Center and at Campus 1 in the 1234 Building on Monday, June 22nd from 10am to 2pm. I need the models to display the appropriate and inappropriate ways to wear various types of PPE (gloves, gowns, goggles, face sheilds[sic], masks, etc.) The fashion shows will last about 5-10 minutes and are planned to run every half hour beginning at 10:15am.

It would wonderful if any of you could volunteer some of your time between 10:15am and 2:00pm to help educate and entertain your staff at Campus 1 or 2. If you could also recommend or delegate other staff members to help in the celebration that would be great too!! If you could show up in the Conference Center or 1234 Building (report to me) at 10 minutes after the hour (10:10am, 11:10am, 12:10am 1:10am or 40 minutes after the hour 10:40am, 11:40am, 12:40am 1:40am) that would be great. You only need to bring yourself, I will supply the PPE for all the models. I will asking the audience questions about what the PPE you are modeling is appropriate for. I also plan to introduce you (so if you want to make up a model name for yourself, feel free and I will introduce you as such). Please e-mail me or call me at (55555) with your comittment or questions. Thanks for your help.


Seriously... A fashion show... She even referred to it as a celebration. Who thinks this stuff up? I can see it now. Some highly paid executive is sitting in their leather chair that is strategically perforated for proper air flow thinking "We need to do something with our excess budget...I know, we'll have a fashion show, and then we will all wear pink and have a tea party."

It's good to know that some nimrod with an ass that is nice and cool is making these decisions that don't pertain to the staff at all. Well some of the staff will go. But these are the same hopelessly loyal people who also went to every high school football game for 3 years after they graduated. And not to pick up chicks...



My reply:

I want my model name to be "Hans Big-gloved" And I will wear a full Tyvek suite, Gas mask, and a hard had that was so generously gifted to me from the Fire Dept. I just need a pair of size 12 knee high rubber boots and some knee pads. I can probably muster up some body armor and reflective clothing. I feel that should cover the minimum PPE requirements for invasive procedures such as doing blood glucose checks and assessing lung sounds...

Mark

But on a serious note..... no...



Needless to say I was not in the fashion show.

Tuesday Night Steel 9/8/09

So last night my friends and I went to go shoot a steel match at the Rio Salado Range (www.riopractical.com). This is the first match I have shot since after the wedding, so it's been at least six months. If anybody tells you that shooting, or anything for that matter is a perishable skill, believe it. We safely shot the match, and finished alright. But our times sucked. We all used to be able to finish the stages in less than 100 seconds, which isn't great. But our times were closer to the mid to high 100's. We sucked. We need more range time. Bad...

Is anyone willing to sponsor some amateur shooters??? We'll take all the bullets, powders, and primers we can get.

When you jack up your ankle, please do it at sea level.

So there I was working at one of our local outdoor recreational areas. It has been a somewhat slow day so my partner left early. As I am driving around I am thinking of what kind of stuff might happen later in the day. Would we get lucky and have a nice trauma call, or maybe get to respond to something in one of the off-roading areas. Maybe I'll even get to turn my lights on today. No, Not so much...

So while I am driving I hear "We're getting a report of an injury, a hiker with a broken ankle stuck on a cliff over the Lake" come over the radio. "Ummm" I think, " a broken ankle, that could be cool". Then I realize that they said "cliff". Cliff's are pointy, and tall, and to make this even more concerning, there was water under this particular one. I right then made the quick decision that I am not going anywhere near this frigging cliff. So I get on the radio and let them know, what I said was "Medic 51, show me responding". What I wanted to say was "Medic 51, I am gonna go get a burger and an icy cold Coke, let me know when they get this patient closer to sea level".

Now just a point of clarification here, since this is my first post relating to any kind of story. My call sign is not Medic 51. I changed it to protect the ignorant. However 51 is a really cool number, and I wanted to put in a little reference to Johnny and Roy, and if you don't know Johnny and Roy, your need to check out www.hulu.com and look up "Emergency".

So anyway, after a short drive I show up to see two cops beat me there. There talking with the patients family members to get some information and find out whats going on. So as it turns out this 50 year old guy decided to go hiking with the family. And he decided, that like many other things in life, his trip would be made better by consuming massive quantities of alcohol.

So here's the run down so far. A drunk guy, with a bad ankle, on a cliff. A big, pointy, tall, hot, sharp cliff.

And to put me at ease, he isn't on top of a cliff strictly speaking. He was just on top of a tall hill, or depending on how you look at it, a small mountain. Our plan so far is to tell this guy to stop moving, sit down, and wait for the helicopter to pick him up. We figure by the time we got to him he had been up there with no water, and this ankle injury for at least an hour and a half. The sooner we got this drunk dude to sit down and get the helicopter to him we could get him to me. All the while I will be sitting in my comfortably air conditioned truck listening to music and drinking an ice cold Coke Zero.

As the helicopter is on the way we keep watching this guy. He won't stay still. This a problem because we are going to be putting a helicopter up there. Helicopters are dangerous things. They have spinning rotors that throw little bits of rocks, dirt, cactus, and other such hard pointy things around. Add in the fact that the sun is going down and the situation sucks even more.

While all this is going on one of the cops on scene looks at me and says "You got your hiking boots on?" I reply "shit". I put together a some supplies in my Camelback and get ready to go. Obviously this guy I started hiking with is an experienced desert hiker, and I am not. And I would also like to personally thank the guy who decided to put a barb wire fence in the middle of nowhere. It was rather comical listening to the radio chatter of the units on the ground. Stuff like "we might need the helicopter for the medic". I will admit that the cop I was hiking with was a good 100 yards ahead of me. But in all fairness, I don't hike, the atmosphere was getting thinner, and I think he was levitating...

Once we finally do get to the top we see our patient. Well actually we smell our patient, then we see him. He is a late 40's male, with a history of substance abuse, and drunk. His ankle is pretty swollen, and the foot looks a bit cyanotic, but otherwise fine. He was a bit hypertensive, but frankly so was I.

About ten minutes after we get to the top of the hill the helicopter shows up. This is a police helicopter that can deliver the patient to the ambulance waiting on the ground. I can't explain how excited I was to not have to hike down that mountain, but rather have a ride down with a helicopter. That didn't turn out to be the case though. For about 15 minutes the helicopter couldn't find a good place to set down. While it was moving around and hovering looking for a landing zone we were being pelted with small rocks and assorted other desert lifeforms. Although I do have to say, looking up to see a helicopter shifting side to side 20 feet above your head is quite the eerie experience.

Eventually they do find a place to set one skid down. ONE skid, the other one was kind of hanging off the edge of a rock face. Suddenly I decided that I wasn't so excited about a helicopter ride. Fortunately for me, they told us to hike back down, unfortunately for me, they told us to hike back down. The trip down wasn't quite as bad. It was pretty dark, but our pilot was nice enough to fly back around and light the area up for us. Once again, thanks for that barb wire fence.

Post #1

For years I have seen, done, and heard a great many funny, stupid, and interesting things. Lately I had the great idea to put them all online to share with the world. Or at least a very small part of it, or mostly just the people who follow me on facebook.

Let me tell you a little about myself. I am 24 years old guy living and working in Arizona. I work at an undisclosed hospital, and volunteer as an EMT for an undisclosed agency. As a hobby I enjoy practical shooting and other similar sports. I would love to do it more, but lead has gotten quite expensive. And in March of this year I married a VERY VERY tolerant woman. No really... I do some stupid shit... anyone else would have probably kicked me to the curb by now.

Honestly this is the weakest into in the history of internet blogging, but I really have nothing else to say right now. Check back for new updates. And please feel free to leave comments.

Mark.