Be careful out there...

The other day I happened to be witness to an unfortunate situation. There could have been some less than desirable outcomes for the patient. Fortunately however it didn't turn out that way. As with all errors and failures in judgement, there is a lesson to be learned here. The lesson here being complacency is dangerous.

Whether your driving, walking down the street, treating a patient, or handling a firearm. The second you lose sight of what your doing, or worse even, fail to recognize the potential consequences of your actions, you have put yourself behind the curve.

In this particular situation, a seemingly harmless act had the potential to cause great harm. As a healthcare provider, at any level of care, your responsibilty to the patient comes first. Never forget that it is your responsibility and your's alone. Don't trust anyone else to look out for your intrests. At the end of the day, it's your name that goes in the chart. And if something goes wrong, it's your responsibility to answer for it.

Be careful, trust no one but yourself.

A long break...

I am the worst blogger ever....

I haven't been able to keep the posts going. Things have been busy, but nothing really exciting for the readers has happened lately. I am sorry to disappoint my readers (both of them)!

The good news is the winter trauma season seems to be picking up. Hopefully that will results in some good old fashioned carnage stories.

Until then, keep checking back, and I will try to keep things current.

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.