I'm Finished
So after the little mini review session with my crew, we checked the truck available, and were immediately dispatched to another call. This one for and overdose at an apartment complex off of Estes Dr. in Chapel Hill. I called communications back for an apartment number right before I turned the corner and saw 5 cops, an engine company, and our medic standing by with the patient. They came back with an apartment number five minutes later as we were literally loading the patient into the truck. Incredible.
As we walk over to where everyone's standing around I see our patient. This guy is huge. Has to be close to 250lbs, but not in the fat way. In the "I could kill you with my little finger" kind of way. For probably the 4th time in my life, I'm legitimately happy to be surrounded by police officers. Turns out this guy has been on a month long bender, and tonight finished off 2 cases of cheap beer, and then smoked an 8 ball. (1/8th of an ounce of crack cocaine. Doesn't sound like a lot, but ask the nearest cokehead about smoking one, and they'll tell you it's a pretty decent bit of smack.)
I'm sitting here thinking to myself, "Okay, so this guy's drunk and high, but that's been pretty much the norm for the entire month. Why did he call 911?" Well you see, he didn't. His friend did, and he decided he needed help when his friend started voicing homicidal thoughts. Remember, this guy is huge, and I'm about to be placed in an enclosed space with him. There are times when I really question my decision to work in this field.
As far as I can tell, this guy is beyond chilled out now. He's sitting in a chair with his eyes closed, totally relaxed as all of these people talk around him. Once the stretcher's ready, we help him stand and move over to the bed, and he just flops down and allows us to put the belts on him. Well, we almost put the belts on him.
The belt that should've gone across his chest managed to get twisted, and then the Chapel Hill firefighter pulled the twist into the buckle.
Now I love firefighters. They're generally great guys, and on a bad call, they make all the difference in the world. But don't hire one to do your logical thinking for you. This guy sees that the buckle is caught, and in his world when something won't move, then dammit you make it move. He proceeds to pull with all his might on this poor buckle that never did a single thing to him. I eventually convince him that it's not important, and we can just tuck the buckle away and move on. Hey, it was cold outside.
We manage to get the patient in the back of the truck, and the medic jumps on board. Jordan is riding clinicals tonight, so he gets in the back too. This leaves me standing outside with the dream team that is my crew for the evening. Our cadet can't drive, but I also don't want her in the back of our relatively small truck with 2 other people, and her ineptitude. I tell her to go to the passenger seat of the truck, and she can learn about "radio communications" enroute to the hospital. Bullshit is a specialty of mine.
I go to the front of the truck, and hop into the driver's seat to get us on the road to the hospital, and my partner stands next to the door looking at me. I roll down the window, and look back at him with a "Yes?" expression on my face.
Finally, he says "So I guees I should drive the IRV?"
Jesus.
There's two vehicles onscene, and two people that can drive them. I'm driving the ambulance, mostly so he can't piss off the already angry medic in the back of the truck. That leaves precisely one job for him, but he still needs some confirmation. All I can do is nod. By the way, if you'd like an explanation of the term IRV, and an explanation of the oh so strange EMS system in Orange County, email me. I don't have space to put it here. CDye@email.unc.edu
Anyway, we make it to the hospital, and this time the reporting duties fall to the medic and my partner is off the hook. Unfortunately, he chooses this as the time to look down at our semi-lucid patient and say, loudly, "Oh look. He looks very peaceful."
Our patient responds with a somewhat garbled "Fuck you man"
Even though I agreed with both assessments, I still felt the strong urge to take the mag-lite off of the medic's belt and thwock my partner over the head. What kind of person do you have to be to think that saying something like that is a good idea? To a patient!
Jesus.
So we're finally assigned a bed, and while we're getting ready to move the (again, huge) patient over to his new bed, the medic notices our cadet isn't (and hasn't) done anything, and asks her to come over and help move him. I kid you not, she looked like she was ready to shit her pants at the thought of sliding this guy's feet over to a new bed. Sometimes I really like our medics.
We clean up, and clear up, and it's back to the apartment for an hour's worth of sleep. This time, I finally manage to sleep, but I'm plagued with dreams of the most beautiful woman I've ever known with whom I might be making a huge mistake. Nothing like uncertainty to really make a fella's night go great.
So when we wake up in the morning and head back to the station, I'm now working on 5 1/2 hours of sleep since Friday morning, with one night of hard drinking thrown in for good measure. Unfortunately, the cheerleading competition that the squad has agreed to cover at the Dean Dome is understaffed to say the least, and I've agreed to help.
The coverage is split into two shifts, with the first lasting from 7-11. Not too bad, I'm figuring the whole day's events will finish about 3, and I can go home, crash for a while, and catch Grey's Anatomy. I'm working with Jordan, TheAsstChief, Puddinhead, KillerMiller, and DaveO. Already I can see the potential for hilarity to ensue. My mood however, is severely dampened when we find out that the event is scheduled to end at 9:30 that night. Scheduled to end. Like with an asterisk next to the word scheduled. I almost shit my pants.
We unload our stuff, plant camp chairs in front of our treatment room, and "Go to work". At special events, this generally means looking for attractive women and making fun of silly people who walk by. Unfortunately as today's cheerleading competition seems mostly for the middle school aged teams,(I'm only a little creepy) the latter activity got a little more attention.
Highlights of the day:
A woman in a full body zebra suit. She was a mascot for a cheerleading team. Seriously.
A woman in a full body star suit, (but with jeans sticking out of the bottom) See above.
A man with his hair cut in a military style medium fade, wearing a red, sparkly cape.
A man in a full Uncle Sam costume, including wig, beard, and comedically oversized bow-tie. At first I thought Tucker Carlson had come to Chapel Hill
A guy wearing a white Roca Wear cap, (brim unbent, tag still on) a white and pink striped polo (collar popped) jeans 12 sizes too big, and basketball shoes of one variety or another with only the first two pairs of eyelets laced, and the tongues of the shoes popped out in front of his pants.
A guy wearing two polo shirts, both collars popped. I tried to get Jordan to kick him in the nuts.
A guy wearing a brown Yankees cap, (brin unbent, tag still on) a brown sport coat, white button down with brown stripes, designer jeans, and brown shoes. Everything matched, but the whole effect was one of a total tool with an identity crisis. Even worse, he was apparently dating one of the relatively cute girls from the UNC club cheerleading team. Made me want to cry. (Told you I'm a big girl)
Anyway, as far as patients that day are concerned, you only need to know 2 things. Middle school girls like to hyperventilate, and then laugh about how silly they are with EMS still onscene, and that the cutest cheerleader I saw all day went to Broughton in Raleigh. I'm not even being seedy, she was 18. We only transported one patient, a 16 year old who landed wrong in a catch, and heard a pop, followed by a lot of pain in her neck. When she first walked up, she was just rubbing the side of her neck, and lateral neck pain isn't all that concerning, at least for backboarding purposes, but then she said she heard a pop, and raised everybody's pucker factor (that's another thing you'll have to email about for an explanation) by about 10. I think we really freaked her mom out when we started to strap her daughter to the board. Understandable.
I finally made it home at about 11pm, just in time to have missed Grey's Anatomy (If anyone reading this has it on DVR and wants to let me come over and watch it, let me know.) After that, I decided it would be a great idea to talk to GIII. You haven't heard a lot about her lately because there hasn't been much to say, I haven't seen her. I was starting to think she was really trying to avoid me, but I couldn't figure out a good reason for her to do that.
I finally talked to her last night, and because I'm neurotic, decided that it would be a good time to "define our relationship" or lack-thereof. I think I really started out with something to the effect of "So, about us. Is there an "us"?"
The gist was something like, she really likes me, but doesn't know if she wants to be in a relationship. Those of you that know me are now shaking your heads with pity. I continue to travel in circles. For now it looks like we're going to keep seeing each other, just without definition. Totally okay with me, provided I'm the only guy in the picture. I can't do the dating multiple people at a time thing, and I can't date someone who can either. Just messes with my head. Anyway, GIII will now be referred to as "Girl I'm Kinda Dating" or GIKD.
After that ending, and a solid 67 hours (it was now 3am) with only 5.5 hours of sleep, I was exhausted, and crashed. Slept all freaking day and went to my medic class, only to turn around after 45 minutes when my instructor saw I looked like shit, and we were doing math problems I could've figured out in the 7th grade.
Weekends are not relaxing times for me.
As we walk over to where everyone's standing around I see our patient. This guy is huge. Has to be close to 250lbs, but not in the fat way. In the "I could kill you with my little finger" kind of way. For probably the 4th time in my life, I'm legitimately happy to be surrounded by police officers. Turns out this guy has been on a month long bender, and tonight finished off 2 cases of cheap beer, and then smoked an 8 ball. (1/8th of an ounce of crack cocaine. Doesn't sound like a lot, but ask the nearest cokehead about smoking one, and they'll tell you it's a pretty decent bit of smack.)
I'm sitting here thinking to myself, "Okay, so this guy's drunk and high, but that's been pretty much the norm for the entire month. Why did he call 911?" Well you see, he didn't. His friend did, and he decided he needed help when his friend started voicing homicidal thoughts. Remember, this guy is huge, and I'm about to be placed in an enclosed space with him. There are times when I really question my decision to work in this field.
As far as I can tell, this guy is beyond chilled out now. He's sitting in a chair with his eyes closed, totally relaxed as all of these people talk around him. Once the stretcher's ready, we help him stand and move over to the bed, and he just flops down and allows us to put the belts on him. Well, we almost put the belts on him.
The belt that should've gone across his chest managed to get twisted, and then the Chapel Hill firefighter pulled the twist into the buckle.
Now I love firefighters. They're generally great guys, and on a bad call, they make all the difference in the world. But don't hire one to do your logical thinking for you. This guy sees that the buckle is caught, and in his world when something won't move, then dammit you make it move. He proceeds to pull with all his might on this poor buckle that never did a single thing to him. I eventually convince him that it's not important, and we can just tuck the buckle away and move on. Hey, it was cold outside.
We manage to get the patient in the back of the truck, and the medic jumps on board. Jordan is riding clinicals tonight, so he gets in the back too. This leaves me standing outside with the dream team that is my crew for the evening. Our cadet can't drive, but I also don't want her in the back of our relatively small truck with 2 other people, and her ineptitude. I tell her to go to the passenger seat of the truck, and she can learn about "radio communications" enroute to the hospital. Bullshit is a specialty of mine.
I go to the front of the truck, and hop into the driver's seat to get us on the road to the hospital, and my partner stands next to the door looking at me. I roll down the window, and look back at him with a "Yes?" expression on my face.
Finally, he says "So I guees I should drive the IRV?"
Jesus.
There's two vehicles onscene, and two people that can drive them. I'm driving the ambulance, mostly so he can't piss off the already angry medic in the back of the truck. That leaves precisely one job for him, but he still needs some confirmation. All I can do is nod. By the way, if you'd like an explanation of the term IRV, and an explanation of the oh so strange EMS system in Orange County, email me. I don't have space to put it here. CDye@email.unc.edu
Anyway, we make it to the hospital, and this time the reporting duties fall to the medic and my partner is off the hook. Unfortunately, he chooses this as the time to look down at our semi-lucid patient and say, loudly, "Oh look. He looks very peaceful."
Our patient responds with a somewhat garbled "Fuck you man"
Even though I agreed with both assessments, I still felt the strong urge to take the mag-lite off of the medic's belt and thwock my partner over the head. What kind of person do you have to be to think that saying something like that is a good idea? To a patient!
Jesus.
So we're finally assigned a bed, and while we're getting ready to move the (again, huge) patient over to his new bed, the medic notices our cadet isn't (and hasn't) done anything, and asks her to come over and help move him. I kid you not, she looked like she was ready to shit her pants at the thought of sliding this guy's feet over to a new bed. Sometimes I really like our medics.
We clean up, and clear up, and it's back to the apartment for an hour's worth of sleep. This time, I finally manage to sleep, but I'm plagued with dreams of the most beautiful woman I've ever known with whom I might be making a huge mistake. Nothing like uncertainty to really make a fella's night go great.
So when we wake up in the morning and head back to the station, I'm now working on 5 1/2 hours of sleep since Friday morning, with one night of hard drinking thrown in for good measure. Unfortunately, the cheerleading competition that the squad has agreed to cover at the Dean Dome is understaffed to say the least, and I've agreed to help.
The coverage is split into two shifts, with the first lasting from 7-11. Not too bad, I'm figuring the whole day's events will finish about 3, and I can go home, crash for a while, and catch Grey's Anatomy. I'm working with Jordan, TheAsstChief, Puddinhead, KillerMiller, and DaveO. Already I can see the potential for hilarity to ensue. My mood however, is severely dampened when we find out that the event is scheduled to end at 9:30 that night. Scheduled to end. Like with an asterisk next to the word scheduled. I almost shit my pants.
We unload our stuff, plant camp chairs in front of our treatment room, and "Go to work". At special events, this generally means looking for attractive women and making fun of silly people who walk by. Unfortunately as today's cheerleading competition seems mostly for the middle school aged teams,(I'm only a little creepy) the latter activity got a little more attention.
Highlights of the day:
A woman in a full body zebra suit. She was a mascot for a cheerleading team. Seriously.
A woman in a full body star suit, (but with jeans sticking out of the bottom) See above.
A man with his hair cut in a military style medium fade, wearing a red, sparkly cape.
A man in a full Uncle Sam costume, including wig, beard, and comedically oversized bow-tie. At first I thought Tucker Carlson had come to Chapel Hill
A guy wearing a white Roca Wear cap, (brim unbent, tag still on) a white and pink striped polo (collar popped) jeans 12 sizes too big, and basketball shoes of one variety or another with only the first two pairs of eyelets laced, and the tongues of the shoes popped out in front of his pants.
A guy wearing two polo shirts, both collars popped. I tried to get Jordan to kick him in the nuts.
A guy wearing a brown Yankees cap, (brin unbent, tag still on) a brown sport coat, white button down with brown stripes, designer jeans, and brown shoes. Everything matched, but the whole effect was one of a total tool with an identity crisis. Even worse, he was apparently dating one of the relatively cute girls from the UNC club cheerleading team. Made me want to cry. (Told you I'm a big girl)
Anyway, as far as patients that day are concerned, you only need to know 2 things. Middle school girls like to hyperventilate, and then laugh about how silly they are with EMS still onscene, and that the cutest cheerleader I saw all day went to Broughton in Raleigh. I'm not even being seedy, she was 18. We only transported one patient, a 16 year old who landed wrong in a catch, and heard a pop, followed by a lot of pain in her neck. When she first walked up, she was just rubbing the side of her neck, and lateral neck pain isn't all that concerning, at least for backboarding purposes, but then she said she heard a pop, and raised everybody's pucker factor (that's another thing you'll have to email about for an explanation) by about 10. I think we really freaked her mom out when we started to strap her daughter to the board. Understandable.
I finally made it home at about 11pm, just in time to have missed Grey's Anatomy (If anyone reading this has it on DVR and wants to let me come over and watch it, let me know.) After that, I decided it would be a great idea to talk to GIII. You haven't heard a lot about her lately because there hasn't been much to say, I haven't seen her. I was starting to think she was really trying to avoid me, but I couldn't figure out a good reason for her to do that.
I finally talked to her last night, and because I'm neurotic, decided that it would be a good time to "define our relationship" or lack-thereof. I think I really started out with something to the effect of "So, about us. Is there an "us"?"
The gist was something like, she really likes me, but doesn't know if she wants to be in a relationship. Those of you that know me are now shaking your heads with pity. I continue to travel in circles. For now it looks like we're going to keep seeing each other, just without definition. Totally okay with me, provided I'm the only guy in the picture. I can't do the dating multiple people at a time thing, and I can't date someone who can either. Just messes with my head. Anyway, GIII will now be referred to as "Girl I'm Kinda Dating" or GIKD.
After that ending, and a solid 67 hours (it was now 3am) with only 5.5 hours of sleep, I was exhausted, and crashed. Slept all freaking day and went to my medic class, only to turn around after 45 minutes when my instructor saw I looked like shit, and we were doing math problems I could've figured out in the 7th grade.
Weekends are not relaxing times for me.
posted by C at 9:42 PM
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