Saturday, August 22, 2009

Busy-ness

Too much going on over the past few days. I’m looking forward to Sunday, August 30 as it is the last racing day this year. It’s been a little more interesting than I would have liked just because of things that have happened there. Between the personnel problems plus the incidents that have occurred, I won’t miss it. And there is no way to know whether or not we’ll be back next year for racing. So far, it doesn’t look good; there has been no signed contract between the track and the horseman’s association for next year. My understanding is that it won’t be done, either.

This past Thursday was very busy. I’m not sure how many calls we did total, but I transported three patients with tracheostomies that all needed suctioning. Plus the BI code team was at a call we responded to for a person who’d been seizing and was unresponsive. In my opinion they didn’t handle it well; there were so many people there and it could have been managed with the 4 of us that ultimately got to the location of the call. One of the members of the team was an anesthesiologist who I hope has good malpractice insurance; he thought it was necessary to intubate this patient when it truly was not. Her airway could have been secured with a nasophrangeal tube, but that’s not how they chose to deal with it. There was considerable trauma to her airway; on the way to the ED I had to suction the tube out multiple times to clear the blood out of her airway.

It was not a good situation. I believe it could have been handled so much differently.

Yesterday was just a long day. Not terribly busy, just long. I had to be at the track for the afternoon, and I will be there on Sunday as well. Next week, as I said, is the last week of racing, and I’ll be there for all of it.

At least things will slow down. With class starting, it will have to at least a little. And – that’s a good thing indeed.

4 comments:

TOTWTYTR said...

A trauma at the BI is often like a clown car. Only people just keep on pouring INTO the room, not out of a car. No one listens to anyone (especially EMS), there is utterly no organization.

They bring in one renowned trauma expert after another to fix the system. Only to have them throw their hands up after a few months and walk away shaking their heads.

Unknown said...

I was pretty pissed at them... I don't know if talking with Dr. Motley would make any difference, but I'm going to make the effort to see him about it. As I see it, the worst that could happen would be that my concerns/complaints are ignored.

Karen Brook said...

SO glad things will be easing up with things at the track ending...you've have kind of a crazy summer. Hope there's at least a teensy breather before class starts?

TOTWTYTR said...

Mottley is the last guy I would talk to about anything, but that's just me. Either of the Jonathan's would be better, if you know them.