Thursday, January 13, 2011

After The Snow

Yesterday was a snowy, nasty, awful day. And it was busy.

During the 24 hours I worked, we only did 5 calls throughout the shift. But the Fire side was out flat for most of the day. Two fires, lots of wires down, and surprisingly very few motor vehicle accidents. Except for me – I was involved in two in less than twelve hours. Both minor with no damage either time, but they happened. One caused me to go off road because of a plow truck. The other was while responding to a call and sliding up onto a median strip at low speed. This was with my partner and a third rider on board.

It was funny, in hindsight. It was also somewhat embarrassing. I’ve never done that before, not in nearly twenty years of driving emergency vehicles. But I suppose there is a first time for everything.

Every patient we saw yesterday was sick. One was dealing with dehydration and flu-like symptoms brought on by extreme stress. One was having a massive acute stroke. A third was having respiratory problems. And one, while not physically sick, wanted to jump off of a building.

The last of these had a considerable psychiatric history. When we got to where he was he simply would not stop talking, and he was incredibly disjointed. Once he got on board the ambulance, it was like listening to a broken record – he simply wouldn’t stop asking the same questions and making the same statements over and over again. And I thought I would be the one who would lose my mind.

Overall it was a pretty tiring tour. It wasn’t as though we did a lot, but it was tiring just the same. I was ready to leave when it was time to go home. It always seems to be like that when we’re out a lot on the overnight, and the past few weeks have been especially so. I’m hopeful that I’ll be able to get a decent sleep tonight, but I’m not so sure. We’ll see how it goes.

Tomorrow promises to be another cold, windy day in this part of the world. I’m expecting no less.

1 comment:

TOTWTYTR said...

Unlike you, we had only one sick patient all day. And he probably could have gone BLS if they had been a bit more on the ball. The rest of the 16 hour day was spent chasing run of the mill calls.

It's the only day in my career where I remember the FD being busier than we were. They must have fielded over 100 calls for downed power lines.