Happy it's over

After a week like last week I'm so happy for the weekend. So far I've slept, set up a big screen TV and surround sound system at the firehouse, slept more, watched a movie, slept more, etc. etc. It's been great!!

I've been spending a lot of time at the firehouse lately. I enrolled in a Pump Operator class on Monday and Wednesday nights and coupled with wanting to be away from school and my apartment means I've been spending about 2 nights a week in my own bed. I haven't run many good calls, some interesting ones, but none that truely require much thought. On friday evening we were dispatched to the part of the county that borders the city, for an accident involving a trash truck and a car. I didn't hear the initial dispatch, but I think it had something to do with the trash truck being on top of the car. We arrived to find that the truck had moved into the car's lane, almost running it over. The driver and child were out of the car, the passenger was still in it, but was not trapped. It was a pretty good tease, it looked like we'd have to do some serious cutting, but instead we put the guy's seat back and pulled him out the driver's side rear door. Later on that day on the ambulance we were dispatched to an accident involving an ambulance in an area that my company's not due to, even on the third alarm for a fire. We easily drove for about 20 mins to get there. We were the 4th ambulance on the call and transported the ambulance crew to the hospital for check ups. Both had back pain, but both signed refusals for the board and collar.

I'm home from the firehouse now, I have a clinical at the ER in about an hour. Wish me luck!

Music for now: "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" - Greenday

If I were a zebra my stripes would fall off...

...From all the stress associated with this Paramedic program.

So it's 0425 and I'm up studying for an exam later this morning, and it's frustrating me to death. The exam's in my medical emergencies class, which had been excellent because MD's are doing all the lecturing on all the topics. Sounds great right? It would be, except for the fact that the guy who writes the exams FALLS ASLEEP IN THE BACK OF THE CLASS ROOM!!!. Therefore he doesn't know what's taught in their lectures, and gives us the old professor's exams, which frequently don't match the material we've learned in class. He does the same thing with quizzes. There was a question on the last quiz about giving pain medications to people with severe abdominal pain. The classic answer would be not to do it, but according to one of the MD's there's new research supporting it, stating that it doesn't truely interfere with the surgeon's abdominal exam. It's been like this the entire semester, we (my class) just didn't realize that this was why we're all doing so poorly until now, and therefore greatly contributes to our extremely high stress level.

Hey look, I posted!!!

So I'm still here, not dead (yet). I've just been really really busy, classes are a bit crazy now, and we're coming into a big week with exams and such. The firehouse has been good for a relief, except we haven't been running much. National Registry EMT-I exam is in one month one week and two days and I don't feel ready AT ALL, so I've also been trying to get ready for that. Clinicals are also still in full swing. I'm almost done with my time on the city medic units, and just getting into my ER rotations. On top of it all I enrolled in a pump operator class for the firehouse. All this business is getting to be very overwealming. I was hoping to have a little sanity left over for this summer, but that's not looking like it's going to happen.

Best call lately was on the major highway that our rescue squad is due to. We were called out just after the ambulance went out the door at 0530 for a MVC. On the way Communications advised units responding that they had reports of 9 cars involved with multiple trapped. Command arrived on scene and asked for an extra squad (for reasons unknown to me we ended up with three squads on scene). We were first arriving squad and found that only one was trapped in an overturned GMC Envoy. We went to work stabilizing the car and began extricating the patient. I had the O-cutters and my friend had the spreaders. For some reason the combo tool wasn't hooked up like usual, but that didn't really matter much, the big spreaders were a good thing here. My friend started spreading the door, when the ambulance arrived on scene (their call was canceled). This is were things got STOOPID. The driver from the ambulance turned off the pressure to the spreaders, unhooked them, and hooked up the combo tool. WHAT A DUMBASS!!!!! He left my friend wondering why the spreaders weren't working while he went to work trying to spread the doors off. It wasn't working well at all. Finally I kinda pushed him asside at the direction of my Lt. and cut the Nader pin and cut the hinges, the B post, and the Nader pin of the rear door, which was enough to get the patient free. I don't understand why the ambo driver did what he did, and I was kinda mad too, it made us look pretty goofy on scene, which really irritates me. The patient was pretty well messed up. He had been wearing a seat belt, but it hadn't done much for him due to the roof of the truck being pretty well crushed on top of him. He was lying on his back on the roof with an obvious leg and head injury. He was conscious, but I didn't get the impression that that would last very long. Either he'd lose it pretty fast or the flight medic would RSI him. Aside from the stupidness, it was a pretty good call, and I got some good experience tearing the truck apart to get him out.

Trauma again

Went to the firehouse Monday night, only ran two calls. The only one of note was for a man who was stopped at a red light and was rear ended buy someone going way too fast. The call came out for an accident with one not breathing, but that wasn't the case. I found him laying beside the car on his side vomiting. At his head was a guy in a suit, he claimed to be a nurse. I'm hesitant to believe him, he didn't know anything about the patient that I couldn't figure out by looking at/asking the patient, yet he claimed he saw the whole thing. He wasn't sure if he ever stopped breathing. The patient's abdomen was pretty hard for a guy with his gut and very tender. The medics arrived and transported him to the trauma center. It was a decent call, pretty straight forward except for the incompetant engine crew. When we got there both cars were still running and in gear and leaking all kinds of fluids.

No music tonight, watching Law and Order.

Good to be back

It was actually nice to be back in class today. I gave a presentation in Medical Emergencies on gastroenteritis. I'm not so sure it went that well, we'll see. I also handed in the paper on the same topic. I'm glad that's done with. Very glad actually. I hated that project with a passion, not so sure why, but it probably had something to do with the fact that it was just a little BORING!!! (Only a little...) I learned a lot in trauma emergencies. I now better understand what happens with crush injuries and the associated syndromes.

I have lab in 20 mins, then off to the firehouse for a meeting and to run some calls. Hopefully I'll have an interesting story or two afterwards. I looked at the website today, looks as though I missed all kinds of good fires. Oh well, that seems to be what happens every time I go home for a little while.

Music for now: Southside Double-Wide Acoustic Live, the AWESOME live album by Sevendust!!

Sweet spring break

Had an awesome time!! Saw Meet the Fokkers, it was absolutely hilarious! Also saw Robots, it was great too. Went to Boston for dinner, and caught up with some old and very good friends, and got a nice break from reality for a while. Damn did I need that!

Heard a sad story today from a friend of mine. Just last night he was sittin' around his firehouse and they got a call for a vehicle rescue. His department has a lot of people who respond from home. Their rescue got out staffed, and they pulled the engine as well with the people who came from home. Just as the engine was clearing the rescue call (the rescue engine was held on scene) the call was put out in their first due area for a house on fire. My friend jumped on the engine as it was pulling away from the scene of the crash. On the way they saw a black column rising in the distance. One of the guys on the engine was getting all nervous. The call was in the area where he lived, and when he left his house for the rescue call he left a pot of food on the stove. They arrived on scene to find a house fully involved, with the owner to the house on the engine... My friend said on arrival they had flames 30 feet above the roof of the house, but they went in and put the fire out in an attempt to save what little they could. Ended up that the poor guy lost almost everything. After the call when they were wracking up the president of the company had a meeting with the board of directors. When the engine pulled back into the station they handed the guy a check for $10,000 from the fire company. He's still not out of the woods by any means, but it's an awesome display of brotherhood. I hope nothing like that ever happens to me, I wish the guy all the best.

How's this for messed up...

So I'm reading over an online source for this paper I'm writing, and I accidently quit my browser. I go to open the browser and look at this page again......and I get the message stating that the server could not be found. WHAT THE ****?!?!?! That's only about the most significant source I've found so far, and I only have half this paper written so far.

Just lovely.