Well That's Unusual

I had an unusual shift. Nothing breathtakingly spectacular happened, but it was weird in the sense that every person I encountered (other responders reading this....get ready....) had an actual emergency! That's almost unheard of!

Lady number one- turned wrong in her kitchen, dislocated her knee, fell to the floor. Knee cap stuck off to the side of her leg and won't go back. She lays on the floor for about a half hour before she's able to get the attention of a neighbor kid to bring her the phone so she can call for help. (Neighbor kid is a sweet, scared, seven year old girl who comes over for horseback lessons and might as well be a surrogate granddaughter. Poor thing was worried sick! We sat with her a minute and made sure she knew we appreciated her being such a big helper, and that she did the right thing and everything was going to be OK.)Anyhow, back to the story. Lady gets phone, calls for help. Doesn't call 911. Calls her husband to come home from work- 45 minutes away! She's still on floor, kneecap still out in left field, when he arrives. He calls 911. We get there and she's been on the floor at least an hour and a half by then. Her leg is cramped up and there's no hope in getting that sucker back where it belongs, so we dosed her up with fentanyl and splinted it in place. The whole way down to the hospital she was apologizing profusely. I felt pretty bad that there wasn't more we could do for her. She was still in excruciating pain even after meds, but she was a trooper and I salute her. (Now if only those 19 year old punks with 83 tattoos and 27 piercings that are "afraid of needles" could see her and take notes...)

On the way back from the hospital, we exited the freeway and headed for our station. Tones dropped and we happened to be right in front of the address so we were included on the call. Dispatch advised that there was a "vehicle fire with a building in danger". It took us a minute to find it, but when we did it became clear that something got lost between the 911 call and dispatch. We pulled up to the back of a new strip shopping center. There was a business with it's back door open, steam and mist pouring from the door. Soot was over the doorway and melted shelves and charred boxes littered the ground. The shop owner said his restaurant was due to open in 3 days. He said that some landscapers had approached him asking for water to put in their sprayer. He hadn't thought twice about allowing them to come in and fill up their canister. When the water hit whatever was in the canister, it reacted violently, igniting and setting fire to the building. The sprinkler system extinguished the fire, limiting damages and loss, but now water spewed from the ceiling and was making a wet mess everywhere. We turned the water off and I noticed the young man on the curb wiping his face. His shirt indicated he was with the landscaping company. I went to ask him what happened and what was in the container. He insisted it was "round up" for weeds, and he kept wiping his face. When he finally moved his hands, I saw that his nose was missing skin and his cheeks were beginning to blister. His hair was melted and singed around his face. We helped him to the ambulance and gave him something for pain along with a ride to the ER to get checked out. He was lucky that the burns didn't involve his airway!

While we were out on his call, another call that would have been ours was dispatched to the next ambulance. Chief complaint? "Caller states he has a zit on his back". Seriously. I can't make this up. I had legitimate calls, and missed the one doozy! The emergency gods were shining down on me today! Thank you thank you thank you! (and yes, they ended up transporting senior grumpy with a back boil who apparrently can't drive. Or walk. Or phone a friend. Go ahead and roll your eyes at that one, I know everyone else that heard it did!)

I had gone through a lot of narcotics (some people are very liberal with the drug box, but I typically tend to be more conservative. The way I figure it, if my patient is awake and talking to me when I find them, and they will be awake and talking to me when I get to the ER, there is no reason to go pushing meds. I only do that when someone's condition forces my hand in the issue. I reserve pain meds for those who really need it- not just those saying "it hurts" while resting comfortable. Knee out of place and face burnt and blistered were both legitimate, painful injuries). I called the supervisor and let him know I only had one bottle left. He said he would meet with me later to restock, and he would keep an ear out in the meantime. Sometimes (well, most times) all of the information isn't available and what dispatch sends us to is drastically different from what actually happened.

"Check code 4 on car versus tree. Caller states occupant is out of the car but sitting down and looks like he might be injured. No bleeding." Arriving on scene we find a pick up truck off the road, driver's side into a small tree. There is an 18 year old walking around and another one sitting on the opposite side of the road in the grass. I ask the upright one if he is OK, he says yes, so I turn my attention to the one on the ground. He is grimacing and says his hips "feel funny". He is sitting up, says he can't get up though. I ask his friend how he got over there if he cant stand up, and his friend recalls the wreck and fills us in. The one on the ground was the driver. He was wearing his seat belt. Friend was passenger, and did not have his seat belt on. Friend says the driver dropped a cell phone and looked down to get it, ran off the roadway to the left, over corrected, and flipped the truck twice. The friend goes on to say that on the first flip, he was thrown out the passenger window, landed on his back, and like something out of "The Matrix", saw the truck flip over him the second time before shearing off a natural gas line and landing upright. The friend says he got up and pulled his buddy from the truck, away from the spewing gas line. I was absolutely dumbfounded. Friend should be dead, and the driver shouldn't be the one hurt!

The truck fared very well for the ride they had been through. They had hit a tree on the driver's side door post and it left about a six inch intrusion, but the rest of the truck looked pretty good. We immobilized out patient and took him to the hospital. His blood pressure was low so I ran a liter of fluids into him. I knew he was bleeding somewhere. His abdomen looked and felt good- no indication of liver or spleen injuries. I suspected his hip was broken, and later called the hospital to find out for sure. They had transferred him to a hospital downtown when they discovered that his hip was stable, but that he had broken his pelvis! That would explain why he said his hips "felt funny"!