Look at me. Look what I’ve become. Sitting here, my boots unzipped, one foot propped up on the dash, slouched in the passenger seat. Hat pulled down over my eyes partly obscuring a five o’clock shadow…
Wait a tick.
I already gave you this speech, didn’t I?
So here I sit, loathing my existence more than usual.
As if the blanket of stupidity that dispatch weaves isn’t thick enough, now I will be dealing with whatever random joe they throw at me for a partner because The Bear went and got himself suspended for a week.
4 shifts.
48 hours.
2,880 minutes.
172,800 seconds.
Of hell.
Near as I can tell, The Bear is having fun, doing what bears do; sleeping, salmon fishing, playing Call of Duty. And here I sit, at work on a Monday morning.
2,875 minutes left to go.
-DAY 1, MONDAY-
I’m roused from my slumber by a high pitched, reedy voice asking me if we’re going to do the ambulance check-out. I peer out of one eye from under my Paradise ambulance cap and see a thin, lanky, bespectacled guy whose looks match perfectly the assault his voice just had on my ears. I grunt an affirmative and throw the clip board at him.
I get out of the truck and immediately go into the crew quarters to find Bruce. He’s in the kitchen, reading the paper, eating a donut, and drinking a chai latte. Jules is sitting across from him, eating cereal.
“Bruce, seriously, I can’t be with him today.”
“Nothing I can do Fin, he signed up for the open shift.”
“Dude, he doesn’t even show up for his shifts on the East side half the time, why the hell did he have to show up here, today, on my shift?”
“He calls off all the time, maybe he needs the hours.”
I open my mouth to tell Bruce where to go and how fast to get there when my pager goes off.
I’m in the kitchen.
Dispatch is literally six feet away down a hallway.
She knows I’m in here, she saw me walk in.
I can hear her chewing, so I know she can hear me.
And she pages me.
It’s an “emergency” run to Nestling Pines, a rehab and care facility about 10 minutes across town. The page says it’s for shortness of breath and high blood pressure. They want us to run lights and sirens. We pass three full-time fire departments on the way there, I think not. If it’s really that crucial they wouldn’t call us, they would call 911.
I double time it back to the squad bay, whip open the driver’s side door, and hop up into my seat as usual… and slam full body check into my “partner”. He looks at me says “we got a run.”
“I know this. How the hell do you know?”
“I got the page.”
“You have a pager?”
“Well sure, everyone at the East-side base has a pager.”
Keep in mind; I’m one of the few people at the West-side base to have a pager. Bear had one three years ago. He “dropped” it and it broke. He’s been waiting on a replacement ever since. When I got mine, they called us up to dispatch and Bert said “I’ve got a pager for you.” Bear said, “Oh my god, it’s about time” and reached for it. He looked at Bear and said, “I’m sorry, this is Finding’s pager.”
I go around to the passenger side of the truck and hop in. My “partner” pulls out of the bay and gives a big fat ketchup-dick grin as he fires up the lights and sirens, roars out of the parking lot and turns in the complete opposite direction of where we are supposed to be heading. Then he tells me he doesn’t know how to get to Nestling Pines.
Side note: The Urban Dictionary defines Ketchup-dick, or KD as, “the volunteer fire fighter who returns from his bi-yearly trash can fire and spends the next two hours talking about how fucking cool he is for slaying the dragon and saving the day. He then masturbates to such an excess that his dick turns bright red and starts to bleed. A KD will drive a large red pickup truck with a light bar and sticker of fire fighters in the rear window. A KD will wear a bat belt of pagers, radios, flashlights, knives, CPR pocket mask, etc… A KD will have several tattoos of fire fighter themes.” Now you know.
Over the blare of the sirens, I tell him how to get where we are going. Then, because I genuinely don’t know, I ask him what level of EMT he is.
“I’m a paramedic student.” He shouts.
“So you’re a Basic.” I shout back.
“No. I’m a paramedic student.”
Yeah…it’s going to be like that today.
“Okay, medic student, since I’m babysitting you today, what’s wrong with this patient and what are you going to do for them?”
He began to rattle off all kinds of possible diagnoses and their treatments, each one more absurd than the last. Honestly, I tuned him out about halfway through. When he was finally done I replied.
“Incorrect.”
He looked at me dumbfounded and nearly blew through an intersection full of traffic. After I yelled at him and he recovered control of the squad, his knuckles white on the steering wheel, our discussion continued.
“How am I in correct?”
“You are wrong because there is nothing wrong with the patient.”
“What?”
“There is nothing wrong with this patient.”
“Then why are we being called there lights and sirens?”
“Exactly.”
“What?”
“The page said the patient has shortness of breath and increased blood pressure, right?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll bet you 20 dollars this patient has a history of COPD and Hypertension.”
“Okay…” he replied. I waited for it to dawn on him; it took a minute. “So COPD would cause shortness of breath and Hypertension is high blood pressure.”
“Therefore…” I prompted him.
“Therefore, there is nothing wrong with the patient!”
“Aha, his eyes open and he sees the light.”
“I don’t believe that. They wouldn’t call us for something that was normal. I’ll take your bet.”
Just when I thought the douche-bag had potential…
We pulled into the parking lot and made our way up to the patient. First off, I asked the nurse, when we finally found her, what the patient’s medical history was. Let me put it this way: Ketchup-dick handed me 20 bucks on the spot. We took the patient to the ER. I gave my “partner” the impression that the patient’s heart rhythm on my monitor was worse than it was (in fact it was fine) in order to get him to run lights and sirens and get this over faster: the less time in a truck with him, the better.
It didn’t work.
We got discharge after discharge after discharge for the rest of the day, and he talked and talked and talked the whole time.
12 hours of his high pitched reedy voice.
Tomorrow I’ll bring my head phones.
And what’s really funny? Without The Bear here, we got out ten minutes early.
Coincidence? I think not.
-DAY 2, TUESDAY-
2,160 minutes to go.
I enter the squad bay and see that the hood of my ambulance is open. Under it, checking the oil is Snap. He turns to look at me and the corners of his walrus mustache turn up. He is a sight for sore eyes.
“Holy shit, Snap, what you doing here?”
“I thought I’d save you from working with some of them whistle dicks they got workin’ here and signed up to work with ya today.”
“You, sir, are a lifesaver.”
Snap and I get the check-out done then hang for a while and shoot the breeze. About an hour after shift starts I get a text from The Bear. It includes pictures of salmon that he has caught on his trip to Michigan. I reply to it with a scathing tongue-in-cheek statement, and then Snap decides it’s time to go get some donuts.
“Let’s go, young man, I need some breakfast.”
“You know what will happen if we leave.”
“Hey, man. Us old, fat guys need to eat.”
“Alright, Snap. But when we get a call, it’s on your head.”
We get in the truck and fire it up… well, try to fire it up. It makes a few clicking and whirring noises, then nothing. We get out the charger, give her a jump and were in business. As we’re rolling out of the squad bay, Snap grabs the mic and calls dispatch. I try to stop him but it’s too late.
“202 to dispatch, were gonna be on the air in the area getting some breakfast.”
“202 I’m going to need you to head toward the east-side, post at Holy Heart Hospital.”
I shoot Snap a look that could castrate an elephant.
45 minutes after a stop for half a dozen donuts and a separate stop for coffee we pull into the parking lot of Holy Heart. We stop in a nice secluded area of the parking lot, one where I can hop out of the truck and catch a smoke or two while Snap reads the paper and receives his usual 20 calls from his wife. “Yes dear. No dear. I will certainly do that dear. I can make reservations dear. What time do the kids expect to get there, dear?” I swear the cell phone is the worst thing that ever happened to that man.
We’re in the parking lot for literally two minutes, I barely have time to put fire to nicotine, and the radio beeps at us.
“Dispatch to 202.”
Snap grabs the mic, “This is 202, go ahead dispatch.”
“We have a crew that needs a lift assist, were going to need you to head to Bay Village.”
“I’m sorry dispatch, can you repeat, did you say Bay Village, on the West-side?”
“Affirmative, 202.”
“Copy, we’re en route.”
50 minutes later, were back on the West-side, farther west than where we started.
As we are finally pulling up on the little cottage in suburbia hell that we have been looking for, I grab the radio and it beeps in my hand.
“Dispatch to 202.”
“Goat head dispatch.”
“The crew needing the assist said they were going to go ahead and try getting the patient inside on their own so you’re going to be placed back in service.”
“Copy that dispatch, but we are pulling up on the residence now.”
“Well, in that case, go ahead and give them a hand.”
We pull up to the house just in time to see Woody piggy-backing a little old chubby lady up the steps of a front porch while Jules stands by, holding his hat. I run up and help him ease the old broad off his back. He explains with gasping breaths and sweat pouring down his face how they had been waiting here for over an hour and the poor old lady had to pee. Instead of letting her pee in the back of his squad, he took it upon himself, literally, to get her into the house so she could use her own toilet.
I’m about to ask him why he didn’t just give her a bed pan, when my phone starts playing Time to Die by Andrew W.K.
My phone only plays that song for one man.
“Hey Bear, you bastard, what’s up?” (Hey Bear! Woody yells from over my shoulder.)
“Dude, you are never gonna believe who I just got a call from.”
“Who?” (What ya been up to son?)
“Dispatch.”
“What? Why?” (Score any tail on your vacation?)
“She said that they are short staffed on the East-side. Got a lot of call offs. Offered me a double response bonus to come in and work.”
“No way. I thought you were suspended.” (Your hand doesn’t count.)
“That’s what I said. She said that Bert thought that I had learned my lesson and that I could come in and end my suspension early.”
“And you said?” (Woody turns to Jules and says, He said he aint got no tail cause he likes men.)
“Tell Woody he’s an idiot. (I heard that!) I told her no. I wouldn’t have done it anyway just on the principality, but I’m still in Michigan. Idiots.”
“Shit Bear, I gotta go, my pagers goin off, Snap and I have a run.” (Bye, Bear. Tell your Mama I’ll see her tonight.)
“Alright man, I might be home in a few days; we’ll grill up some of this fish and drink some beers. Later.”
Back in the truck, I check the page. It’s for a patient going from their home to a hospice center. And, of course, they live on the east-side.
I should say they LIVED on the east-side.
Past tense: lived.
Allow me to explain.
40 minutes later we pull into the parking lot of an apartment complex. The page had the address, but no numeric on an apartment number. I know, I checked. We call dispatch over the radio and ask if they have the appropriate information. She informs us that she did not realize it was an apartment, and did not get a call back number. Off the radio, we thank her for doing her job so well. On the radio, we ask her what it is she wants us to do. She tells us to stand by and she will try to get the info.
20 minutes later, a chubby little chick approaches the truck.
“Hey guys, I’m the aid for Mr. Walthers. I don’t think he’ll be going with you today. I think he’s dead.”
“Um, what?”
“I called the nurse; she’s on her way out here now to take a look at him.”
“Did you want us to come take a look?”
“No. The nurse said that I shouldn’t have you guys come in cause then you would have to start CPR and stuff.”
“No we wouldn’t cause of the DNR order.”
“He doesn’t have a DNR order.”
“He’s a hospice patient with no DNR order?”
“Yeah. But I think he’s dead. His bowels all evacuated and stuff. Don’t it do that when you’re dead?”
That’s about the time that Snap has heard enough and he gets on his phone to call dispatch. She’s is still in the process of trying to find what apartment we are supposed to be going to when he calls. If it were on the bottom of a bucket of chicken, I bet she would have found it by now. Dispatch advises us to hang out and wait for the nurse.
So we wait.
And wait.
It takes a solid hour for her to show up. She goes inside for a couple minutes then comes back out and tells us he’s dead and that the coroner is going to have to come and pronounce him dead. We go back in service and are immediately sent to Holy Heart to post.
The rest of the day is pretty uneventful; we sat for a few hours at Holy Heart and then got a call back to the West-side for a discharge that got canceled before we got there. Then we got out of work… 20 minutes early. I’m starting to notice a trend. No Bear = early out.
On our way out the bay door, Snap looks at me and says: “Hey, Fin, you can’t be mad at me for leaving to get donuts.”
“Why is that, Snap?”
“Cause man, we never actually got a run.”
-DAY 3, SATURDAY-
1,440 minutes left to go.
Being excited that my week of random partners is half way over, I get to work bright and early, exactly two minutes after shift starts. I walk back to the bay, shuddering to think what I’ll be partnered up with today, and find Bruce leaning against my ambulance arms folded across his chest.
He grins at me through his scruffy black beard, “You won’t be needing this truck today.”
“Wait, what? For real? Where’s Probie?”
“I convinced Probie that he needed to take 12 hours off today and pulled a few strings. You’re with me today.”
I think I cried a little.
The morning was superb. We did the check out. We sat in the kitchen and had some breakfast and some Chai Lattes from the Dunkin (didn’t even catch a run when we went out to get them). We went in the day room, booted a few of the part-timers off the TV, and played some call of duty. The morning was superb.
The page came at 11:47 am.
Both our pagers screaming in unison.
The page that kicked off what shall forever be known as “THE INCIDENT”.
The incident in which one two-man crew from a small ambulance company caused the shutdown of one of North Eastern Ohio’s primary emergency rooms.
The fire departments were pissed.
Patients had to be rerouted to different hospitals.
Patients in that ER had to be moved to different ERs.
It was pandemonium.
Here’s how we did it…
-THE INCIDENT-
Occasionally, and I mean very rarely, a private ambulance company can get an honest to goodness emergency run. If the fire department is busy on a lot of calls or all its firemen are busy on a big fire, then there may not be another choice. Or sometimes, there are patients that call the fire department so many times for so many bull shit reasons that the fire department may be inclined to not go to that house anymore, so we could get the run that way.
We discovered after the fact that this was one of the latter.
The call was for “shortness of breath and change in mental status”.
We hopped in the truck and roared across town with a purpose. Finally, we had a real run; a break from the mind numbing pace of discharges and dialysis appointments; a real patient with a real problem; a chance to do real work and save a real life.
And, The Bear is missing it.
On a side note, when I left for work this morning, Xbox live said Bear was playing Call of Duty and had been doing so for 6 hours. Upon my return home after the events of The Incident, more than 12 hours later, Xbox live will report that he has continued to play Call of Duty the entire time.
But, where was I?
Right, we were hurtling through town, lights blazing and sirens blaring. We turned down the street the house was on and immediately knew which house we were supposed to be responding to.
We couldn’t miss it.
It was the one with all the cop cars parked out front.
And all the cops standing around in the drive way.
Those paramedic powers of observation hard at work again.
So we roll up to the house, call on scene, and interrupt the policeman union meeting to ask what the hell is going on. One of the blue canaries spoke up. I assume he was their leader: he was the oldest and fattest one there. He even had powered sugar on his collar. As he spoke, I noticed odd noises coming from inside the dwelling.
“We were called out here (crash) by some concerned neighbors (slam) who heard some odd (cat howling) noises and were worried (loud yelling) about their safety and the safety (glass shattering) of their neighbor, who they(nails on a chalkboard) can’t recall seeing for days.”
As though to punctuate his statement, a 52 inch flat panel television came crashing through the front window.
We stared with mouths open. Bruce was the first one to break the silence. “That’s a damn shame. I’d give my left nut for a TV like that.”
I tried to steer the confab toward something slightly more productive. But, I have to agree with Bruce. My left nut would be a fair trade for that TV.
“What do we know about the patient?”
“Well, he has a lot of medical issues, not sure what. The fire department used to be called out her a lot, but the last time his family called three times in one day and refused to go to the hospital they told them not to call again. So they had us call you.”
Imagine our luck.
“Can’t say as I blame the fired department. I would have done the same. Fin get on the horn and tell dispatch we’re gonna need some muscle out here: Woody and Snap if they are available.”
“You got it boss.” I got on the radio and told dispatch what was up and who we wanted. She gave a 5 minute ETA.
Jump bag in my hand and metal clipboard in Bruce’s, we approached the house. As Bruce lifted his hand to knock on the door the cops announce, as an afterthought, that the patient does own a gun. I took two steps to the left so as not to be in front of the door and gave Bruce a nod. He knocked on the door.
“Sir, EMS. Your family called us because you seem to be having some trouble. We’re going to come in now.”
He slowly opened the door.
Like lightning, a hand the size of my head lashed out, grabbed him by the shirt, and yanked him inside. One second Bruce was right there. I blinked and then there was nothing there but his left shoe and the clipboard. With a thought of “THIS IS SPARTA!” I flung open the door and rushed to Bruce’s rescue.
The house was dark: the day was overcast and the light barely shone through the windows. The carpet was dark, maybe a black or dark brown, and seemed crunchy and sticky beneath my feet. I swear the walls were speckled, but then it was dark. My eyes focused on what appeared to be a white foot gleaming in the dark. It was Bruce’s shoeless foot. My eyes followed it up to a large shadow, holding Bruce with both hands.
Bruce with remarkable calm said, “Fin, he smells fruity, like acetone, I think we got a Brimley here.”
You know, Wilford Brimley: Quaker oats, Cocoon, Diabetis. In this case the acetone breath is an indicator of raging unchecked high blood sugar which can lead to intoxicated type symptoms, coma, and then death. Not much we can do for it except an IV and get them to a hospital.
I approached the two of them slowly, trying to speak softly, urging the guy to put my partner down, telling him that we want to help him and that we aren’t going to hurt him. He seemed to be going for it when the front door slammed inward and startled the hell out of all three of us. Our back-up had arrived in the shape of George and Jules.
Thanks dispatch.
In one fluid motion, the patient swung Bruce around by the collar and slammed him to the wall. Not sure if it was the plaster or Bruce’s vertebrae, but there was a loud crack. George, all 115 pounds of him, made a move like he was going to try to rush the guy, tripped over the jump bag, and hit the ground in a jumble of equipment.
Jules turned and ran.
Thanks dispatch.
The patients back was to me, he was completely focused on Bruce. I took my opportunity and ran right at him. I came in low, shoulder first. My football coach would be proud. I wrapped my arms around his waist, or at least tried to. He was so fat my hands wouldn’t touch.
He didn’t budge.
But, I did get an elbow in my eye for my trouble.
Through the stars, I saw something moving toward me. It was Jules. She was running back in the house, something clutched in her hand. She tripped over George where he was still trying to get himself untangled from the oxygen tubing and fell directly on top of me.
She pushed something into my hand and said “Haldol”.
Holy shit. She brought the Haldol.
Thanks dispatch!
I crawled over to the patient, my head swimming, pulled the cap off with my teeth, and jammed it in his right butt cheek. I pushed it all.
Not long after that, he let go of Bruce, staggered around a little, and hit the floor.
Yeah, good old Vitamin H will do that.
Bruce looked at us in the dark, “Jules, nice work. George, get the cot. Fin, you look like shit.”
“I’m cool man; let’s get this fucker outta here.”
We rounded up the Blue Canaries and together we all got the guy on the cot. He had to weigh 450 if he was a pound. We got him in the back of the truck, Bruce and I worked in tandem on IVs and checking his blood sugar (which was so high the meter only said HIGH), and Jules drove us to Our Lady of the Alms Emergency Room.
When we arrived, they were waiting for us in one of the trauma bays. I got some looks as my eyes was already swelling, but we gave report as the nurses went to work cutting off his clothes and examining him. I turned just in time to see one of the many nurses jump back and her equipment hit the floor.
Here it comes… You ready?
The one nurse was going to put a Foley catheter in. You know… the tube in your pee-hole with a bag on it. But in order to do this, she had to find his penis. In order to find his penis, she had to lift up a massive roll from his belly. When she did, she discovered a black mass covering the entire area.
It started crawling.
My mind flashed back.
The stiff, disgusting carpet that was crunchy and sticky.
The speckled walls.
Bed Bugs.
For the first time I looked at Bruce.
Really looked at him.
He was covered in them.
So was I.
And now, so was the ER.
Oops.
They had to shut the whole place down, evacuate the patients, and bring in the Haz-mat team. As for Bruce and I, after a serious decon shower, we spent the entire rest of the shift pulling apart every little part of the squad in the parking lot and cleaning it, trashing anything that could have gotten bed bugs in it, and then restocking it. I looked like some kind of a crazy pirate with a cold pack bandaged over my eye while we worked. The hospital was kind enough to give us scrubs to wear, since our uniforms had to be decontaminated as well. But it would have been nice if they were ones that fit. The last thing I needed was my good eye full of Bruce’s’ man camel toe.
-DAY 4, SUNDAY-
720 minutes to go.
I had worked with a ketchup dick, know-it-all paramedic student, ran my dick into the dirt for no good reason, and been at the epicenter of a serious Haz-mat crisis in one of the largest ERs in the area. And, got a black eye for my trouble.
What else could happen?
I decided not to find out.
I called in dead.
so here I sit in the parking lot of miami valley hospital south campus on a beautiful Sunday morning with my new partner barry, listening to ben folds cover bitches ain’t shit. Figured id drop ya a line…
