The Medic Dad Chronicles

 As a continuation of the funny calls, some of these might be a little gross to some. So be warned.  We got called to a weird-style apartment complex for a person who was sick. We arrived on the scene, walked up to the third floor on some outside stairs, and talked to the patient. The patient said nonchalantly that they had been feeling bad for a few days and that she wanted to go to the hospital. We talked the patient into walking down the stairs to the stretcher(which she did with no problem). Once on the stretcher, I loaded her up and my partner said that she would let me know when she was ready to go. I got up front and used that time to talk to my wife on the phone as I hadn't talked to her all day. My partner said she was ready and away we went. I was still talking to my wife as we went and I told her that we had a lady that was FOS. She had never heard of that before so I told her that meant "Full of S__t". no sooner than I got those words out of my mouth, I heard ...

 This past weekend I was working with an old partner from back in the day, we were talking about my blog. Suddenly she said, "You should tell the donkey story!" So I started jotting down some of the stories that made me laugh. When I was working in town I worked the night truck, so everything is different at night. They are in no particular order, but they all make me laugh.  One early morning around 2 a.m. we were dispatched to a call near the old Savannah fairgrounds for a person who was assaulted. We went in route and waited for the police to clear the scene before we made patient contact. We saw the officer and followed him in, the patient was a little older so we didn't feel any threat. So we were all standing there talking and suddenly there was a blood-curdling scream that came from the fairground animal area. It sounded like a woman was being attacked and screaming for her life. The officer whipped around quickly and grabbed his weapon saying "What the hell w...

 I saw an IG post recently by someone that I follow that really struck a chord with me. They compiled a "non-exhaustive list" of mistakes they've made in their career. Being in EMS for over 20 years I can say that I have made my share of mistakes as well. I have told many people that the worst mistake is the one that you don't admit and that you don't learn from. I have also said that a lot of what I have learned is from my mistakes as well as the mistakes of others. Below I will list a few of my mistakes.  1. This first one pops up in my mind from time to time...I had a call in the middle of the night for chest pain. I got to the person, and they said the pain came on suddenly, he was nauseous and really sweaty. I got him in the truck and put him on the monitor and it didn't say STEMI(heart attack). We went in route to the hospital(which wasn't far away at all), I gave a report, and as I got to the ramp the monitor gave me another 12 lead and it did say S...

 In my over 40 years of being employed, I have worked for virtually every type of boss there is. From the micromanager to the "set it and forget it" as George Foreman used to say. Everyone responds well to different styles of leadership, there's no one size fits all.  In 2022 there was a study by the Niagara Institute which was completed by 1164 professionals in 48 countries. The largest of the respondents were from the US, the UK, and Canada. There were 6 major leadership styles: Charismatic, affiliative, democratic, pace-setting, authoritarian, and laissez-faire. The Democratic was the most common at nearly forty-seven percent. The survey also showed that the top behaviors that the best leaders demonstrate are working together and as equals, creating a sense of belonging and psychological safety, and relying on their influence and relationships to get things done. It also showed the top three ways leaders connected with their employees: They asked for input, they used h...

 I really need to talk about my time in the desert. Desert Storm was a big war that we had so little to do with. The missions that we were tasked with were what we called "ash and trash". We really didn't do a whole lot while we were there, to be honest.  As we prepared to go to Saudi, there was little guidance on what we needed to take. We knew that we were going around December, we didn't have Google to see what the climate was going to be. The general consensus was "It's the desert, it's gonna be hot". So when we got there, it was raining and COLD! We spent weeks at the ports, got our aircraft off the ships, and prepared them for the harsh environment to come.  We got to our first camp area, which was outside a small town in the desert. We needed to build a berm around the perimeter, set up our camp, dig our foxholes, and build our bunkers. Most of this was pretty easy, we had the engineers build our berm with bulldozers while each section got the...

 I have said in the past that I have worked with the military on helicopters and I still work in EMS. I remember being the new guy...the newbie... the FNG, and I remember how awkward it was. As seasoned employees in our careers need to be the leaders of the new people coming in the door. We need to be an example.  In a previous post, I talked about when I got to my first Army duty station. I had my awkward run-ins with the First Sergeant, and I also had numerous awkward moments with my fellow soldiers. After I went on my first flight (the one where the other person jettisoned the windows) I was confronted by some crew chiefs on how I could possibly know how to perform some of the tasks needed to assist in the runup of the aircraft. What they were referring to had been shown to me by another crew chief who wanted to teach new people rather than chastise them. When confronted I was able to accurately describe what it was that I was doing. I made it to the flight platoon quickly ...

 As I have said before, I have been in EMS for over 21 years. You could describe our job in several words and one of the first ones would be stressful. What we do can go from zero to a hundred in mere seconds. I can assure you that the EMS profession is not the only profession that way. When I was a helicopter mechanic, flight mechanic, and technical inspector, that was stressful. My dad was an air traffic controller, which is a stressful career as well.  In the past couple of shifts, I have had and seen people under stress. Transporting someone who is apparently having a heart attack and they tell you what is going on in their lives. To listen to someone ask you if they are going to make it to the hospital will really make you think. You reassure them as best as you can, you answer all of the questions that you can and just listen. They will tell you that if they get through this emergency they are going to make some changes. Unfortunately, we don't normally get to follow up ...

 I want to tell you some things that people have not told you when you or before you get into EMS. If you are like I was, I grew up seeing some type of emergency type shows. Nowadays I don't even watch them, I can't watch them really because they are so fake it isn't even funny. The ones that follow or do the ride-alongs with EMS are real but only show the cool calls.  The majority of the calls that paramedics ride these days are not the type of calls that need an ambulance. The days of common sense are gone. When I was growing up there was never an ambulance called for anything that happened to us. I was stupid once and hit a horse on the butt to get it to move out of the way, the horse spun to run and kicked out hitting me in the head. I fell to the ground with blood gushing from it. My dad scooped me up, I was put in my mom's arms in the front seat and we headed home. Mom was a first aid instructor and she knew what needed to be done. She held direct pressure as it w...

 It's 0622 and you are sleeping like a rock, dreaming and life is good. At 0623 you are awakened. You don't hear the tones drop to wake you up for a call, but you do and your brain catches up to your ears about the time when dispatch calls your unit number. You throw your uniform on as the call goes out and run out the door.  The call is a breathing difficulty and it is on the other side of the county and you've got to make every second count. Normally this time of the morning is a pain, it is thick with people going to work, heavy trucks going in and out of the local warehouses, and school traffic. However this morning we are lucky as school is out. But are we really lucky? There is a storm coming in bringing a lot of rain.  You arrive on the scene and you are told that your patient has been having trouble breathing for the past couple hours. They do have a respiratory history and they have used their inhaler which didn't help. You get to them, they are sucking wind, t...