Sixty one minutes

 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, they look bad and you can see that they are struggling a bit. Your first responders have placed the patient on a little oxygen and they say that the patient thinks they can walk to the stretcher. You learned a long time ago that this is a BAD idea. You tell them, nope, that is bad Joo Joo and grab an office chair. You zip the patient across the house and get them to the stretcher. 

We all get to the truck, put our patient inside and the excitement begins. You put the patient on the monitor see the ECG and go EWWW that looks BAD. You know that your patient is having a major cardiac event but the cardiac monitor obviously hasn't seen it yet. The IV goes in, the breathing treatment is started and you do a quick 12 lead looking at all sides of the heart and that looks worse than the initial ECG. Off you go towards the hospital, you call them and tell them that you have a really bad patient coming. Just after you get on the main road the cardiac monitor figures it out and spits out what you already knew...STEMI. This means that there is a blockage in the coronary arteries and heart muscle is dying.

So your mind goes into overdrive, there is so much that you need to do. There are a thousand scenarios that you have to play through your head so that you are prepared for anything that pops up. Thanks to an IG Paramedic poster you do something that you have never done before and that is to put on the defibrillator pads. You give some meds, get some supplies ready, and prepare for the worst. You've been in this position before and it has always turned out ok. Not this time.

Your patient looks at you, grabs their chest, and says I can't breathe. You look at your monitor and say CRAP. The somewhat stable patient that you had is going downhill. Plus that little pad trick is going to come in handy really quick. Bad heart rhythm...Zap! Ga power...Still there...Zap! Ga power. CPR started, call for your partner to stop and help ya. Get the bag to start breathing for the patient. Start giving more meds, breathe for them, pump their chest for them, all while screaming down the road toward the ER. 

So in 53 minutes, you went from a dead sleep, drove 45 miles, did 10 different interventions, and gave 4 different medications. It takes you almost 6 hours to finish your report for all this but it is spot on. What a way to start your day.