Ask A Paramedic, Sup Forums

Ask A Paramedic, Sup Forums.

Nationally Registered Paramedic, state licensure is held in a state in the southeastern United States. I also volunteer my time as a firefighter. The paramedic part is a paid gig.

I work for a county third service that is funded by the tax payers. I'm actually on shift now, posting from my phone because I'm bored. I've got 6.5 hours left in my 24 hour shift.

Gonna try the sleep thing soon and pray to Cthulu that I don't get a call.

Come on, Sup Forums. You know you have questions. Keep me occupied.

you ever read Population: 485?

more topically, how often do patients (drunk, high, just stupid) try to get rough with paramedics? does it happen a lot?

what are your shifts?

OP here.

Assaults on prehospital care providers (EMTs, medics) are actually on the rise and have been since 2010. Going further out, you can also include fire service personnel in this demographic and the numbers get more ridiculous.

Most go unreported to supervisors or law enforcement.

Personally, I've been kicked in the chest once when I was still an EMT - while offloading a patient from the unit - and I've had a gun pointed at me. Lucky, law enforcement was on scene and quickly subdued the person doing the gun pointing.

OP here.

I'm on a rotating ABC shift. I'm normally an A shift dweller, but I picked up some sweet overtime today on C shift.

I work 24, then I'm off 24. Then back on. Then off. Then on again. Then I'm off for four days.

Once a month I get extra time on my paycheck for a week of "on-call" time -- when the supervisor runs out of people to call on the part time list to fill a suddenly open position - say if someone calls in sick - they call me or one of the other three people on call that week.

>I've had a gun pointed at me
wut
is there any part of that story you can tell without breaching privacy?

Are fentanyl deaths on the rise? My cop uncle says more people are dying from this shit now than heroin itself.

Can narcan even help with that shit

You ever molest any of your patients on the way to the ER?

What is your opinion on picking up people who attempted suicide? I recently attempted and failed and continuously said sorry and my paramedic seemed to feel bad for me. I felt like shit.

Yeah.

It was a cardiac arrest victim - a family member got pissed at my partner and I because quite frankly, this dude was done. We were gonna do what we needed to do in order to call our doctor and say "hey, dude is dead."

Family member didn't like it when we decided to cease resuscitative efforts. Grabbed a gun, told me and my partner we were going to keep doing our thing.

Then the cops got involved. Taser, taser, Taser!

Had to call another unit. Overall shitshow.

Our problem around here is still heroin and crack - and pills like Oxy or Xanax. I've not ran into bootleg fentanyl yet.

Oh, and formaldehyde laced marijuana.

Fentanyl is a synthetic opiate, but still an opiate derivative. It'd probably take a lot, but yes. Narcan works to block opiate receptors. One would then assume it would still work the same as on any other opiate.

Do you have to clean up and restock the ambulance before it can go out again? How long is the downtime after something like in that pic?

>formaldehyde laced marijuana
do fucking what

Picked up a fellow who literally walked from one county to another to call for help because he was off his depakote and rispirdal and was feeling suicidal for two days.

I've been there. I have demons. I usually try to be as empathic and patient as I can.

What are you, ten?

Gb2bed, kiddo. Adults are talking.

Ever picked up anyone who was having sex when something went wrong?

I've had my rig look like that once or twice since I became a medic. Usually, I try to clean as much of it up - and help my partner do so as well - while still at hospital. But I also have paperwork to finish.

Downtime can be 20 min to an hour, depending on the extent of the mess. Over an hour, I start getting phone calls and ass chewings.

Nope. Sadly, the everyday dealings of paramedics, EMTs and firefighters aren't like Chicago Fire or Real Tales from the ER on the Discovery Channel.

Detroit EMT here. It's getting bad in the area. Everyone is quitting because the niggers have been stabbing and shooting us when trying to help.

Oh yeah.

They use formaldehyde to try and weigh the shit down. Higher profit margin.

Shit you not.

Usually makes the person less high and more panicky, in terms of physiological signs and symptoms; you see insane tachycardia and a lot of sweating.

Are you a Dopamine or Levophed guy?

I know it's a protocol issue but I like getting other medic's personal opinions.

show us your body?

firefighters have always been a fantasy

I feel your pain, my Sup Forumsrother.

Hold down the fort. Things can't get too much worse. At least you're not fire department based anymore, right?

That had to lead to SOME better policy changes. Right?

No pics. Sorry.

Whats the worst thing you have seen, and or done?

>

What sort of stuff is common for you to pick up? I figure it'd be traffic accidents, cardiac stuff, maybe drug stuff. But is there anything normal people wouldn't think of?

Depends on the situation. Post arrest? Sepsis?

I like levophed, but a lot of folks I work around are old school and like dopamine. We don't carry Levophed here tho, even though in the rest of the fucking world it's considered a standard of care for severe sepsis and hypotension related to it.

>avoiding the tough questions

Come on now Mr. Paramedic, answer the fucking question.

>Things can't get too much worse
Things can always get worse.

Nice quads. But no. Calls don't stop.

What a colossal faggot

A 14 year old girl full of bullet holes on Christmas morning at 3am, on the side of a busy state highway. Because some gang bangers got pissed off.

Blood pooled from running out of the side door under the ambulance because she bled out while we tried to fix her.

Don't open that box for me tonight, please.

Ty for your service.

Hey OP, you in SC? Sounds like my home area (sad to say that), but I guess the whole southeast is pretty bad off especially right now.

thanks for helping folks, even though I know it goes greatly underappreciated while you're doing it.

The answer is no, pleb.

Nah. Further south.

Macabre

I'm sorry to hear that.

I'll send you some good, user vibes. Hang in there, yo.

Hmmm. Savannah or Jacksonville/Gainsville metro? Hard to try to parse down fucked areas with current climate.......

Yeah. It is.

I had been working for six months. This was in 2011. I was still a new EMT and hadn't really been broken in yet.

I don't remember getting back to the station and decontaminating the unit. It's all blacked out.

Nope and nope. Too far south.

Try harder.

Not OP.

That's actually an old practice, usual slang for it is 'wet.' There are other variants/recipes; the intent is adding stronger, more vivid hallucinatory effects. Can't particularly say it ends well, considering it's an industrial chemical....

"Wet" is slang for PCP, not formaldehyde.

Do you like you job or do you wish you could go back and do something else,


also, how long did it take to get used to the gore?

how do you deal with stress?

OP here.

I had never heard of an actual term given to it. Thanks for the updated vocabulary.

Thanks guy. We had one guy get kidnapped and found burned alive a week later. The guy who killed him did it because he couldn't save his doped out wife. People don't understand we do all we can absolutely do.

Shit. You must be out in the middle of nowhere. Don't tell me you're stuck on 82 out of the Brunswick/3Ws (Waverly etc) area?

This could be my last guess as I've gotta get up for my own 24hr shift in a few hours. Thanks again.

The original etymology, you are correct. Specifically, PCP dissolved in ether, commonly called 'embalming fluid.' Say that around people who don't realize they're hearing a slang term and they start using real embalming fluid. C'est la vie.

How does it feel, knowing that Canadians who do the same job get paid twice as much as you do?

How many babies have you delivered?

Canadian money is worth half as much as American money

I had originally been in school to teach music if that tells you anything.

My grandfather had a heart attack in mid 2008 and I decided after my second year of college to take time off and go home to help out around home.

Started volunteering with the fire department. Realized I liked medical shit.

Ended up finishing an associates degree then went to EMT school.

After a couple of years of working as an EMT, I said fuck it going to medic school, this shit is the tits.

I now have a applied sciences degree and use it... And a set of skills no one can take away from me without cause. I'm useful, in a sense.

I take pride in that and in the service I provide.

Gore? Man, I've been lurking since '07...

Gore.

Lol fag.

As for the stress... I have a good support system at home. Loving fiancé and good family, as well as a good "work family."

I did attempt suicide at one point tho... I felt like I was letting people down for a while... I got over that shit.

I'm an EMT student, I recently had my first ridealong and I noticed that I was shit at getting vitals in the ambulance compared to when I practice on classmates or family. Any tips? Also why the fuck would a paramedic not give a 90 year old with clear and adequate breathing morphine for a hip fracture along with other suspected leg fractures? Had that happen recently.

...

Have any notable frequent flyers? Stupidest call you've gotten?

To be fair, they also have more clinical education than we do.

The United States is behind in that respect. If we ever plan on being taken seriously as a profession, rather than a trade, we gotta get our asses in gear and take a page out of *CRINGE* the nurses' books, because they did it right by getting unionized, and organized, and EDUCATED.

2. One girl, one boy.

Entirely different state.

What do you wish was in your scope of practice that other states or counties have? Have any stupid protocols?

Burnout is a real thing. Talk to your clinical director or your program director about that preceptor. That's not a good learning atmosphere.

And to be honest, learning to take vital signs is a bit of an art that takes a lot of remedial practice. Over and over.

Your skills will improve with time.

No notable frequent flyers really.

I've been called for a sore tooth?

It wasn't a preceptor. In my area, fire medics treat all 911 ALS calls and always seem to be on scene before us at every single call. I was riding with a private service, and fire arrived on scene before us. On ALS calls a fire medic would ride with us. I'm just pissed because the patient was in extreme pain and there was nothing I could do. I feel like I should have spoken up, but the EMT preceptors warned me about second guessing anything a medic does and speaking up.

I wish I had better pain management and RSI protocols, or fuck, even DAI protocols.

Also, I want haldol. Because haldol is nice.

We carry bare minimum in narcotics. It's kind of sad. The other service I worked at, which was a private service, had very liberal protocols.

I MacGuyver'd humidified oxygen using a hot pack, saline and a mask nebulizer for a burn victim once. Doc was like "lol as long as it works, call me back if you need anything else."

My advice is still the same. There is obviously a gap somewhere.

Do you have hare or sager splints? I hate hare splints with a passion.

Also fuck spider straps.

whats life outside work like? you have gf, fam, kids? do you find the job gives you enough 'you' time or do you feel on duty 24/7, even when you're off. How does the 24 shift schedule work throughout the week?

Hare.

Lol sager splints. You funny.

Didn't you read? Taxpayer funded, Sup Forumsruh.

Do you have a good transit times to level one or two trauma centers or do you call air units often?

I'm glad I don't deal with them anymore. We have disposables.

I'm within 15-20 minutes running emergent status of the biggest level 1 trauma center in this region. If it gets a little further out? I would consider calling air.

I have a loving fiancé and awesome work family.

When I'm off and not doing fire department shit or EMS related shit? I'm off duty. Off. Duty.

If someone is literally dying in front of me, I'll help with CPR. I'm not scum. But I'm otherwise just a very knowledgeable layperson.

I try not to take work home with me if possible.

I usually work three days a week.

What's the most incompetent partner/ emt or medic you've seen in the field? I saw someone in class while practicing how to run a code with ALS present get confused and attempt to connect the mask from a bvm to the ET tube, took him a minute and a half to realize that the bag should be attached.

You are a good person OP and I hope you live a nice life.

Eeeeeh. Most incompetent thing I've seen is an EMR from a volunteer department try to stand in the middle of a landing zone - marked with landing lights - to direct the helicopter in.

With his arms.

I'm honestly not that nice of a person. I just like my job.

How long does it take for you to handover a patient to the ED? Here in britbong, ambulance crews often have to wait in the corridor for anywhere between 30 mins to 4 hours to handover.

OP here. I've moved to the work computer because fuck it, I may as well spend the rest of the night up with you faggots and sleep tomorrow. That and the captcha shit is annoying on my phone.

Keep it going.

Depends on where I go.

I've held up the wall for 3 hours once. Shortest wait time I ever had was 10 minutes...

If it's to the trauma center, and it's a shock trauma victim, there is no wait. Straight to the trauma bay.

Ok, so it's not just some British phenomena then. Our A&E departments are literally on the verge of collapse. We had someone arrest in our corridor a week ago after being sat there like a lemon for 2 hours waiting for a cubicle.

I'm not op, I'm the EMT student. But I had a stroke victim recently. We only waited about a minute or two before transferring the patient to a team waiting in the neuro-code room. But it was a really fancy trauma center. Took another five minutes until the patient went to the CT scanner

Any insight into why assaults on first responders is on the rise? Is it because of things like spice and bath salts?

Some wear uniforms that are the same color and a similar style to police uniforms.

Yes to both.

Our uniform here consists of a duty polo shirt and black tac-cargo pants. However, we also have PARAMEDIC on the right breast emblazoned along with our service logo on the left breast.

What do you keep in your 20 pockets?

A pair of shears I got as a graduation present when I finished medic school and an ALS/Critical Care flipbook with handy dandy shit that I may forget sometimes as a reference.

Sometimes there's a random pair of gloves shoved in one of the pockets.

And my wallet.

Seen any memorable fractures recently? How about objects inhaled or swallowed? Radiologic tech student here.

Most recent thing I can remember is a tib/fib fracture that I had a pulseless foot in until I manipulated it and splinted it, then poured fluids to it.

I was a little worried about that one. Turned out well, tho. Pulse re-established with manipulation and fluid bolus.

have you ever gotten to do a standing takedown or use a PASG?

OP here.

You got quiet, guy.

:(

Yes to a standing takedown because this bitch tho...

And no to PASG. We had a pair that I found when I started working here that were dry-rotting.

Tossed.

ever been exposed to a serious infectious disease?

have you ever needed to administer haloperidol for a patient?

Thankfully, no. I've never had an accidental sharp stick, or anything like that. I consider myself lucky and I knock on my desk now that this trend continues.

Infectious Disease exposure protocols are a bitch to follow through on. And all that fucking paperwork...

Have I been around patients with shit? Of course. But I'm careful.

What are your hobbies in your spare time?

Yes.

At the old service I worked at. 20 of Versed hadn't knocked this dude out. Called med control. They said "have fun and keep your ET roll handy, call me if you need something else lolololol *CLICK*"

He went nighty night real quick.

What is the tattoo policy for EMTs?

What's a hobby?

I actually enjoy tabletop roleplaying, video games, and anime. I'm a nerd outside of work.

Dependant on your workplace.

Most places have a "keep it tasteful" approach; some places have you cover them up/don't tolerate them so much.