# Threw up in the ambulance... on my first day... with my EMT-b instructor



## thatJeffguy (Mar 22, 2010)

Yup.  That bad.


Had to be up very early, drank lots of coffee, no food.  Insanly hot in the ambulance.  First call was a lift assist for the coroners, no worries.  Next call my EMT-b instructor is driving and a medic is watching me deal with the patient.  I knew it was coming, grabbed the red bag and jumped almost into the front seat, told him I was OK and that I was a little sick from the coffee, then spewed as we pulled up to the hospital.

Well, at least I don't need to worry about the "will I get a nickname?" issue, eh?

On a related note, things went well with the call.


*walk of shame*


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## Nick647 (Mar 22, 2010)

im sure your not the first man.  I think im more concerned if I will barf up when I see something nasty with a patient.  I think i'll have to mentally prepare myself like anything else.


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## thatJeffguy (Mar 22, 2010)

Thanks for the kind words.

However, the concensus stands, apparently I am the first.

Fan-tastic.

At least I'm still #1 in my EMS class.


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## mycrofft (Mar 22, 2010)

*OK, learning curve time.*

.....Vesuvius!

Or is it "Ralph"?


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## EMSLaw (Mar 22, 2010)

thatJeffguy said:


> Thanks for the kind words.
> 
> However, the concensus stands, apparently I am the first.
> 
> ...



Trust me, you're not the first guy to yack in the back of an ambulance.  Especially when you have some of the drivers I've seen. (Let's not turn this into an ambulance safety thread, but we all know self-annointed EMT Mario Andrettis exist out there. )

Good job with #1, though.  Keep it up, and continue your edum... eduk... learnin'.


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## firetender (Mar 22, 2010)

Ten years from now you will have completely stopped remembering why, and by then, it really won't matter; you'll have been answering to "Heave!" for so long, you kinda got to like it!


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## AnthonyTheEmt (Mar 24, 2010)

dude, youre totally not the first one. I threw up when I first started. I had a partner who couldnt drive to save her life. Being in back and feeling the rig rockin back and forth like a sailboat, most other people would have heaved too. Welcome to the club


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## ZVNEMT (Mar 24, 2010)

i swear im gonna puke one of these days.... i always seem to be the guy who gets to suction out the trach tube Pts... the sound with seeing phlegm going up the tube into the bag just makes me gag...

i also come near vomiting when we get Pts with severe pedal edema, with the seepage from their legs so bad that the skin will literally come off on your glove if you touch them. and its great when they've decided to call you only when its been a few month since they've been that way... oh yea.... im getting sick just thinking about that call... im glad that guy was able to walk, there was NO WAY i could have forced myself into that room...


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## Shishkabob (Mar 24, 2010)

I was in the ER for one of my EMT clinicals, and we had a patient come in with a stab wound to the posterior neck.  I was holding the patient up while one of the docs used a 'probe' (q-tip) and stuck it in the wound.

Me, having 4 hours of sleep the night before, not eating breakfast, and having a small dinner, started to get queezy.  I asked one of the nurses if she could hold the patient while I sat down for a bit, and she asked if everything was ok.  I barely made it to the chair and sat down before I got tunnel vision and almost passed out.



Same thing happened a year later in my L&D paramedic rotation after watching my first c-section (NOT during, but after).  Funny thing is I watched another 2 and wasn't effected.


From that point forward I made it a point to eat atleast poptarts before doing clinicals.


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## ert_medic (Mar 24, 2010)

You're lucky if it wasn't a private ambulance operator in L.A. County, they'd probably try to bill you a trip to the ER as a patient, tacky :censored::censored::censored::censored::censored::censored::censored:s.  LoL!


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## jwilliams161 (Mar 24, 2010)

well hay, after all nicknames aren't that bad hell in highschool some kid couldnt remember my name and since i was the only girl in the class he just called me vag or v-jay-jay... 
beter luck next time tho


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## Sasha (Mar 24, 2010)

I have almost lost my lunch more than once at work/clinical. The first time was when we were watching a woman getting her foot stitched up in the ER. The way the doctor was jabbing the needle into her foot to numb it.. i felt myself getting a little nauseated and light headed and had to step away. 

Then when I was working ALS at an IFT company, after suctioning a trach I would always have to step back and recompose.. Trachs are my major ICK factor and I always feel a little throw uppy while suctioning them. I don't know what's worse, suctioning them or when they clear their own and it's oozing out of the trach collar. Yuck.


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## MTEMTB (Mar 24, 2010)

You are not the first nor will you be the last.

Here's one for you. I can see blood 2 times, but on the 3rd time I get light headed and almost pass out.:blush:
Stuff happens.


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## Tincanfireman (Mar 24, 2010)

You're far from the first, and nowhere near the last. We're not superhuman, and everyone has their own personal demon.  Besides, there's a lot of things you can be called that are worse than "Spew", ya know...


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