# Edp Call



## LiLMizEmT (Jul 4, 2007)

EDP's are so much fun!... thing is.. i dont mind it because they are pretty interresting its like picking out of a hat. you never know what your gunna get lol i got one pt. who had MS and was verbally violent because every time he moved it would hurt him, and i had another edp on PCP... boy. that was a trip!  and another one walking around 5 blocks away from the hosp. in a hospital gown asking people to use their cell phones because he wanted to call his mom to pick him up from playing with his friends lol. and another edp where a woman was harassing firemen haha. we arrived and she ran away as fast as she could so we couldnt get to her lol. another was as we call a frequent flyer where ofcorse they are all drunks lol. um. hmm.. gosh.. i had so many i cant even keep up..... anyone have any good edp stories they wanna share?! i wanna hear! lol im still waiting for a bridge call.. lol


----------



## Tincanfireman (Jul 4, 2007)

LiLMizEmT said:


> lol im still waiting for a bridge call.. lol


 
Yeah, that should really be a hoot to talk about...


----------



## RedZone (Jul 4, 2007)

LiLMizEmT said:


> anyone have any good edp stories they wanna share?! i wanna hear! lol im still waiting for a bridge call.. lol



Back around '95, I took a pt. to Creedmore.  For those outside of NY, this is a state run max security in-patient psychiatric hospital.

It was about 1 or 2 in the morning, and this patient hadn't made one word of sense the entire trip.  He was calm, but every once in a while he'd spit out some sort of gibberish.

We arrived at Creedmore and walked the patient (is the statute of limitations over on that?) up the outside stairs to the main entrance.  We rang the intercom buzzer and explained to the person who answered that we had a patient and needed someone to come and let us in.

Five or ten minutes went by, and we rang again, and requested entrance again.

Five or ten minutes and we repeated the process.

Well, our incomprehensible patient must have been cold.  He walked over to the buzzer, and neither my partner nor I stopped him.  After all, why should we?

"Hi, I'm with X Ambulance and we have a patient.  We've been waiting a long time now, and still need one of your staff members to come downstairs and open the door for us.  It's pretty cold outside, thank you."


----------



## LiLMizEmT (Jul 4, 2007)

*hey*

hey, where about in NYC are you??


----------



## LiLMizEmT (Jul 4, 2007)

Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes...


----------



## RedZone (Jul 4, 2007)

LiLMizEmT said:


> hey, where about in NYC are you??



I'm also in little jersey.


----------



## Jay114 (Jul 10, 2007)

What does edp stand for?


----------



## RedZone (Jul 10, 2007)

Jay114 said:


> What does edp stand for?



Emotionally Disturbed Person

That's politically correct for psych patient.


----------



## firecoins (Jul 10, 2007)

I am in Rockland County, NY


----------



## Emtgirl21 (Jul 10, 2007)

I dont care to much for EDP's. I think they present the most danger to us in EMS. However, there is an overpass about 50 yards from the back door of our station....i'm just waiting for the day when someone jumps. We all joke about it...we are gonna be shocked when it happens.


----------



## BossyCow (Jul 10, 2007)

I had a bridge jumper just the other day.  A passing trooper with a suspect in custody in his car saw the woman on a bridge about a half mile from my house.  All I could get from dispatch was... "the trooper called it in but can't stay, he was just passing by..."  I have no idea if I'm going to be the lone responder on someone perched on the edge or if they will have jumped by the time I get there.  

I was so relieved to see the flashing blue lights of the troopermobile when I pulled up.  Apparently the woman who by her own admission had.. "About 15-18 beers today" and had been drinking for.. " Ohhhh... about a month.. maybe two...." She tried to jump off the bridge but couldn't manage the guardrail and fell on her butt.  She said she took all the pills in her house, but they just made her puke, then she tried to shoot herself with a gun she found at her daughter's house, only she couldn't get the bullets into the gun, so she started hitchiking and got dumped out by the person who picked her up... (go figure that.......) that's when she decided to try for the bridge.  

I seem to get along pretty well with the EDP patient.  A friend of mine was told "You are royalty on my home planet!" by one EDP.It's generally pretty easy if you just get them talking and don't confront them on anything.


----------



## Jay114 (Jul 11, 2007)

BossyCow said:


> I had a bridge jumper just the other day.  A passing trooper with a suspect in custody in his car saw the woman on a bridge about a half mile from my house.  All I could get from dispatch was... "the trooper called it in but can't stay, he was just passing by..."  I have no idea if I'm going to be the lone responder on someone perched on the edge or if they will have jumped by the time I get there.
> 
> I was so relieved to see the flashing blue lights of the troopermobile when I pulled up.  Apparently the woman who by her own admission had.. "About 15-18 beers today" and had been drinking for.. " Ohhhh... about a month.. maybe two...." She tried to jump off the bridge but couldn't manage the guardrail and fell on her butt.  She said she took all the pills in her house, but they just made her puke, then she tried to shoot herself with a gun she found at her daughter's house, only she couldn't get the bullets into the gun, so she started hitchiking and got dumped out by the person who picked her up... (go figure that.......) that's when she decided to try for the bridge.



That is horribly sad and pathetic. I hope she found a way out of that hole she had dug for herself.




BossyCow said:


> It's generally pretty easy if you just get them talking and don't confront them on anything



I would imagine their unpredictable nature would preclude a "rule of thumb" of  dealing with an edp. For example, Perhaps getting them talking is whats sets them off, is what they view as confrontation.


----------



## VentMedic (Jul 11, 2007)

People who attempt or actually do commit suicide leave a lasting impression on many people. If one is unfortunate enough to witness the suicide, counseling may never erase the image. I still remember my first jumper and my second. During the 1980s, when HIV/AIDS came about, I lost count of the number of suicides we ran on, mostly for death confirmation. Even our hospital had its share of jumpers. 

I remember reading articles by train conductors/engineers who have had people use their trains as a suicide weapon. It forever affected them and  their families although they did not know the person jumping in front of their train. 

The patient (a healthcare professional) who jumped from the moving ambulance this past weekend (article posted on another thread) leaves behind a family, co-workers and two EMS workers that will be trying to sort through her actions for years to come. 

EDPs are more then the homeless person walking the city streets. Although, they too have a story to tell about their lives. They are Mr. and Mrs. Suburbia that may lead a normal life on the outside and a very troubled life behind closed doors. Occasionally EMS workers are asked to enter those doors of our neighbors and fellow professionals. We must exercise both discretion and caution with people we thought were "okay".


----------



## BossyCow (Jul 11, 2007)

Jay114 said:


> I would imagine their unpredictable nature would preclude a "rule of thumb" of  dealing with an edp. For example, Perhaps getting them talking is whats sets them off, is what they view as confrontation.



That was why I used the term 'generally'.   Several times during the transport, this gal would start to spiral again into the "I want to die..." loop.  My partner and I would ask her about something she was talking about earlier that seemed to make her smile.  It can be pretty labor intensive but it makes for a much nicer transport.  Of course, this person was also better or worse for chemicals so she was pretty easy to re-direct conversationally.  

This individual is well known to the ED staff and has had on going emotional problems.  She was sent to a residential facility for observation.


----------



## Trumajunkie (Jul 11, 2007)

EDPs are fun as long as thier not violent. I work in Jersey City and I see so many I can't keep them straight. We have one guy a drunk that says he is a ninja and we was trained by Mr. miagie(spelling the guy from karate kid) and he beat up Segal, VanDame, and Chuck Norris. You know Chuck is the biggest bad a#$ in the world. Another lady we approached (if we see them on the street we pick them up) told us we were the devil, when we said we were there to help, she asked if we had a front row seat to jesus! HAHA That was the only way we could help. Then she asked my partner if he was god, he said no and another EMT reminded him of ghostbusters "If someone asks if your a god the answer is always yes"! haha. Anyway she said that she was "exercising in the park the other night" right, and the cops made her get in the bus because she was crazy! So we were all the devil because she is a smart woman! haha. Another lady was acting possesed in the bus, I thought she ws going to vomit pea soup! Sorry for the spelling.


----------



## GayEMTNJ (Aug 16, 2007)

RedZone said:


> Back around '95, I took a pt. to Creedmore.  For those outside of NY, this is a state run max security in-patient psychiatric hospital.



I didn't realize that Creedmore is still open!  I did a thesis in college in sociology of medicine on the issues surrounding institutionalization and the failure of the mental health system.  Creedmore was one of the facilities that I discussed quite a bit.  I had thought that Creedmore had gone the way of all of the big institutions like the Byberry State Hospital in PA and the Massachusetts Hosptial for the Criminally Insane / Bridgewater State Hospital (google "Titticut Follies" for a film about the horrors in that place).


----------

