# In EMS think before you speak.



## DT4EMS (Feb 24, 2009)

For those that have never heard this one....... I am re-visiting it 


In EMS…….think before you speak.

Any EMS provider that has been on the street for any length of time has had the “Oh boy…did I just say that?” moment. Mine came on a warm south Florida summer night. I guess I had to learn the hard way.

My partner and me were dispatched to some government housing in a pretty rough part of town. As usual, pretty customary during that time, the call was the ever-popular “Unknown Medical”. 

Upon our arrival we found the patient was on the second floor. The only way to get up was narrow, sharp turning stairs. We decided to leave the stretcher at the bottom and evaluate what we had. Once we made it to the patient, we found her surrounded by family and numerous bystanders from the neighborhood. 

Our patient, a little old lady, frail to say the least, was sitting on a hard wooden chair, with her legs covered by a blanket. I noticed some shoes sticking out from beneath the blanket.  She was alert and oriented and began to describe her complaints. She complained of being ill for several days. She had a fever but was keeping it controlled with Tylenol. She had been eating, just not as much as usual. She stated she had a sore throat and had a non-productive cough. She also complained that she “ached” all over.

All of her vital signs appeared within normal limits and she appeared in no obvious distress. I now asked the question; “Would you like us to take you to the hospital?” In her ever so sweet voice she replied “Yes, I would”. Me being the super-smart urban medic I (thought) I was, I thought “surely she can walk to the ambulance and without hesitation I spoke……….



“Ma’am, do you think you could walk to the ambulance?” I said. Before I could inhale after finishing the question, a rather large man began to get loud. He stated “ This mutha-fu**a gonna ask her if she can walk down to the God**^N Ambu-lance!” The crowd grumbled. (You never really forget a statement like that)

So again………my wit allowed me to speak quickly…….. I said, “Sir, it appears as though she has the Flu, she should be able to walk to our ambulance.” I thought I had responded well. I used good tone, with no attitude, I was respectful.

The man, replied “Man how she gonna walk to da ambu-lance when she ain’t got no legs?”

 You can imagine my surprise when I lifted the bottom of the blanket off of the shoes to reveal an empty space between her bilateral amputations and the shoes. I looked at my partner and we both nodded. I humbly said “Ma’am we’ll carry you down if that’s all right?” The kind little old lady agreed with a nod of her head and away we went.

It was that day I learned two invaluable lessons in EMS. I learned to really think before I spoke and I learned I needed to be more humble.


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## WelshMedic (Feb 27, 2009)

My story involves a rather keen but naieve new colleague. 

We were transporting a rather large lady to another facility when she commented: "I guess you have to transport lots of heavy patients these days"

"Yes" said my colleague "but you are in luck today, we have our new cot with us and it takes up to 450 lbs" The look on the patient's face was classic and then she stammered (with tears in her eyes): "but I'm only 300 lbs!" 

The worst thing was we were stuck in a lift and I had no place to look other than the patient. How I stopped myself from laughing, I still do not know to this day!

WM


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## Silverstone (Feb 27, 2009)

Could be worse.  I had a morbidly obese middle-aged male that was a paraglegic c/o N/V/D.  When we went to move him over to our cot... (all 6 of us) he started c/o leg pain.  I kind of shrugged it off thinking it was BS because he was paraglegic, and I doubt he could feel anything from the waist down.  Then his foley catheter fell to the floor and tugged on his you-know-what...and he screamed.... It was then I realized that some paraplegics still have feeling......


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## Second (Mar 1, 2009)

not a stupid thing I or someone else has said, just an experience.

we were droping a pt. off at the hospital  and our next call had already came in before we were cleard. Anyways me and the other emt head up to the Pt.s room, and oh well you know the story. The other EMT calls down to the medic "hey were gonna need your help up here." "do I need to run?" "no, just come on up" anyways while were waiting we start talking to her and find out her past and making small talk, and she starts asking when were moving her. "well mam we've got a specailist coming to help, this is all he does every day, just move people. he's big, big and strong. not much to look at but he knows what he's doing". granted the guy I'm talking about is smaller than I am, and she thought he was just the cutest thing in the whole world.

I know I kinda drag this out, sorry


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## AJ Hidell (Mar 2, 2009)

Two stories come immediately to mind.  First, an MVA in the middle of the night with two patients from two separate vehicles.  My partner gets one in the back of the ambulance, and a couple minutes later, I get mine into the back of the same ambulance.  I start interviewing my patient and I ask him, "What happened?"  My partner screams at me, "NO!  We don't care what happened!  Just take care of him and worry about that at the hospital!"  I was shocked.  I had no idea what my partner's problem was, and was tempted to tell him to STFU, but something in the look on his face told me that he had good reasoning.  We weren't but a couple of minutes from the ER, so we just went ahead and transported.  Both patients were silent, staring at the ceiling the whole way.  After we got to the ER, my partner informed me that my patient's injuries had not come from the MVA.  They had come from the other patient punching him in the face after the accident.  He didn't want another dispute erupting in the ambulance from questioning about the incident.  I knew nothing about that!  So yes, I felt pretty stupid at that point, and lucky to have a partner with common sense.

Second story, working the ER.  Patient with an ankle sprain.  We're about to release him when his family comes into the room to see him.  His wife was obviously close to full-term pregnancy, so I asked her when she was due, and if she would be having the baby at our facility.  She replied that she had her baby three months ago.  I crawled out of the room and hid until they were gone.  I was never so embarrassed in my life.  But I learned a very important lesson about thinking before speaking.


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## emtmikey (Mar 8, 2009)

DT4EMS said:


> For those that have never heard this one....... I am re-visiting it
> 
> 
> In EMS…….think before you speak.
> ...



I bet you wanted to crawl under a rock?  I have done/said things too.  I thinks it's human nature.


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