# OOps moments...



## imurphy (Oct 30, 2008)

We've all had them! Here's mine, what's yours!


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## FF-EMT Diver (Oct 30, 2008)

OMG HAHA, That is too funny, Famous last words hey guys watch this!!!!


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## EMTinNEPA (Oct 30, 2008)

I almost got an ambulance hit by a train once.  And no, NOT at a railroad crossing.


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## stephenrb81 (Oct 30, 2008)

One service I worked for, we'd pull the ambulance across the street to check it off (For flat ground and light, the bay had an incline plus the awning kept it darkish).  I always had a routine: Fluids, Tires, Outside compartments, etc...

I had just finished checking off the outside compartments and was fixing to start checking off the inside when I got called back across the street by the supervisor.  Took care of that, went back to the truck and finished checking it off.  Went to pull it back across the stress and out came Backboards, headblocks, c-collars, a KED, Emergency road side equipment, etc.. ALLLLLLL in the middle of a fairly busy road *WITH* the supervisor still standing across the street.

I didn't see the passenger outside cabinets weren't latched tightly because I couldn't see that side from my direction of approach.  It was an empty lot we used for vehicle training purposes and such so I wasn't concerned about vehicles.  Little had I known that some EMT students were with us that day and my partner had shown them how we stock the ambulance and failed to mention that you really had to slam those doors to get them to latch.


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## Oregon (Oct 30, 2008)

EMTinNEPA said:


> I almost got an ambulance hit by a train once.  And no, NOT at a railroad crossing.



You know you can't just leave us with that.


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## KEVD18 (Oct 30, 2008)

ive had more than one oops moments, but i rarely take pictures(i hate leaving evidence around).....


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## HotelCo (Oct 30, 2008)

Ouch.... how did that come about?


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## traumateam1 (Oct 30, 2008)

Wasn't me driving the supervisor vehicle.. but dang!


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## mikie (Oct 30, 2008)

^ Soccer mom EMS chase car?!


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## traumateam1 (Oct 30, 2008)

mikie said:


> ^ Soccer mom EMS chase car?!



Something along those lines!


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## KEVD18 (Oct 30, 2008)

im not one thats all tied up in image. i dont have to have a big shiny heavy rescue to feel good about being an emt. but i would immediatley resign as a supervisor and go back to the road if my company had caravans as fly cars. some things my ego just cant swallow.......


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## traumateam1 (Oct 30, 2008)

KEVD18 said:


> im not one thats all tied up in image. i dont have to have a big shiny heavy rescue to feel good about being an emt. but i would immediatley resign as a supervisor and go back to the road if my company had caravans as fly cars. some things my ego just cant swallow.......



Oh don't worry.. that's changed, I dunno why they used Caravan's.. I really don't.. But they don't use them here anymore.


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## KEVD18 (Oct 30, 2008)

traumateam1 said:


> Oh don't worry.. that's changed, I dunno why they used Caravan's.. I really don't.. But they don't use them here anymore.



oh, i can handle that question for you.

they needed something that had the cargo capacity for the ems gear, that was at least decent on fuel(given the ungodly cost of petrol up there), and *cheap*(the only constant corporate requirment for anything.

so when the purchasing officer went out in search of a vehicle, he wasnt thinking about personal image. he had to meet his requirments. after all, he wasnt going to be the one trying to respond to calls in the 200x soccer express delux.


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## EMTinNEPA (Oct 30, 2008)

Oregon said:


> You know you can't just leave us with that.



Haha alright.

I was out in the boonies late one night with the volley service I run with.  Chief Driver and I fulfilled and she went to scene, so it's just me taking the unit to scene.  I'm driving up and down this backroad, with railroad tracks that run parallel with it, trying to find the place.  I get directions from the ALS unit and I realize I missed it.  So I throw the lights on, start turning around, inching forward, inching backward... doing like an 11-point turn because the space between the railroad tracks and the cliff wall on the other side of the road is microscopic.  I see two lights coming down the road, I think, "Oh, there's a truck coming.  He's gotta see my lights, he'll stop".  Anyway, I inch forward, within inches of the tracks and WHOOOOOOOSSSSSHHH!!!!!  I realize it wasn't a truck, but a train.  My jaw drops and I just sit there for about thirty seconds.  And that's how I almost got an ambulance hit by a train.


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## imurphy (Oct 31, 2008)

The story I'm sticking to is I didn;t know Unit 25 (the Ambulance) couldn't be left sitting for 4 hours outside a bay with the ignition but no engine on powering my iPod and heater and be expected to start again! 

Ahh. EMS. Lessons learnt every day!


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## KEVD18 (Oct 31, 2008)

the heater killed it. 

ive left my ipod playing on my car charger for days with no ill effects.


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## EMTWintz (Oct 31, 2008)

It never fails that we have a newbie drive the rig and after a call they forget to plug it in. Sooo next call we try to start it and nothing. We end up throwing everything into PV and roll hillbilly style. I personally find it funny


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## Anomalous (Nov 1, 2008)

EMTinNEPA said:


> Haha alright.
> 
> IWHOOOOOOOSSSSSHHH!!!!!  I realize it wasn't a truck, but a train.  My jaw drops and I just sit there for about thirty seconds.  And that's how I almost got an ambulance hit by a train.




Just so you know...  they won't swerve out of your way.


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## EMTinNEPA (Nov 1, 2008)

Anomalous said:


> Just so you know...  they won't swerve out of your way.



I noticed -_- lol


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## Sasha (Nov 1, 2008)

I had one yesterday at work!

My partner, the medic, had driven to our call because we had just left a BLS call and were on our way to a chest pain. Well, we were refused, so we climb back into the ambulance, im in the drivers seat, he in the passenger. Im start pushing on the gas pedal and the bambulance wont move, the engine revs and such but it wouldnt drive. Check it, yup, in Drive. Give it some more gas. It starts puttering down the road but there is a definite resistance and hesitation and engine problems so we stop on the side and im sitting there trying to figure out what to do.. My partner is like Here, let me do it. So I get out, he slides into the drivers seat, and then we go driving down the road like nothings wrong. 

I forgot to take off the parking break


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## traumateam1 (Nov 1, 2008)

Sasha said:


> I had one yesterday at work!
> 
> My partner, the medic, had driven to our call because we had just left a BLS call and were on our way to a chest pain. Well, we were refused, so we climb back into the ambulance, im in the drivers seat, he in the passenger. Im start pushing on the gas pedal and the bambulance wont move, the engine revs and such but it wouldnt drive. Check it, yup, in Drive. Give it some more gas. It starts puttering down the road but there is a definite resistance and hesitation and engine problems so we stop on the side and im sitting there trying to figure out what to do.. My partner is like Here, let me do it. So I get out, he slides into the drivers seat, and then we go driving down the road like nothings wrong.
> 
> I forgot to take off the parking break



Haha! Very nice Sasha! B)


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## aussieemt1980 (Nov 2, 2008)

We had a whoopsie where the truck got bogged in the middle of the paddock and had to be pulled out....

I told the driver it was too muddy before we went in, and spent the next 20 minutes laughing... guess who had to dig out the back wheels .

I once watched some army nurses respond to an injured person on the base where I was posted, they did not close the back door and did not lock in the stretcher... damn they roll quick down hill. There was no patient on board!


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## EMTCop86 (Nov 2, 2008)

I forgot to pull up the wheel chocks on the fire engine once. Never lived that one down. Found one in my locker the next day that had a posted note on it "Don't forget about me"


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## johnrsemt (Nov 2, 2008)

watched a hospital based ambulance (back in Indy); come up on the off ramp, park at the top at the MVC, the EMT got the cot out,  let it go, turned and shut the back doors, and chased his cot down the off ramp, through two stop lights.
   everyone at the accident was laughing;   we ended up passing our cot (private service) over the barrier so that they could transport the pt to the hospital with a fire fighter driving;  my partner and I went down and around and picked up their cot and crew member and took it/him to the hospital.


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## piranah (Nov 3, 2008)

ok i got one that i never lived down ......ok just ransported a C/P pt to a trauma 1 center where they have a cath lab...anyho....its a busy hospital...i get back into the truck to finish my report after transfer of care.....filling it out..i stop to get coffee....spill some coffee on me when we get about 5 miles from town...(hospital is about 25 miles away).....we pull o\ver so i can get a towel outta the bac k i open the back and theres no stretcher.....i went "huh....why would he take the stretcher out so i can get a towel"...then i realized my driver forgot to put it back in after cleaning it....(it was job to do all that stuff while the EMT fills the report cuz the drivers are non-EMTs).....well i flipped....then i took the second line truck and he drove back to the facility....lol every dept. around was busting us for months...like " hey bristol dont forget that big thing that holds pts"......lol was a bad day


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## rjz (Nov 4, 2008)

I don't have pictures thank goodness, but....We responded to a rural area of our already rural area. On the way to the call I told my partner that we were goign to have to park the ambualnce ont he road and walk the gurney down the 300 ft long 75 foot elevation drop driveway because there was no way to get down the steep driveway and get back up without gettign stuck. So when we got there I looked down the driveway and said "oh cool they put in little concrete paths that we can drive on." little did I know that the strips were the width of a jeep and not a ford van. So we get down there and of course S.O. and Fire follows us. I then proceed to get stuck jsut like I said I would in teh first place. So we try to pull the ambualcne out with the fire engine and stick that. Then we try to use a POV and stick that. So we call for another rig and transprot the pt. in that. All told we got an ambulance, POV 4X4, fire engine, cop car, tow truck, full size grader, and a second tow truck stuck. All because I thought I could drive on the concrete strips. We finally ahd to cut down three trees and use a backhoe to get everyone out. It was a long long day, and everyone still talks about how not to follow me.


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## Melanie77 (Nov 12, 2008)

*...*

Thats not something i would brag about if i did that. i think the object of being a emt is to save other peoples lives and not kill your own


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## Scout (Nov 13, 2008)

lighten up, i have not read anyting here that has overly endangered someones life, or indeed at all.


And every good EMT i know gets closer to killing themselfs one day at a time. It's like a hobby


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## rjz (Nov 14, 2008)

*Huh??!!?*



Melanie77 said:


> Thats not something i would brag about if i did that. i think the object of being a emt is to save other peoples lives and not kill your own



I don't get it...where did I not save somones life or endanger my own? Mistakes are going to be made in this vocation. You can only learn and then laugh at them.


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## Buzz (Nov 14, 2008)

Didn't happen to me, but rather to my current partner and the guy I replaced.

They had just brought a patient into the ED, did everything they needed to do, got their signatures and left. They're sitting back at post and dispatch gets on the radio: "Uh, do you guys have a stretcher in your rig right now? Because we just got a call from _____ asking if any of our units were missing a Ferno" They both looked back and sure enough it was missing.


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## Tincanfireman (Nov 14, 2008)

The private service I used to work for actually kept tow straps in the units; everyone stuck a truck once in awhile, mostly due to rural nature of the area. In addition, running 6 trips a week (counting out and back as 2 trips) for our dialysis patients on the same patches of grass quickly turned driveways and lawns to quagmires. Let's not even talk about septic tanks!


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## rjz (Nov 15, 2008)

*Me too*

I had that happen also. we were at the hospital when we were dispatched to another call, I thought my partner had already put the gurney in and he totally forgot about it. We got to the call I did my assessment and then he went to go and get the gurney. He was gone for a long time before coming back with a soft flat and a sad look. It sucked at the time having to provide care while kneeling on the floor. But now we laugh about it all the time, and it is a great training story for the new folks.


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