# Blame it on lack of sleep...



## EMSDude54343 (Jul 19, 2012)

So, in the past two weeks I have worked just over 160 hours, needless to say im exhausted... 
Well I pulled up to the gate at work this morning, put in the code, then pulled up to the gate, waiting for it to open. I sat there, it never opened. I thought our gate was broken again. I reversed back up to the keypad, and that was when I realised, I put in my debit PIN, not the code for the gate... And what makes it even funnier, I was just at the gas station and tried to use the gate code as my debit PIN... LOL 

So what funny events have you done that you blame on being tired??


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## gw812 (Jul 19, 2012)

Hehe, as long as you don't start fiddling with the energy select knob on your lifepak while thinking, "Man, there is NOTHING good on the radio today!" you'll be all right.

Reminds me of a story an instructor told me a couple weeks back. He was on a late night call and px codes. He starts CPR, hooks up lifepak and checks rhythm but cannot understand why it keeps telling him 'shock advised'. Even yells "No s---!" at it once. Makes it back to the station and tells his captain the story, asking, "Why the h--- is my lifepak talking to me???" Captain gives him a look that would wilt lettuce and he finally gets it,

We now verbalize verifying the machine's not in AED mode when we practice skills with him, just to piss him off...


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## mycrofft (Jul 19, 2012)

I was driving home from a month of night shifts with a couple hours overtime on each, had to stop and eat breakfast on the way home (49 mile drive then) and fell asleep entering our driveway.

The driveway was thirty feet long and inclined 40 degrees down into our garage, which had no remote control to open it.

I woke just as the front of the car started down the incline. 1/2 second more and I'd have been into the garage with the door on top of the car (wooden slab counterbalanced door).


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## OzAmbo (Jul 19, 2012)

EMSDude54343 said:


> So what funny events have you done that you blame on being tired??



Hopefully nothing that ever effected a patient


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## EMSDude54343 (Jul 19, 2012)

OzAmbo said:


> Hopefully nothing that ever effected a patient



I think that's implied. If it effected a patient, I wouldn't clasify it as funny, unless the patient does of course, than its freaking hilarious...


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## Anjel (Jul 19, 2012)

I tried unlocking the door to my house.....with the automatic unlock button for my car. Lol

I pushed the button three or four times.


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## Medic Tim (Jul 19, 2012)

We have all 12 or 8 hour shifts with mandatory 10 hours off between shifts. Shift overrun is very rare and never more than an hour so being that tired isn't really much of an issue.

WHen I worked in the US a number of years ago it was not uncommon to work in excess of 100 hours a week. One day when I got home after a busy 36 hour shift I went off on scene and gave dispatch my mileage. They thought it was pretty funny.


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## rwik123 (Jul 19, 2012)

Putting on a 12 lead backwards and proceeding to transmit it.


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## GorillaMedic (Jul 19, 2012)

Back a couple years ago I was working loads of overtime on different medic units—well, one night, I was half-asleep while my partner as fueling up. Tones dropped for a unit I'd worked on the night before and I responded, put us enroute, then started yelling for my partner to get in. We flipped the lights on, headed towards the road, and when the call wasn't coming up on our MDT, I got back on the radio—this time, using our correct call sign and asking comm center to repeat the call address. They replied, mystified, “what call?” I replied back, with a note of frustration, “the diff. breathing call on [baker st.]” at which point the CORRECT unit got on the radio, laughing, and told us it wasn't our call. Thing is—the call and the correct unit were over 30 miles away. I still crack up thinking about that other unit hearing me over the radio go enroute for them.


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## Jondruby (Jul 1, 2015)

I woke up at 3:30 one night to dispatch paging an ambulance service  to a town that didn't have one. One of the sup's called in and said, "Umm, there is no (Fill-in-the-blank) ambulance, your gonna have to page us." Needless to say I was already on my way out the door as my tones went off. Haha,


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## Jim37F (Jul 1, 2015)

A month or so ago, I was working a 24hr shift at one of our busiest stations. We had already run a couple overnight calls, when I suddenly wake up (I think it was about 3, 3:30am) absolutely convinced that we just got a call, so I put on my pants and boots and start making my way downstairs to the apparatus bay, even though I just couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong, and it hits me as I walk into the app bay..not only was I the only one in the station up and moving but more importantly there were no lights on. See at all of our stations, when a call comes in, not only do we have tones (BZZT! BZZT! BZZT! ENGINE/TRUCK/BLS RESPONSE, [TYPE OF CALL {i.e. the pre-recorded voice will specify Chest Pain, Shortness of Breath, Traffic Collision, Structure Fire, etc}]) followed by the radio page (with its own beeping tones) and the voice dispatch over the station PA, accompanying all the noise there's color coordinated lights for each unit that turn on (red for the engine, green for the ladder truck, blue for the ambulance, white for the BC, amber for any special unit at the station such as USAR or HazMat) PLUS the regular overhead lights will turn on in the dorm rooms, hallways, stairway, app bay etc. I find the lights typically stay on just long enough to wake up, put on your pants and boots and get to the rig and they turn off as your climbing in the cab.

Well like I said, I made it all the way to the app bay before I realized that NONE of that racket had gone off. Sure enough, no call on the MCT.

Somehow I managed to dream the tones went off and convinced myself we had a call even without the lights or PA on, can't even blame it on hearing someone else getting a call and confusing them for me lol


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## CALEMT (Jul 1, 2015)

Jim37F said:


> when I suddenly wake up (I think it was about 3, 3:30am) absolutely convinced that we just got a call, so I put on my pants and boots and start making my way downstairs to the apparatus bay, even though I just couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong, and it hits me as I walk into the app bay..not only was I the only one in the station up and moving but more importantly there were no lights on.



This happened to me last year. Staffing pattern 18th day straight woke up randomly thought we had a call, got my uniform on walked out the room into the living room where the Capt. of one of the cover engines (from a different county) was sitting in a recliner looking at me with this strange look on his face like what the hell are you doing? At that time I realized that there was no call, looked at the Capt. did a about face and went back to my room (I was still half asleep mind you). Next morning as were all eating breakfast (7 of us in total) he asked me what I was doing last night. All in all it was pretty awkward.


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## medicaltransient (Jul 1, 2015)

I fell asleep while driving code and went into a ditch.


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## Tigger (Jul 1, 2015)

Jim37F said:


> Somehow I managed to dream the tones went off and convinced myself we had a call even without the lights or PA on, can't even blame it on hearing someone else getting a call and confusing them for me lol


I dream that I am working while sleeping at the station fairly regularly and I HATE it. I've only gotten dressed for a "not real" call once or twice, but the imaginary tones always wake me up as hard as real ones.

Even more unfortunate (or awesome), I recently had an "inception" work dream. I dreamt that I had dreamt about being at work. I woke up in the dream and continued to be "at work" until thankfully some real tones went off. If we didn't get that call I might still be stuck in my mind or something.


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## CALEMT (Jul 1, 2015)

Tigger said:


> I dream that I am working while sleeping at the station fairly regularly and I HATE it.



Its even worse when your off duty at home. Had that happen a time or two, even got out of bed but have caught myself before getting dressed.


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## RedAirplane (Sep 8, 2015)

Yesterday someone was talking about using Epi Pens to test blood sugar. 

He thought we were all teasing him when we tried to explain that Epi Pens are not stocked and that they have nothing to do with blood sugar. 

He was trying to explain for about five minutes before he realized he meant glucometer. Quite a laugh.


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## NomadicMedic (Sep 8, 2015)

While working in DE, I worked a middle of the night cardiac arrest with my partner, got ROSC and he jumped in the ambulance with the patient and two EMTs to transport. I drove the medic unit back to the station and promptly fell back asleep. I work up later that morning and asked my partner, "did we work a code last night?" He just looked at me funny, "uh yeah. And you got the tube and we got ROSC."  

I didn't remember any of it.


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## CALEMT (Sep 8, 2015)

DEmedic said:


> While working in DE, I worked a middle of the night cardiac arrest with my partner, got ROSC and he jumped in the ambulance with the patient and two EMTs to transport. I drove the medic unit back to the station and promptly fell back asleep. I work up later that morning and asked my partner, "did we work a code last night?" He just looked at me funny, "uh yeah. And you got the tube and we got ROSC."
> 
> I didn't remember any of it.



Damn dude haha. Am I the only one wondering how your partner got back?


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## chaz90 (Sep 8, 2015)

The ambulance typically drops the medic back off at their station. Works out nicely in the middle of the night


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## CALEMT (Sep 8, 2015)

chaz90 said:


> The ambulance typically drops the medic back off at their station. Works out nicely in the middle of the night



Ahhh I see. Im stuck in the CA state of mind where the medic unit follows the ambulance (LACo for example). Or here when a medic off the engine rides in with the ambulance the engine will pick up the fire medic at the hospital.


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## NomadicMedic (Sep 8, 2015)

chaz90 said:


> The ambulance typically drops the medic back off at their station. Works out nicely in the middle of the night



108, FTW.


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## CANMAN (Sep 9, 2015)

After another 100 hour plus week, I pulled into Chick Fila drive through on my way home, sat there for about 3 mins before yelling into the mic "I would like to order some breakfast" then noticed it was in deed Sunday


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