# Worst week as a medic yet



## DrankTheKoolaid (Jun 21, 2009)

Day 1.   Single vehicle over the bank 25 feet or so, unknown rate of speed with 3 occupants and nobody restrained.  I do a quick triage and 1 is walking wounded talking with a CHP officer with a small laceration right forehead with bleeding self limited no other complaint.  Second patient is unconcious late teens obese female lying stretched out in the back seat of the midsized sedan with a CHP holding manual cspine with a RR of 12 or so with purposeful movement to deep sternal rub.  Patient 3 is a mid 30's male pale cool cyanotic with the appearance of a 70 year old man on his deathbed, found outside vehicle sitting upright on the ground leaning on the right front tire. 
RR of 12 guppy breathing with left tracheal shift and sub-q air from the right nipple up to his right ear with NO chest wall movement with respiration attempts. Manual cspine and NRM until BVM and multiple needle kits tossed down to me.  Decompress right mid clavicular with minimal change and FR begins bagging.  Decompress left mid clavicular with noted decrease bag resistance, while the patient was awake for this he barely flinched and never attempted speech. cspine and up the hill we go. get in truck re decompress right mid axillary again this time with dramatic results, patient now pink with O2 sat from 82 to 93 and HR now 148.  Right pectoral area ribs oblitered with no paradoxical movement and rigid distended abd noted.  IO placed left leg and 18ga LAC.  Patient now starting to actively pull at responders and the decompression sites. No RSI here so was manually restrained and I orally intubated. 4th decompression attempted right mid axillary with the catheter collapsing around the needle agaist the thick leathery cutaneous membrane.  Flight crew arrived patient then sedated and paralyzed.  away they went.  died in ED about an hour later.  occupant 2 ended up with a depessed skull Fx and the walking wounded with just the lacerations

Day 2 start the day with a 25 male gcs 4 last seen 11 hours prior with complaint of headache and growing mass at the base of his occiput.  Thankfully only 4 minutes from ED. patient hot to the touch and jaw clenched. suction bag and deisel therapy was all i had time for.  after he was xfer out of local hospital he awoke at the receiving facility a few hours later and self extubated.  they think he was initially an OD, aspirated and had a laryngospasm resulting in gross amounts of pulmonary edema.   he's now in cardiac and renal failure

Day 3 starts with an agency assist for the removal of a body from a motor home....... hot summer 400 pounder down for at least a week......... lots of flies and lots of maggets and ill leave it at that



Anyways i just needed to vent this somewhere to get this off my chest so i can now enjoy my fathers day with my daughter


Corky


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## Chelle (Jun 21, 2009)

Happy Father's Day, Corky.


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## Second (Jun 21, 2009)

sounds like you need to move. If it was me they'd just call me a s*** magnet, but they do that already so....

sorry its so bad.


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## Ped101 (Jun 22, 2009)

You have my sympathies mate

hang in there!


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## el Murpharino (Jun 22, 2009)

I had a body removal like the one you described...we nicknamed the guy "maggot soup man"...4 years later my partner and I still remember this guy and joke about him on rare occasion.  

Rough couple days man...take a day off if you need it...clear your head.  Enjoy the family time.


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## willbeflight (Jun 22, 2009)

Sorry you have had such a bad week.  Just be thankful every week isn't so crappy.  It gets better!!


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## Melclin (Jun 27, 2009)

Why do you do body removal????? 

Why doesn't the coroner's office (or whatever it is over there) handle it?

That sucks the big one. No way would I be getting my hands covered in maggot poo.

I'd definitely be cracking a sixer of premium after a week like that. My sympathies.


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## DrankTheKoolaid (Jun 27, 2009)

*re*

was a public assist helping the volly FD and coroner's office.  Fairly new coroner tech working and didn't seem to be able to think it through on how to get the remains out of the house.  Lucky for her i worked for the coroner's office for 2 years and my partner that week who is ex LEO with 12 years coroner experience.


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## mycrofft (Jun 27, 2009)

*Yeah , used to do coroner's and funeral home removals too.*

Sometimes you gotta play for points, the wins aren't going to come.

One of our overarching dangers to ourselves in EMS, especially if new and or young, is "too much". Everyone needs to be grounded in affirmative real world activities (volunteer stuff, gardening, livestock, your family, whatever) so you never start thinking of this as the whole world.


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## kittaypie (Jul 4, 2009)

that's a crappy week! my friend just told me about a night where he had two STEMI's, a DOA with severed limbs after a hit-and-run, and a 17-year-old shot in the heart, full arrest and transported 30 mins to the hospital. it seems that crappy calls come all at once and then you get sick people and stubbed toes for the next few months. wish it was more spread out so it would be easier to deal with. personally i've been having normal, boring calls for the past few months but i've had weeks like that where i pretty much just feel like giving up. stay strong! i'm here if you need to talk.


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## usafmedic45 (Jul 4, 2009)

It could always be worse, you could be this guy:[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7K5j1dPRd4[/YOUTUBE]


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## oneluv79 (Jul 4, 2009)

usafmedic45 said:


> It could always be worse, you could be this guy:[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7K5j1dPRd4[/YOUTUBE]




*I wonder how long it took him to get that taste out of his mouth.....lolololol.....sick crazy cat....lol....

oneluv79*


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