1st lost life.

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Cancooler

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I know as EMT's you can't save everyone. I know this. I also know that in most areas once an EMT gets the pt to the hosp. that is it. Care, Transport, hand-off and forget. I am a volunteer in a small community. The forget part is tough when you know everyone and everyone knows you or atleast your family.

Went on a call last week to a man that fell down the stairs. Our emt team did a great job on this call. Everything went the way it should as far as teamwork, communication, packaging and enroute care. Found out today that he didn't make it. And it came up in routine conversation with my dad. He told me that a guy on his bowling team had died. I asked who, and he told me the guys name. I just said ":censored::censored::censored::censored:, that sucks". Can't go into details with my dad about a call. Is there a way to stop me from thinking "what else could we have done?" And "did we do everything that we possibly could have done." I am very lucky. I have not seen any major crashes or DOA's. So this has shocked me a bit.
 
You will get used to it. You will see alot of people die its the nature of the beast. Strong support, recognise the signs that something may be bothering you a little too much and realize it isnt a weakness to talk about feelings or thoughts you cant shake, left alone these things can eat you up inside.

Your feelings are normal, everyone goes through it starting out.

You will be fine.

Good luck.
 
I'm not entirely sure that you want to completely get rid of that "What could I have done differently" question. When I critique myself, or other EMT's after a call, I always approach it with the attitude that we could have done something better or different. For me, it is one of the ways I make sure I never stop learning and never stop trying to improve myself and the care I give to my patients.
 
ffemt8978 said:
I'm not entirely sure that you want to completely get rid of that "What could I have done differently" question. When I critique myself, or other EMT's after a call, I always approach it with the attitude that we could have done something better or different. For me, it is one of the ways I make sure I never stop learning and never stop trying to improve myself and the care I give to my patients.
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Agreed.

I assumed he was second guessing him/herself as far as what more could have been done to save this person, which I believe can become detrimental.
 
Maybe this is a silly question, but are you sure he died from the fall and not something totally unrelated?
 
I think it's pretty important to critique yourself after a call and see what you could had and would had done different.
In this case, talk to your fellow EMT partners and see what they say. If you need counseling, go to it! It will help a lot!
 
Do yourself a favor and contact your chief and ask what resources are available to you after a tough call. Just the fact that you personally knew the individual complicates the situation emotionally. My first death I didn't know the guy and it was still odd, surreal and wrought with "what ifs" What if I found the BVM faster? What if I packaged quicker instead of my glove getting stuck on the carpet? What if the medic pushed one more atropine? The fact is, that it went relatively smoothly, that my lapses were mere seconds and I did the best I could. Those first few days post incident however had me somewhat in an odd state. I still dream about it sometimes and it wasn't all that traumatic. Your unit should have support in place to help you get through the emotional part. My condolances at the loss of losing someone you knew, but you did the best you could.
 
Aidey said:
Maybe this is a silly question, but are you sure he died from the fall and not something totally unrelated?
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Far from a silly question. Many precipitating factors could be in play, such as arrhythmias or stroke (ischemic /hemorrhagic) that have progressed past the point of interventional reversibility.

Many people, who died before or after getting to definitive care, were more than likely going to die anyway... you just happen to be there to witness it (or hear about it after the fact).

Try not to qualify (quantify?) your patient contacts in terms of saves vs. loses, and don't take death personally.
 
I’ll give you some advice my dad gave me when I started out. My dad is a retired medic and my mom is a nurse so they have dealt with plenty of death and bad situations. When moving to Florida my dad and I witnessed a roll over involving kids. We were the first to help out and my dad ended up commanding the scene because the medics that showed up were inexperience or just sucked. We never found out why they were so shell shocked. We ended up loosing a PT and it was my first death I experienced ever in life. I did CPR on this lady gave rescue breaths helped with IV (I hadn’t even start emt school) I felt a little down because I felt like we could have done more to save this lady.

My dad told me that we did and the medics/emt's did there best too(the ones that actually helped). He told me to remind my self that I did not put this lady in the situation she was in. That I actually helped her and didn’t just stand there like other people did. For some reason this clicked and it made me want to pursue a career in EMS.

You guys did a good job don’t dwell on it. Depending on your faith it will never be your choice if the person lives or dies. I’ve found you can do the one thing to a person and they will live and then you can do the same thing to a person just like the other and they will die.

I’ve yet to see a toddler or an infant die and I can imagine it being worse especially since I have kids. But eventually seeing DOA's or other people die in you hands becomes a little and I do mean a little bit easier once you realize you did not kill them. Another trick is not to call the hospital to see if someone made it or not saves can be very rare and you usually know the outcome before you drop them off.

Anyways good luck and everything will be ok
 
When you run a call you do a quick review in your mind and with your partner. Learn from it, then leave that call behind. Death is death whether an infant, an old person, a friend, or a family member. You can not linger or it will ruin your career. Sorry if it sounds cold.
 
Cancooler,
Without knowing you personally I'm hesitant to offer advice except not all things are within our control. Call it God or fate whatever but, some of our pt.s will be broken beyond what current medical science can fix, be it cardiac ischemia, massive trauma or what have you. . Took me awhile to accept this too but after 15 years or so of being a Nurse and EMT I've seen more people die than I can or care to remember and still remember my first code, not in a bad way but looking back I did all I could but sometimes dead is dead. Beat yourself up for a bit if you want but just do your best for the pt. and you can't go too far wrong, and learn to accept that dying is part of our experience of being human.
 
Aidey said:
Maybe this is a silly question, but are you sure he died from the fall and not something totally unrelated?
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It really doesn't matter. The OP didn't push him down the stairs. I hope he didn't anyway. :P
 
Level I

Cancooler said:
Is there a way to stop me from thinking "what else could we have done?"
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Probably not.

That's fairly typical, to ask yourself unanswerable questions for a while. What actually happens is they fade away, usually get less severe or accusatory and you end up coming to the same conclusion, "I did what I could at the time!"

Beyond that, you're the one who has the choice as to how long you'll suffer while agonizing over the unanswerable.
 
When it is their time, it is their time. We do our best to cheat death and for the most part are pretty good at it. There will be those calls where the patient gets everything but the kitchen sink thrown at them and it still didn't matter.

I agree that it sounds like in your situation, the patient had something underlying and the fall wasn't necessarily what killed em.
 
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