My partner and I were called to a female having a seizure. Get to the scene and stand there looking up at a mobile home sitting on top of about an eight foot high foundation (we don't have floods here!) with the steepest skinniest stairs that God ever allowed to be made. We lug everything up and go thru a dark living room to find this sweet 47 year old woman sitting in a chair and looking up at us. I say hello, all the regular stuff we all say and she starts signing to me. Well, I have taken Chinese, French, Spanish, German, Greek, Hebrew, and Swedish, but no sign-unless you count the universal "you're number one!" so look at grown son to ask for translation. As he is telling me his mom is deaf-mute, her also deaf-mute husband is holding her half eaten plate of food up to me as if to say the food caused the seizure. Quick exam rules out sz but is most definitely pointing at stroke. Facial droop, arm drift, the whole nine yards. I walk back outside and call the doc at the er for permission to fly her to facility better equipped for handling strokes, per our protocol, and permission is denied by the a**hole he is. Forty seconds later, another er doc comes back over the radio and says fly her! I radio my captain to get an lz set up and try to get thru to dispatch for fire dept lift assist. The stairs are a brute!!!
Once we get to the lz, I am working on getting a second line and I hear my captain outside yelling in disbelief about another nineteen minutes till the bird gets to us. I know instantly that we are going by ground, we are losing too much time and our window for successful intervention is rapidly closing. We take off code three, with the grown son in back with me to interpret for her. Between the three of us, I am able to get the fact that she really has no medical history and that before today, her hearing and speaking impairments were her only issues. Quiet ride, and we are still twenty minutes out from the hospital when she signs to her son. I look to him and he tells me that her chest hurts and feels like it is being squeezed! Swell!! Life is wonderful. Can't give ASA, don't know if stroke is hemorrhagic or ischemic. 12-lead shows acute anterolateral MI. Recall hospital with NEW report-go to Chest Pain Center now when we get there. Morphine denied. Nitro ok. Get her sweet self to the CPC and get her over to the bed. 12-lead is still impressive. Husband and other two sons have also arrived. The son that rode with us is the only one in the family able to communicate. The nurses are hooking her up to their equipment, my partner, bless his heart, has gone back to the truck to put it back together, and I am standing outside her door giving my report and showing ekgs to the doc when all of a sudden we hear all this (excuse my political incorrectness here) squealing and squeaking from the room. Doc and I rush in and find the precious thing is now having a grand mal seizure!! Enough for this chick---I get while the getting is good!
Once we get to the lz, I am working on getting a second line and I hear my captain outside yelling in disbelief about another nineteen minutes till the bird gets to us. I know instantly that we are going by ground, we are losing too much time and our window for successful intervention is rapidly closing. We take off code three, with the grown son in back with me to interpret for her. Between the three of us, I am able to get the fact that she really has no medical history and that before today, her hearing and speaking impairments were her only issues. Quiet ride, and we are still twenty minutes out from the hospital when she signs to her son. I look to him and he tells me that her chest hurts and feels like it is being squeezed! Swell!! Life is wonderful. Can't give ASA, don't know if stroke is hemorrhagic or ischemic. 12-lead shows acute anterolateral MI. Recall hospital with NEW report-go to Chest Pain Center now when we get there. Morphine denied. Nitro ok. Get her sweet self to the CPC and get her over to the bed. 12-lead is still impressive. Husband and other two sons have also arrived. The son that rode with us is the only one in the family able to communicate. The nurses are hooking her up to their equipment, my partner, bless his heart, has gone back to the truck to put it back together, and I am standing outside her door giving my report and showing ekgs to the doc when all of a sudden we hear all this (excuse my political incorrectness here) squealing and squeaking from the room. Doc and I rush in and find the precious thing is now having a grand mal seizure!! Enough for this chick---I get while the getting is good!
