Right now, I'm an EMT-I going through medic school. I do a ton of time with a local volunteer service. Extremely busy, Since June I've gone on 370 calls, and transported 225 patients to the local ER. The other day I did a 12 hour shift with the local county ambulance for some of my school ride time. It wasn't real busy, we did 7 runs, 5 patients. After that one I jumped on my volunteer ambulance with my driver, we did another 9 runs, and transported 5 patients. After our last patient another medic unit bought a code into the ER. Like we usually do, we jumped in the middle to help out. After it was all said and done, we got back in our rig and signed out for the day. We got about a block from the hospital, stopped at a red light, the whole time down the street my partner was talking about the "bug lady" we brought in. (that's another story). We're sitting at the light, I got the laptop in my lap, finishing up one of our charts, and I notice the ambulance is rolling slowly. I look over in the drivers seat, and my partner is having some sort of seizure. Luckily the light had changed, and we were rolling across a 6 lane road at about 2mph. We were going straight across, I could see both of my partners feet behind the brake pedal, so I reached down and turned all the lights on, kept my hand against his chest to keep him in the seat, and let us roll all the way across the road. Once we got across, I knocked it into park to stop us, and jumped out to run around the other side. On my way out I got on the radio and called dispatch, told them to send a medic unit this way. I got the drivers door open and he was just about out of it by then. He would look at me when I yelled his name, but you could tell he still wasn't with it. All of a sudden he got this wild look in his eye, bulled his way past me, and tried to take off across the road. By now the light had changed back and there was 6 lanes of traffic going by. So I did the only thing I could think of, I chased him down and tackled him before he could get slammed by a truck. I got him up, walked him over to our back bumper and sat him down. He still was out of it, couldn't talk, but would sit there. About that time the fire truck shows up, about 3 secs later here comes the medic unit. WE threw him in the back, put him on the monitor. The vitals I remember were sinus tach @ 178, and a BP of 165/95. he started getting that look in his eye again, so they threw him in the back of the medic bus, and drove the 1/4 mile to the ER. Turns out he is taking Dilantin, didn't take his meds that day, and we didn't really eat or drink anything on that shift. To top it all off, when I tackled him, I broke his shoulder.
my biggest question, Should I ever let him drive again??? The docs say if he stays on his meds, and keeps hydrated, it shouldn't happen again. Luckily it happened while sitting at a light, not running code 3, with me and a patient in the back. I could just imagine the looks on the peoples faces as they saw me chase him down the street, tackle him, and drag him back to the ambulance. It is a real busy intersection. We might be youtube stars in the near future.
my biggest question, Should I ever let him drive again??? The docs say if he stays on his meds, and keeps hydrated, it shouldn't happen again. Luckily it happened while sitting at a light, not running code 3, with me and a patient in the back. I could just imagine the looks on the peoples faces as they saw me chase him down the street, tackle him, and drag him back to the ambulance. It is a real busy intersection. We might be youtube stars in the near future.
