What is your worst and best experience as an EMT?

[shfd739]

Best- I've had a front row seat to some pretty neat and Interesting calls and events. My office is never indoors and I get to see the seasons change and I get days off during the week.

Worst- I didn't my act together and played young and dumb for a little too long and now I've paid for it and missed a promotion. I've finally overcome the past though.

 

[medicRob]

Worst- I didn't my act together and played young and dumb for a little too long and now I've paid for it and missed a promotion. I've finally overcome the past though.

That's okay, we all have our demons. When I first started in medicine, I was a cocky little runt who thought he knew somethin about medicine and worse, thought he knew more than the others around him. Over time, I learned humility and how to carry myself. They are not mistakes if you learn from them.

Good luck, buddy!

 

[shfd739]

That's okay, we all have our demons. When I first started in medicine, I was a cocky little runt who thought he knew somethin about medicine and worse, thought he knew more than the others around him. Over time, I learned humility and how to carry myself. They are not mistakes if you learn from them.

Good luck, buddy!

Yep that was me. I was a smart and young medic and I knew it. I played in the gray areas and pushed a few rules. Definitely learned from it along with
having a few patient supervisors that used the screw ups as teaching moments and didn't hammer me for them.

Now that I'm a back up supervisor I do the same thing with my people and also use my experiences to get them not to also learn the hard way. for the most part it works. It's fun to see a new medic I did that with come back with a smile and thank me for looking out for them.

 

[Sasha]

Hmmm lets see...

Worst- getting a call for incontinence. Show up on scene to a lady who hasn't left her hospital bed in over two weeks. The white sheet was drenched in urine and covered in feces. The worst part about this all was that my 3 male partners wouldn't share the vicks!!
2nd Worst- smelling C-Diff for the first time. Nasty stuff.
Best- 6 yo little girl who couldn't breath. She was wide awake but had this horrible loud crowing noise when she breathed. Nobody could figure out what was wrong with her. All I could do was hold her hand while the medics tried to help her. When it came time to fly her, she pointed to me and cried that I couldn't go with her. Come to find out, she had severe epiglottitis and is perfectly healthy today

I'd think the worst part would be that a human being was allowed to sit in their own filth like that.

 

[orange20medic]

I'd think the worst part would be that a human being was allowed to sit in their own filth like that.

Yes... it was very sad. This lady was being taken care of by her 15 year old granddaughter. But she could have and should have called us earlier.

 

[mycrofft]

Worse and worser.

Worse: Helping treat paediatric emergencies (sutures, LP's, etc.) and the little kids promise they'll be good if we stop it.

Worser: being in charge of field support for 800 cohorts, being told support would be by local asets, then finding out on arrival they had no idea and cannot; total for the five days was thirteen cases of some flulike syndrome, and acute MI who was flow home in a cargo aircraft with partial pressurization and without permission, plus various owies and two positional asphyxias (LOC, not dead).
COmmander looks at me, sitting there without any resources, and says "What good are YOU?".

 

[njemtbvol]

Best- holding the baby boy in my arms after a live birth.
worst- being dispatched on 9/11

 

[18G]

Worst - 2 yo girl fell into swimming pool. In arrest when we got there. Child didn't make it.

Best - hmmm... not even sure. Can't really recall any specific call to classify as "best".

 

[usafmedic45]

holding the baby boy in my arms after a live birth.

Speaking as someone who is listed as the "attending physician" on four birth certificates and as one who does not particularly like kids, I've never seen the appeal or why people think it's a wonderful or glorious event. Witnessing a birth is a lot like watching a St. Bernard come in from a rainstorm via a cat door. It's a disgusting and unpleasant event. It still ranks as one of the few things (eye injuries being the other) that makes me nauseous. I've delivered four babies (including one on my birthday while reeking of deer urine; poor kid wound up named after me) and I've managed to only not throw up after the last one of them.

The only positive thing about witnessing a birth is that you realize that whomever espouses the attitude that women are the weaker sex, obviously never watched a woman push out a baby without the benefit of pain control. If men were the ones to carry our progeny, we would have gone extinct long ago or- at very least- anesthesia would have been invented a few thousand years earlier.

 

[bethwx]

i am a rather new paramedic... a few bad experiences with fatalities however I took part in my first successful resuscitation last week.

There truly is no better feeling than reviving someone

 

[abckidsmom]

Worse: Helping treat paediatric emergencies (sutures, LP's, etc.) and the little kids promise they'll be good if we stop it.

This is really heartbreaking. I hate that, too.

Worser: being in charge of field support for 800 cohorts, being told support would be by local asets, then finding out on arrival they had no idea and cannot; total for the five days was thirteen cases of some flulike syndrome, and acute MI who was flow home in a cargo aircraft with partial pressurization and without permission, plus various owies and two positional asphyxias (LOC, not dead).
COmmander looks at me, sitting there without any resources, and says "What good are YOU?".

Dang, he needed to get a life, sounds like a ravishing success, all things considered!

 

[abckidsmom]

Speaking as someone who is listed as the "attending physician" on four birth certificates and as one who does not particularly like kids, I've never seen the appeal or why people think it's a wonderful or glorious event. Witnessing a birth is a lot like watching a St. Bernard come in from a rainstorm via a cat door. It's a disgusting and unpleasant event. It still ranks as one of the few things (eye injuries being the other) that makes me nauseous. I've delivered four babies (including one on my birthday while reeking of deer urine; poor kid wound up named after me) and I've managed to only not throw up after the last one of them.

The only positive thing about witnessing a birth is that you realize that whomever espouses the attitude that women are the weaker sex, obviously never watched a woman push out a baby without the benefit of pain control. If men were the ones to carry our progeny, we would have gone extinct long ago or- at very least- anesthesia would have been invented a few thousand years earlier.

Some people have Mack Trucks, others have fingernail injuries. I just can't handle fingernail injuries. Toenails, too. <shudder>