Saturday, July 2, 2011

Rapid Triage and Friday Night Dance Party


A giant walked up the ambulance bay, flanked by 4 nervous-looking officers whose heads only reached the man's shoulders. He was smoking something, but thank goodness he was clinically sober. He didn't need to hop onto the stretcher at its full height, just bent his legs and sat down. The thing was higher than my natural waist. He also had to duck his head to come into our ambulance bay. Later, someone asked- he was 7'2"-7'4" plus 8" of fro. That was a lot of basketball potential, once upon a time.

Then we had 5 drunks in a row. One of them breathalyzed .413. My personal record breathalyzing a patient was .530. Keep going, sir, but you win for this evening.

People just kept pouring in. At one point, we had 6 people lined up on EMT stretchers with no space to go between them to take vital signs. The waiting room was filling up, and nurses from other sections kept trying to commandeer me to do things for them.

Someone changed my name on the assignment sheet again; I clearly saw someone else wrote my name in the drunk tank. I told charge, but she couldn't do anything about it- so ironically, without a dinner break of my own, I was feeding drunks who snapped their fingers at me and demanded food, then sneered at what I gave them. What entitled homeless bastards.

The mad urinator from last night was back. He pee'd himself again and stripped naked as the day he was born. We gave him paper scrubs so he could be on his way. I stopped him at the door, though, because he was carrying a restraint bag like a purse; he sighed, emptied it into his plastic patient belongings bag and walked out. Yup, nice try, but I caught you.

Everyone else back there was pretty much good-natured, except for the pretender. He came in, eyed me up and down, then suddenly yelled,

"Owwwwwwwwwwww! Owwwwww!! My appendix! My lung! My esophagus! Owwwwwww!"
He looked at me hopefully, then sighed, plopped on his side, and went to sleep. Apparently he faked a few seizures earlier.

Makes me wonder what happened to the singer... he was on visit 400something, but has since stopped coming in. Maybe for the best.

S


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