Trying to Help

It is very common to get dispatched to respiratory distress. For some reason, this is the "catch-all" term that is used to describe everything from traumatic murder victims to someone with left toe pain (on-going for the past 3 days). Then on very rare occasions, we actually have someone gasping for air, circling the drain, or otherwise failing to properly use oxygen.

So with nearly every medical call being dispatched as respiratory distress and most if not all, being false alarms, it is very easy to become a bit jaded and suspect of the patients when we arrive.

On one occasion, after being dispatched to a "respiratory distress" we found a very large woman sitting in a chair in no obvious distress. The questioning continued as we began taking vitals (all normal of course). Typical of a scene like this, there is always at least one family member, concerned friend, or casual passer-by that has all the answers, knows exactly what is wrong, and is shocked that we with all our training and equipment, do not agree with their obviously superior diagnosis of the patient.

So initially, the old duffer in the corner was ignored as he seemingly wanted to weigh in on the proceedings. Eventually, one of the crew managed to pay enough attention to realize he was actually in respiratory distress as he croked, "hey....you are...gasp gasp....standing...gasp...on my ...gasp...oxygen......supply tube...gasp".

Well, at least we now had a legitimate respiratory distress patient that we could easily help!