Raisin Runs

We have been doing a lot of "raisin runs" lately. For those that are not in the business, "raisin runs" at a "raisin ranch" is our colorful description of those of the geriatric persuasion. This crowd tends to occupy a lot of our time, and not always because of anything close to an emergency. Somehow we have convinced the public that 911 is a on-size-fits-all for any problem, even if that problem is loneliness.

One of the newer ways that people have come to demand our services is when some poor little old lady trips and falls. Now, in many cases, she is not hurt and would gladly get up and go her way. But then in rushes the do-gooder crowd of senile cohorts that somehow got the message that it could be BAD if she got up and toddled off. So they force the poor shivering lady to lay on the cold concrete with rain soaking up her Depends while they wait for us to arrive. Once we get there, she normally says something like, "can I just get up now?" And usually, other than a mild case of hypothermia, she is fine with only minor bumps and bruises.

Unhealthy Living

Ran a rather interesting call on a 57 year old female the other day. Apparently, she had a history of back pain, and was known to use her pain medications rather liberally. That being bad enough, she also seemed to have a problem with mixing alcohol with those medications. This is a fairly common scenario and we often find people with a depressed respiratory drive and a decreased level of consciousness (LOC).

That was about the description we had rolling on this call where the woman appeared to be sleeping, but they could not wake her. On our arrival, we found her breathing at about 4 times a minute and with a heart rate of about 38. Those vital signs, being very marginal, prompted us to attempt to improve her breathing and heartrate. We also noticed that her arms, legs, and even head were cold to the touch in a normally heated room. As we began giving oxygen and starting an IV, her heart rate and respirations drastically improved to the point of being well within the normal range. With a lot of effort, due to the significant weight of the patient, we moved her to the ambulance and began transport.

Within a very short time, she suddenly took a turn for the worse, and basically died enroute to the hospital. In trying to analyze what happened, I worked up the hypothesis that this was probably caused by something we call "compartment syndrome". This occurs when a person is trapped and lose circulation to a significant part of their body such was a tree falling across the waist and leaving the legs without circulation for a period of time. When the person is "rescued" the blood that was stagnant in the lower extremities is introduced suddenly back into the body and death occurs. I concluded that this might have been the same scenario because of the lack of profusion with the obese woman just lying on her bed. Please feel free to post any comments you might have had with a similar case or just attempt to prove me either correct or wrong!

Real Stories of Real Characters

Two guys were trying some sort of process with illegal drugs. Apparently the process involved butane (flammable gas) and a pressure vessel. While working on the process, they decided to take a break and smoke (presumably some of their product). The fact they chose to combine the process of flammable gas and an ignition source is probably a testimony to the declining cognitive powers of those using illegal drugs. Anyway, the resulting explosion put both of them in the burn ward and burned down a significant part of their house.

Late in the evening, we were dispatched to a chest pain call in a working-class neighborhood. We were somewhat surprised to find a very well dressed middle-aged woman sitting on the steps of a house. It was apparent that she was very stressed and was having a hard time talking while catching her breath. She handed us an engraved calling card that indicated that she lived in California. When asked why she was having chest pain, she stated that she had been running (in heels and a smart business suit). That of course, led to "why were you running?" Apparently, she was in town to visit her sister, had been in a taxi, and that is when things got weird. The taxi driver (likely a relative of the guys above) seemed to be having a psychotic episode that included yelling and screaming, jumping curbs, and sliding corners. When the poor lady begged to be let out, he gave her a chance to make her getaway. She then "ran for her life" ended up on a stranger's porch and was having chest pain.

Note to self: avoid the taxi where is driver is talking to an invisible person without the benefit of a cell phone or radio...

Lots of Characters

People are interesting... we were driving back to the station today and saw a column of black smoke coming from a house. We immediately went into emergency mode and went to fight the fire. Only problem - it was a couple of intellectually challenged guys burning trash in their fireplace. Not only was it a warm day, but they were burning (illegally) some really nasty plastic junk. I am not sure really why, but it is common for people to burn things in order to not pay for garbage service. Really seems to make the neighbors angry.

Then of course there is the wise man who thought he would dispose of his Christmas tree by burning it in the fire place. The tree (being a tree of usual Christmas tree size) did not exactly fit neatly into the fireplace. The simple solution, stick the tip in, wait for that to burn off, and then advance the tree on into the fireplace. Theoretically, it could work, but not with a tinder-dry Christmas tree. It promptly detonated into a raging fireball, set the room of fire, and sent the frugal tree-disposer to the hospital.

Access to Healthcare

One of the on-going issues in my profession is the utilization of emergency services for mundane issues and minor health-related concerns. For example, I have had numerous requests for ambulance transport because the patient had visited their regular doctor, but since the patient didn't like what they heard, they wanted to get a second opinion from the ER doctor. Of course, they wrongly assumed that if they took an ambulance to the ER, they would get to move to the front of the line for treatment. Usually, this "treatment" is no more than a slight adjustment of the amount of a hypertension medication or some other similarly minor tweak in their treatment.

A parallel problem is trying to get access to a doctor to deal with these issues. It is obvious that a patient with on-going health problems really should be talking with their regular doctor. This brings us to one of our 'frequent flyer' patients. "Mary" was an elderly diabetic who lived with her 3 cats, bowls of candy, eclectic music collection, and her paranoia. She frequently called to request transport because she was tired, ran out of medication, was having a bad day, etc. One day about about 2 PM we were dispatched to her apartment because of "shaking". Once we arrived, she explained that the doctor had given her a new prescription (to add to the dozen or so she currently took) and it made her feel "funny". Because of that horrible reaction, she stopped taking ALL of her medications. Now after about 6 hours with no medication, she was not feeling quite right.

It was obvious that we were going to recommend she resumed her usual dosages of her medications and likely the symptoms would go away. Just to be on the safe side, I decided to call her doctor who practiced at a large nearby clinic. I picked up her phone, dialed the number, and was surprised to hear, "...the number you are calling is not accepting calls at this time". Since it was the middle of the day and this was a multi-office clinic, I felt I must have mis-dialed. I repeated with the same results. On a whim, I grabbed my cell phone and dialed the same number. It was answered on the first ring, and within 10 seconds I was on the line with the doctor who did not need any help in recalling this particular patient. He agreed with our plan and recommended that we should not transport.

Once we were on the road back to the station, I suddenly realized - the doctor had blocked her number!

I am not sure what to conclude from this, but some days I wish the 911 system could block a few more numbers.

Actual reasons for 911 dispatch from my own experience:

• my cat is sick and I am afraid I will catch whatever they have
• I burned my finger lighting a match and now the grocery store is closed and I can't buy any ice for my finger
• I heard a noise - I think it was a car
• while driving to the ER, three blocks away - I got sick and vomited, now I need an ambulance to transport me the rest of the way (nausea and vomiting had stopped by the time of our arrival)
• roof fire (sun warming up the frost on the roof)
• "the doctor said I should get my blood pressure checked"
• I can't afford a taxi - can you take me to the next town?

And many more...

An Honor...I Think

Found out today that my crew and I had our picture published in a magazine. It was kind of a nice story about a couple of boys (one of which was blind) that came home and thought their house was on fire. They called their dad on the cell phone and he called 911. When we arrived, we found that an attic vent fan had started an attic fire. We were able to crawl up into the attic and put the fire out with minimal damage to the house. It turned out that he was a magazine publisher and asked if he could take our picture since we saved his whole home/office based business from going up in smoke. He took the picture with the boys and then published it (the photo is scanned from the magazine). Unlike the caption indicates, I am am the one in with the red helmet and not Jon the firefighter who actually did all the hard work in a very hot attic on a very hot day.

Well, today we got our copies of the magazine which is called Traditional Lowriding a features a lot of show cars and SoCal pictures of the lowrider scene. Only problem I have is that the issue we received featured a lot of very very scantily clad females draping themselves over the cars.

So, although it was an honor to get our picture published, it is not likely that I can show it around to say...my mother?

Why Did You Call?

We have had a rash of weird reasons for calling the emergency 911 system recently. Actually, it is an on-going problem and a woman was recently prosecuted for calling 911 to have a police officer come to her house because she thought he was "cute". Some of the not-so-cute calls we had in the last few days were:

• Emergency response for a headache - admittedly, the so-called patient thought that if he would not have drank some much beer, he would not have the headache.
• Complaint of allergic reaction to medication - but on our arrival the complaint changed to "hurting all over". Somehow the patient decided he was now "allergic" to his anti-psychotic medication that he had been taking (and doing quite well) for about 6 months. He suddenly decided he was allergic and stopped his medication. Surprisingly enough, he was having significant issues with paranoia and anxiety.
• Code 3 emergency response for an overdose because a lady thought the prescribed single pill of Vicodin was not doing the trick and took two. Never mind that the last time she had the same prescription, the label said "take one or two every four hours."

I have to keep reminding myself, just because it does not appear to be an "emergency" to me, it still might seem that way to the person calling 911...