Prius Attacks Man in Parking Lot

News story

Some people are just lucky I guess. This man gets out of his Prius which is beeping/cussing at him. Mostly likely, that is because he is getting out of the car, and it is still in REVERSE. Something about those electric cars seem to confuse older people when they don't hear the engine running.

Anyway, the older gentleman simply stepped out and the car went to dragging him until it ran into another car. Only problem was that the car door was completely bent forward on his car until it basically touched his front bumper, and it was sitting on his chest.

We arrived to find two bony legs sticking out from between the cars, and the old guy definitely pinned with that car door on his chest. We attempted to move his legs and found that his front tire was sitting on his pants so that his leg was pinned.

We quickly jacked the car up (releasing the pant leg and the weight from his chest). He then brushed himself off and decided he was fine!

Spooky Fire

On a run the other night were the caller was very specific; the flames were about 10 feet high and that was a really big fire in that backyard across the railroad tracks. So we got in our gear, turned on the lights and siren, and got ready for some hero like action.

In the neighborhood where the fire was reported, all was quiet. We slowed down, rolled the windows down to smell for smoke, and started searching. No smoke was wafting on the evening air, and one of the guys comments, "we should be smelling or seeing something by now!" After all, ten foot of flames is hard to hide on a dark evening.

Finally at the described address we sat - wondering where to look next. Then it hit me! The inflated Halloween ghosts decorations in the yard were well lit, waving in the light breeze, and...were about ten feet tall.

I'm in PAIN!

The other day while browsing through a JEMS (Journal of Emergency Medical Service) article about "drug seekers" I found a very humorous list of symptoms/behaviors. Within the medical services, it is common for people to seek narcotics. Often it is because of drug addictions or occasionally, because they can sell the pills on the street for greatly inflated prices. Anyway, I was reading this list of behaviors that ran something like this:
- "I have pain that is a 30 on a scale of 1 to 10"
- "I am allergic to Tylenol, Ibuprofen, aspirin, etc" (all the common non-narcotic drugs)
- "Please give me some ________ (always a very specific narcotic drug)
- "I cannot get in touch with my regular doctor today (it is Saturday and they state the pain started two days ago)"

Not sure if that is a complete list, but you get the idea. Within the hour, we were dispatched to woman complaining of chronic 'hurts all over' pain. She was overly verbal, and spewed a plethora of symptoms, history, and complaints. I suddenly found myself having a hard time not laughing as I realized she was basically going down the list I had just read. As I moved outside to get the gurney I noticed her car as being perfectly capable of transporting her down to the ER for her pain medication. As I looked closer I saw what I thought was the typical white outlines of the family, kids, dogs, etc. but in this case it was the universal pain scale.


All I can say, this woman seemed to have taken the concept of pain and turned it into a lifestyle.

Grumbling

Sometimes it is a little hard not to grumble when we get dispatched to the Alzheimer's ward for the fourth time in a shift. Usually, the complaint is confusion or chest pain or back ache or something else that the patient, CNA, or other disinterested by-standers have a hard time describing. In most cases, we get called late at night for something that has been an on-going problem for several hours or even days.

So when we were dispatched once again to a chest pain call - I was grumbling. It was late in the evening, the location was the same old place we had been responding to all day. As we went en route, we got a bit more information - the patient was a 39 year-old female and had just walked in off the street, smelling of alcohol. This elicited and whole new line of grumbling and complaining as this was sorting out to be a transient who probably just wanted a warm place to sleep for the night.

Once we arrived, the grumbling stopped (at least the verbal part) even though one of the first things we discovered was that she had anxiety problems, for which she was taking medication. At least that made sense, because she did appear anxious.

But then, even though there was a bit of alcohol odor, she was not intoxicated, was clean, articulate, healthy, etc. About this time, I was thinking we might have miss-judged the situation. A quick EKG and it was confirmed. At a heart rate of over 180, she was quickly headed towards complete cardiac failure and death. The grumbling suddenly was ancient history as we started an IV, delivered Adenosine, momentarily freaked her out completely as the medication stopped her heart for about 2 or 3 seconds, and then we all (especially the patient) breathed a bit sigh of relief as her heart rate returned to normal and she was fine.

Oops...

Every now and then, we get a bit caught up the moment when it comes to fires. Even with years of experience, there is a sense of urgency when people's lives and property are at stake. So when two well-experienced officers responded to a house fire, the only real unusual thing was that both were on a medic unit due to an rare overtime scheduling issue.

Since they were out and about on the streets the time of the call, they arrived ahead of the engine. It was obvious to them that there was a large volume of smoke to the rear of the house. They quickly donned their gear and radioed the first in engine that they were ready to make things happen as soon as they could get a hose line.

As the engine arrived, there was a flurry of activity and a charge to the front door. One of the previously mentioned officers banged on the door, checked to see if it was locked, and then turned and "mule kicked" the door nearly off it's hinges.

This turned out to be fairly disturbing to the little old couple sitting watching television in the same room. It also became rapidly apparent that that smoke was actually steam from the dryer vent due to the unusually cold and moist weather.

Like the title says...ooops!

Dark and Stormy Night

Tonight it raining hard and most people are safe at home watching football. Then there are exceptions like the woman who called 911 three times within the hour. First, she reported a man with a broken neck on the bike path. Of course, that is pretty unlikely, but we still had to spend twenty minutes hiking down the path in the driving rain. The second time she called, she reported that the man was now floating face down in the canal. That too is bad, so we spend thirty minutes slogging through the wet grass and frightening the sleepy ducks. We then looked for the caller with no success.

On returning to the station, I decided to walk over to the dispatch center and see what else I could find out or probably to be more honest...make sure that they knew that this was a police problem and NOT a fire department problem.

In dispatch, I found the staff discussing that the police had found the "body". He was walking around in Taco Bell and the woman who kept calling was looking for him in Shari's Restaurant. Truly...it WAS a police problem.

Career Firsts

After almost 20 years as a firefighter, I often feel that most of the calls we run are so routine as to almost be boring most days. So it was quite a shock to find that I have had four "never before in my career" experiences in about one week.

It all started with the horse being ejected from the trailer (see last post). Then the weirdness continued...

#2 - We have always said that if you have a panic attack, start hyperventilating, and do nothing to correct the situation, eventually you will pass out and your body will correct the problem for you. Well, that had been somewhat theoretical in my mind up to the point we were dispatched to a 24 year old woman who actually breathed so rapidly for so long that she did pass out. All was well as her body "rested" and was allowing the carbon dioxide levels to built up to a normal level. Of course, while this was happening, her body had no desire to breath...so the husband called 911, received CPR instruction, and started crunching on her chest. We arrived just in time to have her somewhat wake up only to get startled by the firefighters and the pain in chest. This caused the panic, rapid breathing, passing out, etc. for another cycle or two until she finally calmed down and was transported for a bruised chest.

#3 - While working at the airport station, life is mostly a slow, somewhat boring routine. At least, usually it is that way. On occasion, we are tapped out on time trials, which consist of dashing out with our truck, spraying some water, and satisfying the FAA requirements. When the tones went off last week, it was one of the time trials again...or so I thought. Actually, it was a small airplane with its engine on fire. Although it was a fairly small fire and I was able to put it out with a hand extinguisher, it was one of those calls that most people go their whole careers without actually having an aircraft fire.

#4 - They say things come in groups of three. With that in mind, I would have preferred not to add this one to the list of career firsts. It all started with a routine respiratory distress call. As the house was rather cluttered, I was crouched down by the couch, sorting through the patient's medications, and typing up the report on the laptop. All was going well until someone opened the back door. Suddenly there was a small bulldog prancing on my keyboard and barking in my face. I immediately closed the lid on the laptop to protect the keys, just in time to have a family member reach over the couch to grab the dog. Apparently, this was like squeezing a lemon because the dog promptly urinated all over my paperwork, clipboard, and everything else in the vicinity. Like I said, could have gone the rest of my career with out this particular experience!