Boring for you, great experience for me…

The call below is standard boring stuff for those of you with EMS experience, but for me it was exciting as I got to run the call, it was a call that should have been ALS but we had no ALS, and I got to write the PCR (patient care report).

Pager went off last night at 2350 with a 90 female with chest pain. The address sounded real familiar. As I stumble out of bed I realize the address means that the patient is likely the landlord of one of our medics. I assume at this point she has ALS real quick (i.e., our medic is home and walked down the stairs in hope of a free months rent).

At the station I see one of our EMTs getting the rig out. She is the chief’s wife and was driving home from work (she is an RN) when her husband calls her on the cell and asks her to go on the call. He shows up a couple of minutes later and we are off with a crew of three (the chief and his wife, both EMTs, and myself). On the way there they tell me I need to run the call. I ask where ALS is and they tell me we have no ALS tonight and it will be good practice for me to deal with this common occurrence.

Nothing really eventful going on with the patient. Pulse was 60 and regular (pacemaker), BP 120/70, respiratory rate 22 and regular (little high, but she had neighbors, three firefighters and three ambulance workers in her small bedroom), skin warm/pink/dry, and she is alert and oriented X 3 . She denied pain radiation, nausea or vomiting, loss of consciousness, tingling or numbness and difficulty breathing. Supplemental O2 via NRB brought considerable pain relief. We didn’t mess around at the scene and made it to the hospital in 2 minutes. “Resource” (medical control) handled my report just fine and didn’t skip a beat when identified myself by ambulance (usually one says “This is EMT ”, but I am not about to make that statement until it is true so I said “This is ”.

Going over the call with the others they claimed they wouldn’t do anything differently than I did. This whole event went as well as I could have hoped. I know I am not ready to really run a call without experienced oversight, but I am getting closer!