A Belated Merry Xmas

Hi folks...
Apologies for not posting in a little while.
I took a break over Christmas.
It was brilliant. My two girls opened their presents with gusto and were delighted.
My twin boys had there first Christmas.
They opened their presents (with a little help) and proceded to eat the wrapping paper!
I tried to convince my Wife that the boys were NOT too young (they're 10 months) to get a scalectrix set, train set and something that blows something up!
But I lost.

Anyway, 2 days after Christmas, I caught a plane to go to work.
Away form the family for three weeks. :-(
I'm currently doing a stint on a mine site as the site Paramedic. It gives me a break from working in the metro area in an ambulance. Things are quiet, but thats how I like it.

My New Years Resolution........to blog a lot more often.

Merry Xmas everyone.

This job sucks.

I had just finished my initial training and was well on my way to becoming a Paramedic. It was time to go out on the road with my tutor.
My first day.
I had checked the ambulance to the 'n'th degree. The selcall (alarm) sounded. Prority one was the call (lights and siren).
We had been called to a house with a child who was 'post immersion'. My adrenaline started to flow. Pulse rate just about doubled.
On the way I kept thinking.."post immersion..was was that again. Ah yes, drowning."
Then it hit me. Noooo. I don't want to do a drowning on my first day. It must be a mistake. I was a student. Give me another job..anything..just not a drowning.
I must have turned a lighter shade of pale. My partner asked if I was ok.
I said "sure".
We arrived at the house with a frantic Father screaming at us.
We were led into the house where a little child was lying on the carpet.
They had got the kid out of the pool and brought him inside.
Not breathing, no pulse, pupils fixed and dilated.......this was not good.
We commenced CPR and continued with our cardiac arrest regime.
My mouth was dry and I felt like crap.
This was not supposed to happen on my first day.
Why not ease me into the job slowly.
We got the poor little child into the ambulance.
My partner said he would get in the back with the child.
Great, I thought. Now I wouldn't have to look at the Mother whilst I worked on her child.
I got in the drivers seat just as the Father jumped in the passenger side.
What do I say to him? What can I say?
I didn't need to say anything. He just kept grabbing at me and pleaded with me to save his son.
That was the longest 5 minutes of my life.
We arrived at the Hospital.
We rushed through to the 'resus' area and the Doctors' and Nurses started their work.
A nurse then asked me how long the child had been under water. A seemingly innocuous question, but it was enough to tip me over.
Tears welled in my eyes and I cried uncontrollably.
I hated this damn job. Being a Paramedic sucked!
I spoke with my partner and eventually calmed down.
The poor little tike didn't survive.
I went home that evening and my Wife asked how my first day went.
Here I go again. Tears, crying, hate the job.
I gave my kids slightly longer hugs that night.
I didn't sleep well.
I couldn't get the face of the little kid out of my mind.
I was very close to quitting my job.
That was years ago and I sometimes still see the boy's face.
I often wonder how the family is going.

Weekends and Alcohol

Well another weekend is coming to an end.
I pulled two nightshifts.
Nightshifts and weekends mean one thing....alcohol and drugs.
I guess 75% of our work involves one or the other.
Its not just the "unconscious" (meaning very drunk) patients we have to deal with, but the intoxicated bystanders/friends.
They all have a story to tell you but unfortunately they all want to say it at the SAME time!
Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with having a good time, but we need to draw the line somewhere. But getting legless and lying in your own vomit is probably stepping over that line. So I promise I won't do it again! :-)

Pot of Glue

Someone had fallen off a horse...so off we went.
We arrived at our destination and were met by a young girl who said her father had fallen off his horse.
He was about 200metres away and as it was thick bush, we were unable to take the ambulance.
We got the equipment out of the ambulance that we thought we would need and started along a well worn track.
When we got to the patient, he was lying on the ground complaining of pain in his thoracic and lumbar areas.
A rather sheepish horse was "hiding" behind a tree about 10 metres away.
The patient told us that his horse had spooked and he had fallen off onto his back. His legs were flexed back so that his ankles were either side of his head. At that moment, his horse had fallen on top of him...yowch!
I checked the patient out. He didn't seem to have any neuro defecits (numbness,tingling, loss of senstaion, etc.), so we started to manoeuvre the scoop stretcher under him.
At this point, the patient insisted that he could walk.
I was adamant that he didn't move. After all, he had a horse fall on him while he had his legs flexed back. The chances of him having sustained some serious injury was pretty high.
He then asked where his horse was. "Its behind the tree" I said.
"No wonder he's bloody hiding" he said. "I would too, when it realizes what I'm going to do to it!"
As he looked at the horse, I'm sure he saw a large pot of glue.
Later we found that the paient had fractured several vertebrae in is back.
I feel sorry for the horse when the patient gets out of hospital.