The concept of triage

Didnt even get through drug checks before getting a call for a difficulty breathing. Enroute was upgraded to airway obstruction, then to CPR in progress. Arrive to find a naked guy blue, and I mean dark blue, nipple line up. There was no CPR in progress and the people staying in the house couldn't even give us his name. Started working him on a filthy floor with no room to work. But that's not unusual. Worked the code.. cops found drugs in the living room... was preparing to call him and Bam! What do ya know... V-Fib. Had a rhythm for about 2 minutes. Lost it, got v-fib again and got a good perfusing rhythm back. Neurologically its a good bet to say that he wont be joining us for dinner anytime soon... but .. you just never know. I've seen worse patients make liars out of all of us. He maintained a good pressure all the way in.

Partner and I swapped throughout the tour. We ran a 9yr old with a deformed arm after crashing at the roller rink. He took the needle like a champ and the morphine knocked him out.

Did a call for a chest pain but turned into bladder pain when we got there. No basic squads were available so we took him in. He wanted to go to one of the furthest hospitals away, but, its his choice. He says his belly hurts, has been able to urinate fine and is just an all around cranky elderly man. "Just take me in or leave me alone, stop asking me all these questions!" Its my turn to drive and I'm laughing listening to this guy giving my partner all kinds of grief. We get to the ER and they send him to triage. He will have none of this. Demands that we take him somewhere else or take him home, neither of which we're doing. So my partner doesn't stroke out, I play buffer and lay it out for the guy. Choice 1: you can sit here in triage like everyone else who also has an emergency that is not life threatening or Choice 2: you can walk out of this hospital and walk to a pay phone and call 911 again. He was furious over the audacity of an ER to implement triage when he called 911 and since when did they start this triage stuff! We let him be and he eventually walked out on his own into the night. It the abuse of the EMS system and mentalities like that that burnout so many great medics.

Speaking of burnout... we had finally gotten back to the station around 3a and got called out @ 0400 for ab pain. When we get there.. the guy is rambling about losing $20 in the couch, would we help him find it and no... his belly didn't really hurt.

Normally it wouldn't have annoyed me as much, it just that at 0700 when I was getting off, I was hitting the road to drive to FL for 7 hours. Yeah I know, my choice, but still.... ugh. Handed over the drugs and radios to the crew, showered and hit the road. Florida for a week to visit my parents and relax. I am a happy camper.