More Life in the ER.

I’m still really excited about my job in the ER. I’m excited about going to work tomorrow. My last shift was an echo of the one before. My morning consisted of trauma and chest pain. My busiest moment was when two traumas and a STEMI (ST elevated myocardial infarction… all that to say a really serious heart attack) came in at the same time.

One of my patients was involved in an industrial accident. The patients hand became stuck in a machine and was degloved. Another EMT and myself cleaned her hand and helped to prepare her for surgery.




I’m still struggling to find my place here. I’m trying to be aggressive enough to do my job, but not be in the way. It’s probably not the delicate dance I perceive it to be, but I still feel a little out of place.

I think I need to get a little more of the ambulance out of my brain. I’m used to doing everything I can do in the bus, bringing the patient in to the ER, placing the patient in bed, and getting out of the way. Now I have to learn to undo a lot of what I would have done in the ambulance so the doctor can look at it. I also need to learn how to be in the mix of what’s going on and not be in the way.

I’m also experiencing some culture shock. People here are very friendly here. I’m southern, but I have been in the big city too long. I’m not as friendly and outgoing as I used to take pride in. I’m very politely being put in my place for not introducing myself, and for not saying hello.

I have one more day shift tomorrow, then I switch over to nights. I call it vampire work. Collecting blood in the middle of the night.

I hope you’re all doing well. I hope you and your loved ones are healthy and safe. I was very disturbed and saddened to learn that the meteorologist Matt from Storm Chasers died after a suicide attempt. That’s one of the few TV shows I watch. He seemed like a good person. What a shame. What a waste.

Trauma and Chest Pain

Chest pain and trauma were the themes for my most recent shift in the ER. I worked in urgent care on my most recent shift. I like working in urgent care because it is very hands on. Our urgent care center is where we send our less serious patients after triage. At our hospital, this is where you go if you come in with the flu, or an injury that won’t require stitches or serious pain medication.

When you are the EMT in urgent care you get to wrap a lot of ankles, knees and wrists. The other benefit to working as the tech in urgent care is that you are on the trauma team. You get alerted and participate whenever there is a trauma alert. I worked on three significant trauma cases. Two of those I met on the helicopter pad.




I participated in the decon of a man who had been burned with sulfuric acid. Luckily his burns were from the knees down and his airway wasn’t compromised. I hosed him down for close to 40 minutes while baking soda was used to neutralize the sulfuric acid. This man had my genuine sympathy. He was in so much pain, even after receiving a horse’s dose of morphine and a dose of dilaudid. He has a significant recovery ahead of him.

I helped an orthopedic surgeon set an open ankle fracture. I never had an opportunity in the field to do that. First of all, it was strange to undo the bandaging and splinting I would have done in the field. After sedating the patient, several of us held traction on the leg while the doctor set the ankle. Then we bandaged the open wound and used a fiberglass splint to secure the ankle until the patient went to surgery.

I spent the second half of my day in the chest pain center. Cardiac care is my favorite thing in the world. If trauma was my favorite, I might just stay an EMT. But I truly love cardiac care. That’s the biggest reason I want to get a paramedic license.

Recent Life changes

I’ve experienced a lot of life changes in the last month. That’s why I haven’t posted anything new. I’m married an amazing woman. I moved to a new city, and I’ve been lucky enough to find two new jobs. Like I’ve mentioned before, healthcare is one of the only sectors in the economy that’s growing. Even if you don’t want to be an EMT, you can find a job in healthcare.

Let me say how blessed I feel having a full and a part time job in this economy. I’m so thankful. My full time job is great! It’s something I’ve never done before. I’m working as an ER tech. For all intents and purposes, I’m an EMT in the ER.




This ER is set up in several departments. It is a very well run, well organized ER. It has a chest pain center, a woman’s center, a pediatric ER, a major care center (this is like your standard ER), and an urgent care center (this is where you send people who come in with back pain or the flu). It is also a level one trauma center. On any given day, I might be working in any of these centers in the ER. This job offers me a lot of variety. It also allows me to see a lot more patients in a day than I would working on the ambulance. This job will really help me practice my skills as I prepare to return to school and get my paramedic license.

Good trauma is really a rarity on the ambulance. I’m not saying it never happens. I’m just saying it doesn’t happen every day, or even every week. A lot of people who are considering a job as an EMT or paramedic might have the idea that they are going to see nothing but car wrecks and gunshot wounds. It’s just not true. When you work a 24hr shift you will more than likely go too a couple of MVAs (motor vehicle accidents). More often than not, there are no injuries, or light injuries. Depending on where you work, months might pass without seeing a GSW (gun shot wound) or a stab wound. It’s really not as sexy as it seems.

The majority of your calls will be medical in nature. Chest pain, difficulty breathing, seizure, or diabetes related. You’ll even get calls for back pain, leg pain etc. To be totally truthful, many of the people you see would probably been able to take a taxi to the doctor instead of an ambulance to the ER.

Don’t let that discourage you. I love being an EMT. I love working on the ambulance. You just have to accept the reality of what it really is as opposed to what you think it might be, or what you’ve seen on tv.

Laziness Kills: An EMT Story

Laziness Kills: An EMT Story should be considered with the same disclaimer as all the stories on this site. This story is fictional. Any resemblance to any person or persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

I was still a student when I went on this call. I was doing my third rides. Third rides are what it is called when you are the third person on an ambulance. A third rider is usually a student, or a new employee who is in training. Sometimes a third rider is someone who works for your organization, but has a job in the office or in dispatch. This type of person needs to be on the ambulance some to keep enough hours to retain their certification. All of that just to explain that I was a third in that day.

We were dispatched emergency to a man who had fallen off a ladder. I took a deep breath as I climbed out of the back. The back is where you ride when you’re a third. I was nervous as hell. My knees were a little weak. Luckily, no one could see my hands shaking because I picked up the jump bag on my way out the door.




When you approach a scene, you need to do a visual assessment. You’re looking to see if the scene is safe, how many victims you have etc… In this case, there was a crowd of workmen surrounding a man lying on the ground. He was lying on his side next to a bundle of clay shingles. It didn’t take an expert to see he was in bad shape.

The fire dept. was on scene. They already had control of the patient’s cervical spine. This is call C-Spine in the field. This is done to keep the patients neck and back in line to prevent any further injury. The medic I was riding with slapped me on the back and said “Get me some vitals.” The EMT on the truck was grabbing a backboard and some straps. The paramedic started questioning the crowd.

The man’s coworkers stated the man was climbing the ladder with the clay shingles when he lost his balance and fell. He was carrying the shingles on his right shoulder and when he fell, they landed on his head. I took a set of vitals. What stuck out was a low heart rate, low oxygen saturation and uneven respirations. Using the proper method, we rolled him on a backboard. The paramedic made the decision to intubate. Intubation is when you place a tube in the patient’s trachea to secure their airway and breathe for them. Paramedics love to intubate.

Upon opening the patients mouth the paramedic found the skull had fractured inside the mouth. We hustled and got the patient packaged, and we were off to the hospital emergency. We raced to the hospital. The patient declined the entire way showing signs of ICP, or intracranial pressure. We found out later the patient died.

People don’t realize how every day actions can affect or even kill them. This guy was a roofer. I’m sure he’d climbed a ladder hundreds, maybe thousands of times. He’d probably even done it hundreds of times carrying shingles. Here’s the thing. There was a rope within a few feet of the ladder. That rope was supposed to be tied around those bundles of shingles so they could be pulled up safely. It brings a new meaning to the term safety first doesn’t it?

We do this every day. Myself included. We cut corners to save time or just because we’re lazy. Think about who were are as human beings. We’re not very good at preparing for things we think might happen. We usually make safety rules after someone has been hurt or killed. We think we’re exempt, bullet proof, or better than those who caused us to write those rules. Laziness kills…This story is fictional. Any resemblance to any person living or dead is purely coincidental.

EMT Stories

EMT stories are sometimes hard to find. Good EMT stories are even harder to find. A lot of the people who visit my site are looking for a good story. I’m currently working on some, but sadly, I have to check and double check them to make sure I don’t violate HIPPA. I’m all for protecting my patients’ privacy, but I hate the fact that we live in such a litigious society.

Speaking of lawyers…. I recently found out that one of our local private EMS companies is owned by a trial lawyer. Conflict of interest? I think so. This guy doesn’t even have to be an ambulance chaser… He owns the joint.




Well, here are some places you can get some good ambulance stories while I work on more of mine. First of all, check out http://www.ems1.com/ems-blogs/ This is a great website that has a lot of information for EMTs and paramedics. This link goes to their blog listing, but be sure to check out the whole site. You’ll want to take a look at it if you are in school as well, so you can get a feel for what’s going on out there. This site is totally free.

Now I’d like to mention a couple of great books. I would recommend these to anyone looking for ambulance stories. If you are thinking about EMT training but you’re still not sure, these books could help you decide if this career is right for you.

I’d like to recommend "EMS: The Job of Your Life ." Here is a book that touches on the daily work of EMTs and paramedics in a way that is honest and easy to understand. This book is a great read for the general public, and as an eye opener for those who are considering EMS as a career. If you are a seasoned professional, this book will bring back memories.

Next I’d like to tell you about "En Route: A Paramedic's Stories of Life, Death, and Everything in Between ." This book is down to Earth and realistic. Reading this will put you behind the eyes of this rural Louisiana paramedic. This book will tell you about saving lives, and watching them slip away. From heart attack to stroke, from car wreck to drunk, this book is hard to put down. You can also check out this author’s blog at http://www.ems1.com/ems-blogs/ It is called A Day In The Life of an Ambulance Driver.

Last but not least… Do you think you want to be an EMT, but you’re not sure if you have the stomach for it? Read “My Ambulance Education: Life and Death on the Streets of the City
.” This book is gritty and graphic. It goes into great detail on the injuries and sickness this EMT saw on the streets of New York. It’s a great read, but it’s not pretty. Of course, life on the ambulance isn’t pretty.
I hope you’ll enjoy these great blogs and books!

We’re Fat. Are You Surprised?

I won’t be shocking most of you by telling you we as a nation are obese. I work rotating 12hr shifts. On any given day, I hear dispatch send two or three units a day to get the bariatric stretcher. When we have any emergency that involves an obese patient it eats up our resources.

We call the bariatric stretcher the fatillac. If you run three bariatric calls in one shift, we call it a fat trick (a reference to the hockey term hat trick).

I was recently involved in a call where the patient weighed over 500lbs. It took myself, my partner, and four firemen to carry this man down three flights of stairs. We had to stop at each landing and rest. I don’t even want to think about what that call would have been like if it was a cardiac arrest.

Every day I work, I transport patients whose health problems are caused by their weight. Bad knees, back pain, type II diabetes, difficulty breathing, cardiac problems, cellulitis. All of these are largely caused by obesity.

Many of you probably don’t know what cellulitis is. Cellulitis is a skin infection. It generally causes a great deal of swelling. It smells terrible. When a person is morbidly obese, they lose their ability to keep themselves clean. Combine this with the wounds and poor healing qualities associated with type II diabetes and you have a real risk of getting this infection. Let me add one more piece of the puzzle. If you are obese and suffering the effects, you will end up in the hospital. This is where you will most likely come into contact with the types of bacteria that cause cellulitis.

Many people who are morbidly obese are on disability. The irony is not lost on me. I get my salary by running calls, but I have taxes taken out of my paycheck to pay for the call that I’m running… Did that last couple of sentences make any sense?

More than ever before, we share the cost for each others health care. I’m not going to get into the politics of that here. But I do want to express my feelings. I feel we more than ever have a national responsibility to take care of ourselves. We can’t keep sticking each other with the bill.

I didn’t realize my blog was going to get so preachy. Next post will be a good EMT story. I swear!

Are you in an EMT training course? Here are some Online EMT and Paramedic Practice Tests

An EMT Story

This story is fictional. Any resemblance to any person living or dead is purely coincidental. This story didn’t happen to me, but it’s a good one.

We were dispatched non emergency to a residence to pick up two patients in need of transport to the hospital. That was all dispatch had for us. We arrived minutes later to find a very upset mother of two. She told us her two teenage children had come into contact with a raccoon that tested positive for rabies. At this point, you have my attention.

We gathered the teenage brother and sister and asked them to get in the back of the truck. After everyone was belted in safely, I took a set of vitals. Then it was story time. I asked them what happened. Here’s what they told me.

They were walking home from their after school jobs at a local greasy spoon (where their mother happened to be the manager). During the short walk home they saw a raccoon get hit by a car. It was still daylight, and if they had thought about it, that would have been their first warning sign. Raccoons are nocturnal. Raccoons you see during the day can usually be considered to be ill.

The two animal lovers stopped to give the raccoon aid. The boy had his gym clothes with him and wrapped the raccoon up in them. They began to take the raccoon home where they intended to nurse it back to health.

They were only a few houses from home when the raccoon died. The teenage brother and sister decided to take their heroics to an even higher level by performing CPR. A neighbor witnessed this and asked them as politely as she could; what the hell were they doing?

The teens relayed their story to the neighbor. She smartly called their mother, who promptly called animal control. The tests came back positive for rabies, and the mother called 911 wanting the kids to be taken to the hospital by trained personnel.

When you get a call like this, you have a choice to make. You can get angry over peoples ignorance, or you can see the humor in it and enjoy the experience. I started my career in EMS for two reasons. 1. My desire to do something worth while. 2. I love a good story.

I feel like some of my best calls come after my patient says “Hey! Watch this!!!” You just have to remember to treat everyone with respect. Treat them well even if they are ignorant, or undereducated.

Are you in an EMT training course? Here are some Online EMT and Paramedic Practice Tests