Code 3 and Code 3 (again)
OMG! I had a fantastic ride along today on the ambulance. Even better than this one. The day started off pretty slow. About midway thru it, we get a standard call w/a complaint of chest pain. We go 97 (onscene) to discover a 49yom w/a classic case of MI (heart attack). He responds well to treatment enroute to the hospital and we arrive, make the transfer w/no difficulty. As we turn to leave, the guy literally goes into full arrest on the ER bed. It was awesome! We got to help the ER crew work him up not once, twice, three times. OMG! What a learning experience. It is very very VERY rare for first responders to witness someone go into full arrest. Not to mention right in the hospital. We ususally see before and after scenarios.
But it gets even better. The hospital didn’t have a cath lab so we had to transfer him to another hospital. We stood around for about 20 minutes while the ER staff pumped him full of drugs and plugged all the extra machines in. With all the extra apparatus we had to have one of the ER nurses ride w/us to the 2nd hospital. At the 2nd hospital, I got to watch them prep the patient for surgery. The docs were cool and commented on what a great job we’d done.
It blew all my other calls away. So now, I’m back at the call center for my regular shift. Kind of anti-climatic but that’s the way it goes I guess.
How was your day?