Guess Who Got To Call An Ambulance At 5:30 AM?
 

So as most of you know, I've been hired on at The Gardens, a seniors center around where I live; and I've been doing laundry for the past couple of nights. I like laundry. It's quiet, I'm my own boss, it's relatively simple if you know what to do - it's nice. Since it's not a structured shift, (ie. I need to do this before 6, get this done by 6:30, so I can help serve for 7) as long as you get the work done, you're sittin' pretty.

Now, laundry requires me to do a few things. For starters, I have to carry the Fire phone and the Fires Responder phone. So if there's a fire, either in a resident's room or somewhere in the building, I'm in charge of getting people out safely, checking rooms, etc. As a First Responder, I go where I'm needed. Each resident has a pendant - a small device with a button on it - that they use if they're in trouble. So if a wheelchair bound res slips out of their wheelchair and can't get up, they use their pendant, and we're there in under five minutes to help them. The FS is there to keep a calm head as everyone around is freaking out. We're encouraged not to perform CPR or other techniques, as that would make The Gardens liable if we did anything wrong. We're just in there to make sure the resident is alright, and decide whether or not to call an ambulance.

My usual duties include laundry, using a Power Scrubber (it's what Invader Zim would invent if he needed to mop something) to do the main kitchen floor, and run some of the laundry to different areas of the center. Now, I was trained to do a little work, take a break, do a little work, take a break, finish the work, go chill out for the next hour. The way I like to do it? Work, work, work, work, chill out for the next three hours. One of the five nurses brings a movie, and there's another TV you can watch. Not a lot on at 4 AM, though.

Tonight was the first night that I worked alone. I'd been on with a man named Shane who showed me the ropes, but since he's the only one trained on laundry (seriously - he'd been on for 3 and a half weeks straight) he was happy to take a few days off and let me do it. So I came in and I focused on getting stuff done - sort the laundry, wash the laundry, dry the laundry, floor, bleach, deliver. It was about 5:00AM, after I'd just taken the last load of laundry out of the dryer and had begun folding it when I got an FS call. The thing about FS calls? No matter who you're with, what you're doing, who you're talking to or where you are, you gotta be like "I gotta go." So I dropped the bed sheet and went to the room.

I knocked on the door. No answer - alright, that's what the keys are for. I opened the door, went inside and called out - "Hello?" - and I got an answer "In here!" I walk into the bedroom and immediately I notice a bit of a smell. The resident had defecated on over half her bed, and the surrounding floor. She visibly shook for a period of 10 - 15 seconds and complained that her hands were stiff and hard. I thought 'Y'know what'd be a hoot? If I gave the ambulance a call. Yeah, that's a good idea! Let's call an ambulance!"

"911 Emergency - do you need a fire engine, police car or an ambulance?"
"Ambulance."
"Please hold... Ambulance Services, where are you calling from?"
"The Gardens."
"What suite?"
"***"
"What is the nature of the emergency?"
"I've got a resident who has defecated on over half her bed, is visibly shaking for 10 seconds or more at a time, and is telling me that her hands are hard and stiff."
"How old is the resident?"
"94."
"We'll be there in five minutes."

Now, I had an inner dialogue going "Hojeez, hojeez, hojeez, what am I doing here, whatdoIdowhatdoIdo?" but on the outside I was going "Don't worry - the ambulance is on it's way, it'll just be a few minutes. Is there anything I can do to make you more comfortable?" Just holding her hand, trying to keep her calm. I got a call from her phone - the ambulance personnel needing to be buzzed in, so I went down, let them in, came back up. They were looking around the apartment for medication or vitamin/supplements while they asked me questions about the resident and what had happened. I let them work, and went back downstairs.

I had to log the incident, what had happened, who was involved and what time it occurred. Afterwards, I took out the census - a list of all the residents currently in the building, to be used in case of a fire (just so we know how many people we need to evacuate, that sorta stuff) and marked the resident out in the hospital. I went downstairs, finished folding my laundry, and put it on the racks to be brought up tomorrow. I went up to the third floor, to where all the night nurses were, and told them what had happened, and that I logged the incident and such.

"So yeah - they're taking her to the hospital."
"Oh my god - you took care of it?"
"Yup - I'm finished the laundry now, so I'm going to curl up into a ball in a corner somewhere... so if you need me, I'll be in a corner somewhere."
"You did good. Shane'll be proud."

I don't know if I did good or not, but I know that I'm not going to be able to sleep until about 11:00AM, and I know that I'm not looking forward to washing her sheets tonight. I was telling my folks about this, and my mum told me that she was the same way when I had my accident (I went through a window when I was 4 years old, and got about 50-odd stiches) and I was just wondering what's happened to you guys in an emergency, and what did you do?

The biggest emergency I've been part of is my younger brother falling against the edge of a wall outside.

He was... 8? And I was 12 then.
Of course there was panic on my side, but I managed to get him inside, bleeding and all. He got a concussion and stitches and I got a glass of milk from my parents to calm down. XD

As for the biggest emergency that happened to me, that I can remember?
I cut open my hand at work. It was a very shallow cut, and it needed nothing more than a bandaid or two, but it was bleeding like fuck.

So of course the first aid kit was NOT in the lunchroom, but across the shopfloor and in the manager's on-site office.
Yeah.

You're walking through the store, with a bleeding hand, carefully making sure you're not bleeding on the floor or on customers.

You can imagine the worried faces and concerned colleagues.
I remained calm, as I can very well determine if I'm going to bleed to death or not. =P

I think you did the right thing man. Sezures can be quite serious, and it would always be a good idea to play things on the safe side, especally given the person's age.

You did good, kid. You did what needed to be done, you stayed calm on the outside, and you comforted the patient until the ambulance got there.

When I worked at the hospital, we sometimes had emergency situations pop up (but not as often as they did in the ICU or the PCU). It was essential to stay calm and focus on helping the patient. My duty was to call the codes down to the switchboard, then continue putting in emergency orders and calling other departments as needed (especially if they didn't show up when the code was called--a MAJOR no-no on their part).

The worst situation I dealt with was when one of our regulars was eating, and he started choking. We were severely understaffed and everyone was behind on their work, but the nurse got in there as soon as possible. By the time she did, though, he was in a bad way, not breathing, no heartbeat. I called the code, and we spent what seemed like an eternity trying to bring him back. His doctor was late getting there (another victim of understaffing, which is what happens when one works at a hospital run by cheapass bastards), but when he did, he decided to make the guy a DNR...so we had to stand there and wait until the guy could be declared dead.

To make matters worse, the patient in question was a darling old man, never called for a nurse unless he really needed one, was always nice to everyone...and he had no family around. We were all that he had, and his nurse did what she could for him. We were all sad that there was no one there from his family to say goodbye, and when we finally got ahold of his next of kin, it didn't seem like he cared all that much. The patient's nurse, who was one of the toughest, strongest, smartest, most amazingly hardass nurses I'd ever worked with, broke down completely. The poor man was just trying to eat his dinner, and he choked, and she couldn't save him. We both just sat there and cried. I'd never seen her cry over anything before, whether it was her inability to have children of her own or seeing other patients die. We were all shocked, and we blamed the hospital for not providing adequate staff to meet the patients' needs.

I went home that night, got very, very drunk, and fortunately passed out before I could hurt myself. I blamed myself for him dying because I wasn't a CNA and I was so far behind in my own work that I couldn't have assisted him even if I was a CNA. I can look back now and realize that there was nothing I could have done differently to save him, and that I was a fool to quit my job over the incident...but at the time, it just hurt like hell. It always hurt to lose a patient, especially if you and everyone else you worked with felt like the death could have been prevented...we all had a case of the "if only"s.

Meanwhile, I'm proud of your actions, Seil. Have you thought about making nursing a permanent career choice?

When I was in middle school my dad almost burned our house down. Now.. my father is the smartest man I know. He's running his own company now, he is a brilliant Chemical Engineer, but sometimes... common sense just eludes him.

It was the week after Christmas and for whatever reason, my dad decided to burn the wrapping paper in the fireplace. Common sense was right out the window at the start of that venture. Now, picture this, if you will. A stone fireplace in a room with a cathedral ceiling, the stone face goes all the way up to the ceiling. Up there we had 2 dormer windows and a ceiling fan hanging down. On the fireplace was this giant wreath that my mom made(dried out pretty much now) with a huge paper bow hanging down from it.

Well... here's what happened. I'm upstairs playing with this old electric car set(y'know the kind I'm talking about) and I hear this loud noise, sounds like wind. I run downstairs to see what's going on and the following is what I see.

My dad is flat on his back and on the stone fireplace where the wreath was is now a blazing ring of fire. And shooting up from this ring, and going down either side of the cathedral ceiling are flames. It was a sight to behold. Well, my dad is useless at the moment, my mom is screaming prayers to god and I'm the only one with sense enough to call the fire department.

My dad found the fire extinguisher by that time and put out the worst of it, but when I went back into the room, the black smoke was so thick you couldn't see the ceiling fan or the windows. So yeah... that was interesting.

Needless to say, a few months later, my dad had that fireplace converted into a gas burning fireplace so that he would never do something stupid like that again.

The biggest emergency that's worth noting was back when I was about seven. My brother and I had the same bedroom at the time with our beds next to each other (These beds had wooden bedframes). I was being a dumbass and jumping from bed to bed pretending I was some awesome acrobat or something.

Anyway, when I was jumping back to my bed, I didn't jump far enough and my shin slammed right into the pointed edge of the frame. Next thing I know I'm laying on my bed wondering what the fuck just happened. Then I feel a sharp pain coming from my shin. I look and realize there's a gaping hole in my shin so deep you could somewhat see the bone. Freaking out and only being seven, first thing I get is a band-aid. I was bleeding so much that the entire band-aid became red in a matter of seconds. I was deathly afraid of going to the hospital, and I thought that something this serious was hospital-worthy, so I tried stretching my sock over the band-aid to cover it.

I ended up switching out like 4-5 band-aids (It was those huge thick ones too) in a time span of about five minutes 'til my brother noticed my leg. I took off my band-aid and saw the wound, and he looked so shocked it was as if he saw a ghost. He immediately showed it our parents and they had a similar expression.

After having a long talk with my parents about telling them this kind of stuff, they basically told me that if my brother hadn't shown them my shin wound, my leg would've gotten badly infected and ended up having it amputated. That pretty much scared the shit outta me. Nowadays, I have this nice-sized scar on my shin as a permanent reminder of my stupidity as a child.

I've never had to call an ambulance. I've been around a couple of people who had to take an ambulance, and I've also been the lucky bastard who needs the ride a few times. As I've been told the most terrifying experience lies in that last category.

What I remember is that I was playing a lacrosse game, and the ball came loose in our zone, starting to settle by the boards. I headed over to get it, going low figuring I could break any checks that came.

Now: It's important to understand that I have had some concussion problems in my days. I had three documented, my first when I was seven, my next when I was fifteen, and another when I was sixteen. The first was me running into a door frame full tilt, the second was from footall, the third was me on the receiving end of a huge hit in field lacrosse.

Anyways, what I remember next is bits and pieces of being in the hospital. What I've been told happened was that there was actually a HUGE dude right behind me, and that when I went down he lifted his foream and left his feet. So he basically put all of his weight onto around two inches on the back of my head, and then slammed my head into the corner of the boards and the glass. My coach's recounting was that I just crumpled and then didn't move for fifteen minutes. Apparently my mom was worried I was dead.

Grade 3 concussion. Whoo.

Woah, is there an echo in here?

But yeah, Seil, you did really well. It takes a hell of a lot of nerves to be able to hold your own like that.

Kudos, Seil, y'done good. Makes me kinda jealous, really. :p I'd probably lose something if that happened to me.

You guys are all pretty extreme. The only real emergency I can think of wasn't even an emergency really, just a bad accident. I was out biking with some friends a few summers ago and we'd gone over to a forest nearby. Mt. Albion it was, so you can imagine that there were some slopes. The particular slope we went down was both steep and curvy, so it was a nightmare, not at all suited to someone like me (who rides for leisure, at best, and maneuvers like a tank). I think common sense kicked in for a moment before going down the hill, but it left soon enough.

So I was zooming down this hill, the path starting to curve more and more. And a bit of the way in I started thinking "Y'know, this is awfully curvy and I'm going awfully fast." So I hit the rear brakes. They give a feeble attempt at grabbing but just can't do anything to slow me down. Oh damn. So I lay on the brakes, hoping that maybe they'll slow me down enough to gain some more control as I'm careening down this hill.

You know, I don't know how I managed to stay on the path, but in retrospect it feels like I wasn't steering. More like I was just a passenger. But regardless, I ended up ramming into the back of one of my friend's bikes and being pitched onto the ground. skinning the entire right side of my calf. It wasn't so bad, yeah, just hurt like hell.

The more I think about it the more I realize how lucky I was not to wrap myself around a tree. :p Because those were some nasty-looking trees, and it was all downhill. Wouldn't have been pretty.

I find it ironic that I seem to be among the only people on this forum not to be suverely injured at some point. The irony is that I am terribly accident-prone. I walk into glass doors (once almost through one). I black out if I stand up after sitting for too long. Heck, I once even broke my toe practicing Tae Kwon Do in the shower in the 5th grade.

I showed that shower who was boss, too.