I am waiting for the medics to return so we can head off into the eye of the storm for another medevac run, I just wanted to pass along a couple of things that happened to me in the past day or so.
Last night, we did a medevac, taking a patient to a large airport in bad weather. 1/4 mile in fog and 200' bad to be precise, but that's not the point of the story. The reason we took him is thus: (NOTE don't read any further if you are squeamish or have empathy for other human beings, trust me)... his prostate was very, very badly infected and swollen so much that the medics were honestly worried it might rupture, opening up many blood vessels and causing him to bleed to death. Think about that for a second. Infected prostate. Rupture. Bleed to death. I know that 99% of the men reading this are now shifting uncomfortably in their seats as well as a good portion of the women. I was writhing in my seat the whole flight; the approach and ILS itself was just fine and more of an afterthought. I just felt so badly for the poor bugger. We landed, offloaded him and waited on the runway for half an hour, engines running in the rain and fog until ATC took pity on us and called our minimum visibility so we could take off and head home. So that's story one.
Story two is today. In my present job I am on call 24/7 whilst on days on, and if we haven't been paged out to go flying by 2pm I usually settle down for a nap. I was literally pulling the covers over my head when the pager went off at 2:15 this afternoon. I call dispatch. "you are going ALS (that's Advanced Life Support for those of you not in the industry) from wherever to wherever. Bring your muscles with you 'cause the patient weighs just under 400 pounds" Turns out the dedicated medevac company had been paged to do the trip before us, but they declined it on account of the patient's great mass. I don't blame them.
Anyway, the patient shows up in the ambulance. He was perfectly round and deathly pale, except for bright red cheeks. Apparently being more than 200 pounds overweight is hard on your heart, so you might wanna skip that last helping of prime rib before dessert. The medics were stressed, they said the patient was very unstable and they told us it was somewhat likely that midway through the trip we would no longer need to rush, if you get my drift. But first we had to get him through the door of the airplane. Even with the 4 of us in the aircraft, 2 paramedics outside, and 2 helpful mechanics, I am now permanently 2 inches shorter as a result of that patient lift.
I do feel for the guy, and this is probably going to sound heartless, but I think that after a certain point a person sort of waives their right to complete medical care. Like the person we flew last year who got drunk and decided to play tag with his buddy on jetskis in the middle of the night. His buddy tagged him, and he missed getting a Darwin award by a couple of inches. We flew him at great taxpayer expense to get pins put in his back so that he might again one day walk and run and one day do something equally dumbass. For what it's worth, our obese patient survived the entire trip and into the main hospital, but I don't think I'll be seeing him again ever. It's a strange sensation, looking into a person's eyes and knowing that you are going to see tomorrow and they most likely won't. I don't like it much; it makes me feel guilty or something.
I tend to get desensitized to our patient's plight; many of them are 'standard' cases, cardiac or going for MRI's or whatever. It's only a very few that stand out, like the ones recently or the beautiful young psych patient I wrote about a couple of months ago. I actually did a follow-up on her; turns out she was having Jesus Christ's baby and didn't take it very well when she was told by the doctors that she wasn't pregnant, which is why we had to take her to the psych center.
That's all for now, the medics are back and it's time to light the fires and head off into the blackness, winging our way to the next poor soul who needs our services.
Sucks to be him; sucks to be me
Moderators: sky's the limit, sepia, Sulako, lilfssister, North Shore, I WAS Birddog
Re: Sucks to be him; sucks to be me
.......thats why it is important to live everyday as if it were your last.....Cash in those RRSP's.....order the expensive wine......run naked on the ramp!!!!!Sulako wrote: It's a strange sensation, looking into a person's eyes and knowing that you are going to see tomorrow and they most likely won't. I don't like it much; it makes me feel guilty or something.
As Garth from 'Waynes World' once said....
"Dude....Live in the NOW..!!!"
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I am Birdfod
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You think he was heavy last night, wait till they wrap him in a coffin and send him back home. One of the oversized big blue mother she beasts. Had one last week, she must have been 300 + coffin. Back still in spazm
Should get the guys from KFC and Hostess to come load these guys, make them pay for what they have done!
Should get the guys from KFC and Hostess to come load these guys, make them pay for what they have done!
I fly medivac. I dont generally concern myself with what's going on in the back. In fact, no one usually tells me.. I load the patients into the plane, but Ill bump their feet and the patient will holler. That's when the nurses decide to tell me the patient has a broken whatever. Other than that, I just drive her.
Once a hospital called to move a 700 lb person... They were going to get the fire department to bring him to the airport. I tried finding a Caravan, or something that could take a pallate and a forklift. They didnt end up moving the guy.
Can you imagine the smell of him?? The smell is what gets to you sometimes, its harder to ignore than the patient's general condition. Doing long legs in a tiny pressurized cabin with someone half dead who's shitting themselves and hasnt had a proper bath in god knows how long. Sometimes when a patient's getting suctioned (that's when they take the little vacuum like at the dentist to clean out your airway of all the flem and mucus that's keeping you from breathing properly) it gets really bad. Im not as bothered by it as some I work with. One guy I fly with finds it so bad sometimes, that he goes on oxygen.
Sulako, do you guys have a loading ramp for the stretcher? We have one, but dont use it, its just a pain in the ass, but if I were loading a 400 lb guy, Id want to bring it along..
Andrew.
Once a hospital called to move a 700 lb person... They were going to get the fire department to bring him to the airport. I tried finding a Caravan, or something that could take a pallate and a forklift. They didnt end up moving the guy.
Can you imagine the smell of him?? The smell is what gets to you sometimes, its harder to ignore than the patient's general condition. Doing long legs in a tiny pressurized cabin with someone half dead who's shitting themselves and hasnt had a proper bath in god knows how long. Sometimes when a patient's getting suctioned (that's when they take the little vacuum like at the dentist to clean out your airway of all the flem and mucus that's keeping you from breathing properly) it gets really bad. Im not as bothered by it as some I work with. One guy I fly with finds it so bad sometimes, that he goes on oxygen.
Sulako, do you guys have a loading ramp for the stretcher? We have one, but dont use it, its just a pain in the ass, but if I were loading a 400 lb guy, Id want to bring it along..
Andrew.
All the patient is a person too stuff aside. B.C. ambulance medevacs aircraft all have to have a ramp that you slide a patient into the aircraft with. It has like a teflon surface both on the ramp and the slider. The patients come to the airport on what is called a #9 stretcher which has wheels on the head end and for all but the citations and lears the patient goes in head first. You load the head end on the slider device and push it on until the wheel drop into the groves provided and then the peg end has a receptical end to put them into and the stretcher is secured onto the loading device and slid into the aircraft. Even in the lear and citation the peg (foot) end of the #9 stretcher slide really easily on the teflon like surface.
This device was invented to help limit back injuries amongst pilots and paramedics. I'm sure that most of the designated craft in canada have a similar set up.
This device was invented to help limit back injuries amongst pilots and paramedics. I'm sure that most of the designated craft in canada have a similar set up.
Makes me remember my days as a dockhand/swamper. Going along with the boss to fly the dead and dieing in the piston Otter. Luckily most of the reserves in those parts have runways now. Even had the good fortune of getting to help the band nurse with CPR a few times while a half dozen family members of the patient looked on. All that fun, while blazing through the sky at a 100mph.
I’ll spare everyone the gruesome details. I’d rather not remember then myself.
I’ll spare everyone the gruesome details. I’d rather not remember then myself.
Sulako, I understand what you are saying and I certainly sympathize with you. It has been many, many years since I flew Medivac's and there are a few trips that still live in my mind. Most as you say were walk ons, heading for some test thinking they were some sort of VIP, but it is the others that you really remember and I certainly don't remember many thank you's being thrown around.
I had the unfortunate pleasure of picking up 2 patients late one night. Both in real bad shape! Turns out they were good friends of mine who had decided to do some unusual attitudes with a Datsun Pickup on the way home from a ice fishing trip. I couldn't even recognize them and only found out who they were when I looked on the manifest. Fortunately it all worked out and both healed up real good.
I had the unfortunate pleasure of picking up 2 patients late one night. Both in real bad shape! Turns out they were good friends of mine who had decided to do some unusual attitudes with a Datsun Pickup on the way home from a ice fishing trip. I couldn't even recognize them and only found out who they were when I looked on the manifest. Fortunately it all worked out and both healed up real good.
I sympathize with you guys. I'm sure that the training that you get doesn't come close to handling what you see flying medevacs.
You don't want to see some of the pictures floating around in the back of my memories after 24 years of being a paramedic.
One thing that you should remember though is that some of these pictures you see can cause you more problems than you are aware of. If you don't already have a system in place you really should think of training someone in your service in critical incident debriefing. We all like to think that we are bullet proof but trust me, even the strongest can fall victim to post traumatic stress syndrom or critical incident stress disorder and they are very debilitating afflictions.
You don't want to see some of the pictures floating around in the back of my memories after 24 years of being a paramedic.
One thing that you should remember though is that some of these pictures you see can cause you more problems than you are aware of. If you don't already have a system in place you really should think of training someone in your service in critical incident debriefing. We all like to think that we are bullet proof but trust me, even the strongest can fall victim to post traumatic stress syndrom or critical incident stress disorder and they are very debilitating afflictions.
Hey bandaid. I am going to be working a night shift out on YVR tonight. Maybe I'll be working with you. I'll be on either the 200 or the 350.
The average pilot, despite the somewhat swaggering exterior, is very much capable of such feelings as love, affection, intimacy and caring.
These feelings just don't involve anyone else.
These feelings just don't involve anyone else.
Oldtimer,
It would be nice to meet you but I am still not back to work. I badly fractured my ankle last May and had to be flown from the kootenays to kelowna on one of those infamous airevacs. If your in Kelowna send a hi through one of the guys, it would be nice to hear from you.
It would be nice to meet you but I am still not back to work. I badly fractured my ankle last May and had to be flown from the kootenays to kelowna on one of those infamous airevacs. If your in Kelowna send a hi through one of the guys, it would be nice to hear from you.
sucks to be him sucks to be me
I said it before I will say it again. Thanks to the medivac drivers that took my badly injured cousin from ybr to ywg. The wx was almost at limits but he made it. If it wasnt for the medivac we would have gone to a funeral last year instead of a birthday thanks
Red
Red
