27 February 2006

Red Light...Green Light

The oncoming crew was late getting back. I got stuck doing station duties for an hour and a half. After they got back we stayed in quarters for about a half an hour. Then the fun started.

The first call...I can't even remember. I did a call for abdominal pain from an acute care center to an ER. Uneventful. I think we did a few BLS returns too. I can't recall. I'm too tired.

We ran to another hospital to pick up a blood pressure cuff that was left on a patient earlier in the day. Then we sat for about an hour, holding a hospital parking lot. We got our first call going to the city. An infant with a fever for five days, going to the Children's hospital. Then we cleared up and went right to another call for a fever in a nursing home. The woman was more lethargic than usual according to the RN and had a fever of 100.3. We transported to a city hospital. We made it all the way back up north, and had just gotten into quarters. They needed us for another transport to Children's. This time for an eye laceration. The three year old needed surgery. He tripped and fell into a dresser-head first. The corner cut his eyelid, and into the muscle; which would no longer function. On the way to Children's, I had my first run-in with the cameras at red lights. There are two lights, spaced only about 30 feet apart on one of the main roads that I took. The first light turned yellow, but I wasn't going to slam on the brakes. I slowed down so I could stop without jolting my parter and patient at the second light. This made me slow down through the first intersection, causing me to prolong my time in the intersection. Needless to say, I was still in the intersection when the light turned red. It looked like a lightning storm or the paparazzi were after me. The whole intersection lit up with probably 30 different flashing white lights. I had been caught on camera in a red light. Uh oh. There was no way I could have avoided it. I had to write up an incident report on it in case they try to fine the company (or me), because I wasn't running hot...I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I headed back up north again. We got a call for a patient in the "standby ER" with abdominal pain. Easy enough transport. We did a dialysis call-direcly out of the ER. We got back to quarters, shut off the lights, and got our final call of the day at 0615. It was for a fall at a nursing home about 20 minutes away. The lady had a laceration above her left eyebrow and was complaining about shoulder pain...amongst every other pain possible (leg, neck, back, arm). We took her to a hospital about 15 minutes west of there. I cleared up at 0745. My dispatcher told me we had another call-just a bounce across town. Personally, I was sick of being held over. By the time I would even get to quarters without the call, it would be at least 0815-not including paperwork. We spoke with our oncoming crew and they agreed to take the call. We got back to quarters, I did my paperwork, and I was out the door by 0850.

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