21 April 2006

Diamonds

First call was from the ER directly to the cath lab at another hospital. She had a history of an angioplasty a few years back and also had a history of diabetes and hypertension. She was 28 years old. I was shocked when I realized how young she was. I noticed while we were chatting on the way to the hospital that there was something in her two front teeth. I looked a little closer and they were diamonds. I asked her and she said that she had her dentist implant them. I thought it was pretty wierd (for anybody to do that). She is so concerned with the appearance of her "grille," and yet she had B.O. and leg hair that was at least 1/4" long. Yuck. I don't think I will ever understand.

After that we took a lady to a women's center for premature labor.

We cleared up, just north of Chicago and grabbed some lunch. We were on our way back to the highway and dispatch keyed us up. They said they needed us on a priority to Lindenhurst, IL, which is at least 45 minutes to an hour away. So, needless to say, I flipped on my blink blinks, and turned on my woo woos and headed off. Of course we hit traffic, and construction. I had to take side roads to get to a different entrance, which was also in a construction zone. It took several minutes, but we made it onto the highway. There was a BLS crew on scene that brought the patient in the the facility. It was a wait and return MRI appointment. During the scan the patient started to have chest pain, so they wanted ALS to transport. Dispatch beeped us again and said that the crew wanted to call 911. We told them to go ahead-we were still about 15 minutes away. The called 911, but we were told to continue in; 911 would initiate care and we would transport. Of course, we got stuck in traffic again, and we were disregarded from the call about 5 minutes later. We were about 7 minutes from the scene. 911 was going to transport. I made it from just north of Chicago to southern Waukegan in 15 minutes. Scary.

We had a slow-ish evening. We still ran calls, but we weren't running like we usually do.

We got a call at 0100 for a transport to Milwaukee-a kidney transplant patient who was having complications and his body was starting to reject theorgan. The ER was super busy and it took a while to get the paperwork from the RN. We left around 0200. By the time we got to the hospital in Milwaukee it was just after 0300. There were two city ambulances in front of me running hot. We barely fit in the garage because they were so busy (it's a Level I trauma center). By the time we got back out, security had moved our rig to the front of the garage and six more rigs were inside. We had to move the rig outside to clean it because two more ambulances were waiting outside to get into the garage. Flight for Life was also there. I never got the story, but there must have been a bad accident.

We were home free by 0330 to head back south. One problem. The ramp we always use to get onto the highway was closed. I'm not too familiar with the area, we don't have Wisconsin maps in our rigs, and my dispatcher didn't know where to even look to find another way to get on the highway. We ended up pulling over at the police department and asking an officer. We just had to go up a few streets and over-there was another entrance. Whew. It started storming on the way home, but since I wasn't driving, I was more concerned with catching a few Zs. I think it was just after 0430 when we got back to quarters. A very long night.

At 0715 we got a call for a psych. We took her over without a problem. She overdosed on several different types of pills. The report from 911 said that when they got on scene she was foaming at the mouth. Nice.

By the time I got done with paperwork it was 0845. Late again.

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