12 September 2006

Where is Lake County?

We were busy all day. Every called pulled me closer and closer to Chicago. Don't worry-we finally made it.

We were sent on a priority to a home address in Chicago. There was tons on construction, so every street that I wanted to turn on, I couldn't. Ugh. We finally made it-on a one way street with cars parked on both sides. We pretty much shut down the street. We were called for "general weakness." We got inside this apartment building and had to maneuver the cot down and around on a ramp to get onto the first floor. I cut a corner a little too close and caught it with the bottom of the stretcher. Yeah, so I broke the wall! The base board ripped off (about 1 1/2 feet of it) along with about six inches tall of the past 80 years worth of paint. Oops. I just kept walking. We tried to get on the elevator, but the cot wouldn't fit...it wouldn't fit in the freight elevator either. So, we left the cot downstairs, and carried the jump bag and monitor up with us. The apartment door was open, and we were greeted my a very surly guy in a wheelchair. He was a paraplegic, and a very crabby one might I add. I asked him what was wrong, and he said his colostomy and urostomy bags came off. Great. He said otherwise he was fine.

We took him in the wheelchair to the first floor. He was probably about 130 kg and there was no way we were going to lift him out of the chair and onto the cot. He said he "rolled" onto the wheelchair, so he said he would "roll" onto the cot. That wasn't too pleasant. I got his butt in my face, and he only got about halfway on, so we had to pull him the rest of the way up. He was soaked in urine and feces. It was dripping off his legs. And all over the cot and floor. My partner ran his wheelchair back upstairs while I got a history, etc. We got a move on out to the rig. We ran BLS-nothing I can do but get him to the ER so they can put his colostomy back in.

It started to pour rain outside. As it was, I was stuck in the back of a tiny little rig with a smelly man that was covered in urine and feces. Now I can't run with the windows open because we will probably drown. I called report, and turned on the exhaust fan. I was pretty much sucking the wall to get any fresh air I could out of that little hole. Disgusting, I know. Then the rig started leaking again. Sheets of water were falling into the back through the weather stripping-soaking out jump bag. To make things even better, the entire ER bay was full, so we had to unload the patient outside and take him in. I looked like a sewer rat by the time we were done. Yuck.

We did several psych calls, a call for altered mental status, and a call for a guy with a 104 fever. I got off an hour and a half late. I think I only did two calls in Lake county. The rest were south.

1 Comments:

Blogger Aucklandir said...

One of those horror jobs huh. I feel for ya girl I really do! Been there done that.

23:01  

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