Merry Christmas!

Yes I know that this is in the May 2010 archive, but I just wanted to share my first few calls. Since Nov. 2009 I have been working part time in Clyde TX with Citizens EMS when Fisher Co. EMS doesn’t have me scheduled. Due to the fact that I received my Paramedic cert. in July, I have been pretty green and eager to work. Clyde asked if I could work on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, now normally people would say ‘no thanks’ but with me being excited to work said “count me in!” To be honest I was pretty honored to work on a holiday just because I’ve never done it before.

Well as luck would have it, Christmas Eve started my first experience of trends. It snowed! Now it does snow in Texas usually in February, but the phrase “it snowed” is really an understatement. I woke up at 5:30 AM to get ready for my 48 hour shift in Clyde, as I was leaving huge fluffy snowflakes were falling on my car windshield. By the time I got to the station, the snow was coming down heavily. My partner that day was Kelsie, a girl who I’ve become acquainted with at TSTC semester under me, who decided to wear a Santa Clause hat for the festive day. After daily check offs and chores, we just sat and waited with periods of taking pictures of the snow in awe.

I not only worked on Christmas Eve, I also worked on “The day it snowed in Texas”. Our first call was to a MVA in Baird who got run off the road by a semi-truck and just wanted to be checked out by EMS. On our way to the scene, we took I-20 E and we pretty much passed at least 15 vehicles that were in the ditches stuck by the snow waiting for the police or firefighters to pick them up. The patient of the MVA was uninjured, just overall putout being run off the road by the semi-truck. She was our first and only No Transport for the day.

In the afternoon when the snow settled down for the time being, Kelsie and I received another call to for an elderly female with difficulty breathing located somewhere on a County Road. On the way there we came in a little too far and missed our turn in the driveway. So Kelsie asked me to step out and help her reverse the ambulance. In doing so I stepped out of the truck and headed behind the ambulance walking in the trench. Thinking I was doing just fine in ankle deep snow decided to rush to the driver’s back side by trotting…and I suddenly found myself on all fours clawing in the snow. I fell. Not only did I fall in the snow ditch area there were cars behind the ambulance who saw my event, and to add on the story my partner’s face in the driver’s side mirror was priceless with mad laughter. Dusting off the snow as I get back in my warm seat, I couldn’t help but laugh at myself either. The patient did well. She has had a fever for the past couple days with yellow sputum and bilateral wheezing. We transported her to Hendricks in Abilene, and headed back to Clyde.

Our last call for the shift was a pedi who overdosed. This was also my first pedi call ever as a paramedic. It’s already dark when the call was received and when we arrived on scene there outside stood the mother carrying the child in the driveway to keep him awake. The kid must have been 1.5 years old. The mother handed us the bottle that he took, and my partner called poison control while I assessed the boy. During my assessment I found his cap refill <2 seconds, pupils pinned with sluggish reaction, not too shy, not at all active, fatigue, and my greatest concern was his breathing…too slow for his age. The story was his mother and father were in the kitchen and the boy was in the living room. Once mama went to check on her son, she found her old cough medicine empty and open next to the kid. Kelsie reported back from the poison control hotline and apparently although the bottle was only 1/3 full that it equivalent to 6 hydrocodone pills to the little guy’s weight and age. With that the kid and his mother rode in the ambulance with me and my partner while a third EMT-B rider drove the truck to Hendricks. As we were treating my first pediatric patient with oxygen and cardiac monitor, neither of us could get an IV on the kid, but with our knowledge we knew the child needed narcan for his respirations.  So with my first pediatric followed with me giving my first muscular injection of narcan to anyone. Once at the hospital the patient’s respirations improved and he was more alert with his mother.

Finally back at the station in Clyde it was officially Christmas. My Christmas holiday shift was overall pleasant. My other partner Aleta and I had a total of at least 3 calls, none that were too memorable. But I survived my first holiday shift!