EMT stories

[Joel Pendleton]

I thought I would start a new topic to get a little "action" going on this group. Here is a story that I wrote about eight months ago about one of the wrecks I've responded to.

We got there not more than a minute after the wreck happened. A red GMC pick-up truck had flipped all the way over at least once. There was a man standing there, who had seen the wreck take place right before I got there, and another lady. They were just standing there, so I figured he was ok and they were just trying to see if there was anything they could do to help. When I got there, I said I was an EMT and asked if everything was alright. They said he was hurt. I expected a bloody nose by the way they were acting. But, what I saw really took me by surprise. The windshield was covered with blood, as well as the steering wheel and passenger side seat. The top half of the front of his shirt was drenched with blood. I sort of gaped for just a second. Then the training kicked in. I grabbed my medical gloves out of my pocket and put them on (as Murphy would have it, I did not have my response bag with me...I hate Murphy). The other people got out of the way and I started to assess his injuries. What I saw was appalling. The entire right side of his face was decimated. I could not even see his right eye. His nose was pretty much gone and his nasal cavities were virtually none existent. I could see his back molars because his mouth was split from the right side of his lips to about an inch before his right ear. Have you ever dropped a watermelon and it split open? Well, that is what the top of his head was like. From just above his left eyebrow to down below the back side of his right ear was split open about three inches...not the skull, but massive blunt object impact trauma. The first things you are supposed to check are the airway, the breathing, and the circulation. His airway had a good bit of blood in it, but he was breathing. His pulse was a little fast, which indicates the possible beginning stages of shock. He was, believe it or not, conscious, and so he blew his "nose". Blood came out from his nasal passage, his mouth, and his right eye orbital. I pulled the top of his scalp back together to help slow the bleeding. I was kicking myself right about that time because I did not have my medic bag in the car, just a pair of gloves in my pocket. I made sure that someone called 911. The ambulance, a fire truck, and two Sheriff’s deputies arrived. The ambulance crew took the guy away to the hospital. But, right before they did, he told us that there were two of his grandchildren in the truck with him!!! Well, we started searching the area in about a 300ft radius and did not find anything. Dad and I went to town and stopped by the ER on the way home to pick up my watch (after I took my gloves off, I had to wash my arms and hands in alcohol because they were covered in blood. I set my watch on the ground and it was thrown in the ambulance because someone thought it was the injured guy’s watch). It turns out, he had just dropped his grandchildren off somewhere, but in the trauma he thought they were still with him. Thank God for that!

[Liberty]

WOW... I have no words. I am impressed beyond words that you were able to react so calmly in such an unbelievable situation!

[Rowena]

Wow. This is why I just help babies be born and leave the scraping-off-the-pavement to y'all.

[jaerick]

Only one story has been posted here?
I thought lots of people would have posted the amzing things EMTs see. Many such things we don't want to talk about, but there are things that we do/should talk about.
I am just curious why there are not more stories!

[SarahS]

[Chris Menne]

I responded to a vehicle off an embankment a few months ago. This particular embankment is about fifteen feet below the highway. The driver passed out and drove off the highway, landing inches above what had turned into a small river. There was seriously no sign of him driving off, if there hadn't been someone behind him, he never would have been found. We were able to help him out of the car, and after being backboarded and put in the medic I started an assesment on him. All he was complaining of was slight hip pain! I started taking layers off of him and on his suspender strap was a casino keychain saying "Today's my lucky day." We all thought it was hilarious and the patient didn't have a single scratch. Maybe not the most amazing story ever but it was unlike anytthing I'd ever seen.

[Drew Boon (WBE)]

I'm not an EMT - just an EFR and x-ray student - but I've seen a few interesting things come through the ER. One of the more amusing incidents happened after I x-rayed a patient and took him back to his room. When I came back and was cleaning the equipment, the tech asked me what had happened to him so that she could finish the paperwork.

"He was jumped and beat with a baseball bat," I responded.

The tech just started laughing 'cause she thought I was joking.

[Daniel Kane]

Worst one I ever saw was a man sledding down a hill, lost control and wrapped himself around a tree, fracturing his radial-ulna, femur and pelvis. I didn't do a whole lot cause there was a surgeon there who took command of the scene. Normally docs don't know what to do for pre-hospital care but this doc knew what he was doing.

[Curtis]

I run a lot of wrecks; one that stands out to me was a dui.

It was about 03:00 AM, I was just getting back to the station from a woods fire. The tones dropped for a MVA with entrapment (I love cutting up on a car). So we go en-route and dispatch comes back on the radio to inform us we had a car fire with entrapment. (This is when your blood really starts to pump, we had taken the ambulance since we were not informed of the fire till we where almost there.) I knew it would be at least 8-10 mins before we got back up from an Engine.

As we turn on the road I can see a faint glow about ½ a mile down. As the head lights cast the first shadows on the scene, they revile a 4 door car that had rolled at least 3 times before raping its self around a tree. The car was on fire but only inside the Engine compartment, but from running fire calls I knew it wasn’t long before the fire spread.

The PT was a 34 Y/O female, my first impression of her was not too bad, she looked a little clammy but calm (I didn’t know she had heavy ETOH at this time, which explained the calm state). Then I got in the car to try and figure out how to get her out. That’s when I realized she had bilateral Tib/Fib compound fractures. I knew we didn’t have much time before the fire reached inside the cab, I yelled to my partner to bring his fire gloves, a blanket and a spine board (do to the fire and MI this was a load and go). As I continued to assess the PT my partner went to work on the back window. He got the window out and slid the spine board to me, I log rolled the PT and put the board under her. Strapped her in and as my partner pulled I pushed (the PT was 290 pounds).

We got her out on a stretcher and fully immobilized her. Loaded her in the truck and went en-route. En-route I gave her bilateral 16 gage I.V.s, one of NS and one of LR. Put her on O2 treated for shock and so on. Once her B/P got up to 90 palp, I slowed the I.V,s to kvo. We pulled up to the hospital and unloaded her, she didn’t start bleeding until we unloaded her out of the truck(I don’t know if it was because she had bleed out so much she didn’t have enough B/P to bleed or we knocked a clot loose)

[Drew Boon (WBE)]

I had a funny encounter with a patient recently. Apparently, he had got drunk, fell down in Walmart, and hit his head hard enough to get it bleeding and knock him unconscious.

I didn't know any of this when I went to go get him, and he was still clearly intoxicated, as evidenced by his erratic choice of languages, which included Spanish and Italian. It was a little unnerving, and then funny, being answered in a language other than English by a person who clearly understood what I was telling him - clearly understood when I talked loudly enough, that is; his wife had taken his hearing aids so that he wouldn't lose them.

As I was wheeling him down the hall, he started rambling about his past exams, and how they showed something was faulty with his brain, that it was missing something, that it was shrinking. It still makes me chuckle.