It's been a very long time since I've written. A lot has happened. Some good, some bad, most indifferent. Tonight has been an interesting night. I should tell everyone.....or really myself, that I've gone from Bad partner to Great Partner back to New gal, knows everything partner. That won't last long, I'll break her in (like I did with Bad partner) or I'll break her totally.
Tonight we started off the night taking two geriatric jobs. Both are simple and just plain silly. Nothing important in those. Though while clearing the second job with operations I hear a call go out. It's for the fall down stairs and non responsive. The address is what gets me though. I know it all too well. It sounded like my parents house, but it wasn't. It was the same street just not close to their house. I offer up for the call as we are considerably closer then the rig they want to send. I've got to remember not to offer up for any calls any time soon.
I arrive on scene with one of the fire depts were not a big fan of. They tell me it's probably a precautionary and it doesn't look good. Normally we take what they say with a very fine grain of salt, yet something in his voice told me otherwise. I get down the stairs and I see what they mean. This lady is not in good shape at all. 12 steps, about 12 feet, strait down into a hard wall. The friend says she went to use the restroom and just took the wrong door. One fateful step too many. She's barely breathing, and when she is breathing it sounds as if she's in a deep sleep and is snoring though her dreams. One look in her pupils tell me they are probably the last of her dreams, and will be nothing more then nightmares. They are high, all you see is black, and they don't react, neither of them. I quickly ask for RSI as she meet criteria....unfortunately we have none up. We load the patient, I steal a firefighter (the new partner truly has no clue what she is doing, let alone where she was going and got us lost not once but twice) and off we go. i decided that the patient really needs a tube and can't wait for the ER. And so off I go. I look in and see nothing, well nothing good, lots and lots of emesis, no blood though, that's good right? I push forward a little more, and I see what I need, the epiglottis, but no vocal cords....She needs the tube though and if that's the epiglottis, then the cords have got to be there. Lucky for her they were and the tube helped. Though she refused to wake up. No sooner did I pass the tube though, did my RSI (rapid sequence induction, using drugs to stop the lungs and loosen the muscles) Paramedic show up, just a minute too late. Though as my partner pulled over to meet with the RSI medic, she turns the lights off, every light off...Boy was I pissed, glad I didn't lose the tube or she would have lost her head, and me my job. From this point everything else is easy, IO in (damn people for not having any veins) and speed to the nearest trauma center another 10 miles away.
We arrive and we all know it's not good. The pupils are blown, so is her life. Barely 55 and a child left behind, scared. Her brain had no brain, it was all blood. There is no chances of surviving that, well not at least back to normal. The docs have told me she'll be comfort care only. What a shame, maybe the loss of her life can benefit multiple others. In her career she cared about giving to others, maybe she'll continue on with that theory.
I'm not sure why, but this call really hit me hard. I've had multiple cardiac and respiratory arrest. A few (hundred?) shootings and stabbings, and a lot of drunk wrecks, yet not one has effected me this bad. Maybe its time I take a day off and just enjoy myself. I've been fighting with my family and I guess I should apologize and make sure they're alright and tell them I miss them. This is one of those cases that just prove how fragile life truly is.
