(I guess this is not really humorous but it sure is interesting.)

What A Way To Go.

At the time of this story, we were trying out an "ALS-Engine."
We carried all of the ALS gear on the engine and a BLS ambulance
ran concurrently with us in our district. This only lasted about
a year because it was very hard on the engine as we were getting
about 8-10 EMS calls a day in addition to the our fire calls.

At my station, the alarm bell kind of half-rings whenever the
generator kicks on. One Sunday morning at about 6:50 a.m. while
everyone was sleeping, we were awakened by that crazy half ring.
At first I thought it was strange for the generator to be going
on at that time of the day, but them someone rolled over and
groaned "guess we'll be going out for the auto accident any
minute." They were referring to a probable auto accident somewhere
in the district that might have caused our power outage. We all
tried to go back to sleep for a few more minutes, hoping that that
guys prediction would not come true.

Sure enough the alarm sounded about ten minutes later for "person
down" outside the local electrical power substation. We turned
out the engine and a BLS ambulance was sent from another nearby
station.

When we arrived at the scene, we found a young black male lying on
the ground just outside the gate of the power substation.
Several power company employees were also standing around. The
fellow did not have shirt or shoes on. At first glance had 2nd and
3rd degree burns all over his chest, face, and arms, and what
appeared to be electrical exit wounds on the bottoms of his feet.
He also had lacerations on the inside of both wrists and
bilateral lacerations in the area of the carotid arteries.

At first, my partner and I were quite confused. One of the first
things that went through our mind is: "What the hell has happened
to this guy." We started into patient assessment. He was somewhat
conscious and breathing on his own. He did not appear to have any
head injuries or long bone fractures. The lacerations on his arms
and neck appeared to be clotted and were oozing at worst.

Because of the extent of the burns, we started two large bore
IVs. My partner then decided that this was a case for an air-
evacuation, since we do not have a burn/trauma center nearby.

While we were getting the patient packaged and ready for the
helicopter, one of the power employees came over to tell us what
he knew about our patient. It seems this guy had escaped from
the psychiatric hospital that was about three blocks away. He
had a history of suicide attempts. He escaped from the psych
hospital, walked to the electrical substation, jumped the fence at
the power station, sliced his wrists and carotid arteries,
and then climbed up on one of the large power transformers (this
guy really wanted to kill himself). He apparently stretched his
arms out and touched both poles of the transformer. He had a very
"shocking experience". We have no idea why he was not electrocuted
outright. Ironically the electricity did not kill him and it even
helped to save him, for a while anyway. When the electricity
flashed over his body, it must have cauterized his neck and wrist
wounds.

He was air-evacuated to Norfolk General Hospital. He died about 10
days later from sepsis.

Brian J. Rueger
Hampton Div. of Fire & Rescue
Med-10
1990