A few days ago on my day off, I was enjoying a nice summer day,  not too hot, not too cool.  The sun was slowly setting on this small area.  My family was going about their normal business, as were the neighbors in the neighborhood.   I was sitting at the computer playing my music and surfing.   I heard my wife run in with my nephew and the dog, saying that I was needed outside now.  I quickly attempted to grab my 2-way radio, my socks, my shoes, and a pair of gloves, as well as my wallet and keys.  It seemed like forever in my mind.  I heard my wife exclaim, it was the neighbor, and it doesn't look good.  Trying to prepare myself I was so shell shocked I couldn't stand still or put my gloves on.  As I ran from the house, a neighbor who is a nurse was yelling she needed an airway. 

I ran to my truck and dug through my personal jump bag, I didn't have any airways, because my bag is just a quick kit, not an advanced bag.  A first responder had arrived and had pulled her bag and found the nurse was wanting a CPR mask.  I continued across the street seeing my nephew trying to run behind me, and my wife holding him back, I knew he didn't understand and wanted to follow his role model.  It made me think how proud I would be if he followed me into EMS. 

 I arrived at the patient CPR in progress, the ambulance arrived a few seconds later, but it seemed like forever.  As they arrived, I went into action gave a brief report to the medic, and pulled the cot from the truck, and lowered it a low position, and removed the straps, while the other medic was grabbing a board.  They placed the patient on the backboard, and secured him with the straps, and loaded him onto the cot and into the truck.  One of the first responders was in the truck with the medics.  I jumped in to make sure they didn't need anything, and I assisted to place the defib pads.  I ran some strips after I put on the ECG leads switching between the leads.  I placed the pulse ox on the patient's finger, and someone reported the patient was a diabetic.  One of the medic's tried intubating, but couldn't get it to work, so they ended up using a combitube.  The other started a line and started pushing the CODE drugs.

 We continued CPR, and ventilations.  I was in shock that the neighbor I had just seen out a few hours ago mowing is now under my hands as I do compressions, his color starting to come back in his face.  The monitor wasn't showing anything.  We worked him to the hospital, and I relinquinshed my duties to the ER Staff.

 I returned home and made sure to comfort my nephew, to make sure he was okay, I knew that at a young age that could be traumatic.  I sat down, and thoguht to myself.  I didn't cough or gag.  Usually my nerves have bothered me in the past to the fact that I felt as though my throat was closing off, and it makes me wonder if I am starting to fit into EMS the way I should, and it only took me this long.  I really have made leaps and bounds in my experiences and training.  I am more interested in complex things now, at least at times. 

Just a little intro about myself to start my blog off right....   I am a semi-aspiring writer.  I have been in and out of EMS for the past 5 years.  I worked 3 years on an ALS ambulance service as an EMT-Basic, where I learned many skills as a basic and will never forget those partners who have moved on.  I took a shot on the dark and left EMS for 2 years during which time I experienced the thrills of layoff's.  This year I found myself coming back into EMS yet again with a new light on life, and EMS.

 During about the last year of my first 3 years I started writing my stories down, and changing names, and some of the senarios to hide my identity, and that of my location.  I have about 20 pages in word of stories throughout the years.  I intended to start writing again after being gone and coming back, but I Haven't.   I really like writing and I think it is my method of calming myself.  I am back at the service I started at and enjoy it more now, I don't know why though, maybe because I don't have to live here to make a living now.  I hope that someone will find my stories helpful and maybe even funny.  

 I also do some volunteer EMS which I will share stories from too.

 Thanks for reading them.

 Medix

i went on my AMR ride along a few days ago for my emt-b class. i had no idea people were soooo stupid. i mean. wow. i really lost all faith in humanity. we were responding to a chest pain call and for some reason no one knows to pull to the right. as we are speeding down the boulevard most cars are pulling to the right but that doesn't keep a few people from staying in the left lane, pulling out into the intersection and some even pulling into on coming traffic! the paramedic on board used some very fancy language to describe that guy. it cracked me up so hard. i can't believe that people don't pay more attention. i feel for everyone in this profession that has to deal with total morons. must get real old.

Hi everyone!  Great website and I'm happy to join up with the crowd here. 

I'm a female teen in rural NJ.  I'm just starting on my ems journey, applying at my local First Aid Squad.  They haven't returned my call yet, but I'm hoping it will be soon.  I am thrilled to finally be able to have this happen.  I haven't had any previous experience with ems, but have always had an attraction and natural turn to medical aspects of life.  I want to be ready to help people. 

Every time I see an ambulance in our area, driving around, I always had a certain thrilling, excited sensation, with an "I don't know why, but it's so cool".  I think if you experience a passion for something unknown, you should go ahead, try it out, get involved.  And, so, here I am.  I'm looking forward to the road ahead, and hoping to share it with others to encourage volunteers. 

Hi All,

I am new here looking to meet new friends in the EMS field chat with ya'll soon.

Hi, I'm Jayne and I run Narcaid, a UK paramedic training facility.  We sepecialise in helping paramedics/EMTs recognise and manage drug related presentations, and we supply courses to UK ambulance service NHS trusts.  I am hoping to make contact with UK crews and learn from their experiences, as we are now getting many of the drugs familiar to yourselves over here, courtesy of the Internet.

At the moment we are researching Vicadin overdose, and are looking for anyone who could share their experinecs of dealing with patients who have presented following use of this drug.  We are happy to offer free places in our online Virtual Presentation Clinic to anyone who can help us out.  The information will be used to train other emergency service personnel.

I just thought I would be the first to post a blog entry so here goes. (don't expect much yet, I can't write worth a damn.  Hell I can barely talk without screwing it up!)

The website just  went through some changes.  I wanted to  make this more the "community like I had planned and the forum that was on here was going to be a real bitch to integrate so I got rid of it.  I think that the new one should work quite well for us. 

There were a number of problems with the site lately. 

1.  When testing a new script that would have made it easier to back the site up so we don't lose anything if the site should go down or if the server crashed and we lost data I found that the backup script didn't save all of the data and the database for the photo gallery was DELETED!!!  WTF  Anyways I was able to get the site back up with a backup but the gallery backup I had was bad...  Oh well I wanted to do more with the photo gallery anyways so now I am in search of something that is a little more user friendly.

2.  When upgrading the forum all of the user name data was scrambled and half of the users were duplicated by one of the scripts and I had to spend 2 days sorting it out.  I hope none of you had problems getting on.  I seen a few of you on here but did not get a chance to see if things were working ok for you.  Everything should be back to normal now.

I have added the new profiles to the site and you will have to go in and enter whatever it is you want to share with everyone on the site.  The old profiles that were in the forum are gone.  It would have taken a long time to sort that out so you will have to start over.  Sorry.  But there are some new options and feel free to let me know if there is something else you would like to see in the profiles.  And don't forget to upload a pic of yourself. It will show on the forum and in your profile.  

I will be adding some other things soon like a map that will show where everyone is from, and a private messaging system to further the communication on the site.  As well as a couple of other things.  

As always have a great day!

Ed