Paramedic AMA

See anyone die today? Anyone get permanently horrifically maimed/crippled?

Thank you for your service on a night you should be at home resting. Unfortunately the world doesn't stop moving and people dont stop being dumb, so again, thank you for being a real life super hero.

How many calls do you usually get in a day?

u and ur coworkers are da real mvps

*highfive bro*
You know what to do now! Drink yourself stupid, then set up an IV to take care of the hangover in the morning.

>>17891811
This, thank you for your service op

>>17891795

No one died today, but the first call I did was an old lady with a TIA (mini-stroke). She was fine when I got there, but it doesn't bode well for her in the near future.

>>17891811
>>17891828
>>17891845

Thank you. We rarely get acknowledged by the public except around 9/11. I didn't do this job because I wanted the recognition though, I do it because I like to help people.

>>17891830

As much as I'd like this to be a joke, I am drinking myself into oblivion right now. This job fucks your social life, and forces you to deal with a lot of shit. Starting a line and hanging a banana bag and pushing some Zofran is not uncommon.

>>17891862
:/ guess my christmas really was the worst

>>17891825

I currently work private service, we average 4-8 runs per truck in a 12 hour shift. When I worked 911, I was just as likely to do zero runs as I was to do 10 runs. There's no rhyme or reason to people calling 911.

Going to post some stories to keep this up.

This actually took place while I was still in medic school, we were required to do about 900 hours of clinicals in various places, (ER's, Labor and Delivery, Burn Ward, Pediatrics,etc), as well as in the field. I was in a major urban city, but program director felt we should also experience EMS in more rural places.

>Go to clinical location about an hour south of major city.
>Seriously racist, meth decimated part of the state. KKK still present here.
>I'm halfrican, (that's mixed african-american and white for the uninformed).
>Mixed feelings about this, (rural EMS in this area has very aggressive protocals because major hospitals are so far away, which means I can do a lot of cool shit).
>They also fuck up niggers.
>Guys at the station I'm at are very cool, like, some of the best guys I've ever met. Normally have to "study" during downtime of clinical, these dudes feel weird if I don't play Wii or take naps while there.
>Call comes out, "attempted suicide."
>Run pewpew lights and sirens, still takes 30 minutes to get there
>I'm riding in the back, no real sense of where we are, but I know if we cut the sirens I'd hear the banjo from Deliverance
>Get to this house, hop out the back of the truck, we're first on scene, (this area rolls a sheriff and volunteer fire to everything, and we rarely beat the sheriffs).
>We're in Bumfuckistan, just 1 house and a lot of places to bury the body.
>Grab the ALS bag, and take another look around
>Dogs everywhere, not all of them secured, fucking "Air Bud 7: Racist Retriever" filming in progress
>Very nervous, but I'm here to save lives
>pokerface.jpg
>Someone comes running up to the truck
>"JIM BOB TRIED TO HANG "HISSELF"
>He's down in the "crick bed"

>>17891873
My Ex was a paramedic. He would pull 24hr shifts and then do doubles and overtime just to get a weekend free for us. After a while it wore him down so much that he decided I was better off not being with him. So he moved across the state.
It's been a while but I still wonder how things would have turned out if he'd had a less stressful job.
Hang in there man.

>>17891898

cont...

>That's at least 100 yards behind the house over rough, wooded-terrain ("over yonder" by this redneck's account). I'm still young and in shape, the two guys with me are not, (one fat, one old)
>No chance of getting a cot down there, we have to lug the gear through the woods

>>17891901
>We're not running, the gear is heavy, and the terrain is shit, and we're useless if we hurt ourselves
>I'm first to hit this dry creek bed after following this redneck
>I see a group of people huddled around a body about 50 feet away
>Even at this distance I know this guy is DRT
>They had cut him down, but he'd probably been hanging there at least a couple hours
>Nothing really to do except wait for the coroner
>The family are crazy emotional, as they should be, but this guy is way dead
>Place the monitor on this guy just for show, but he's clearly been dead for awhile
>Family has watched too much tv, expect us to be doing CPR and shit, not going to happen
>Now the grieving turns to anger... and we're the targets
>Fucking rednecks in my face about not running to the guy, (literally not possible, even without a 40lb bag hanging on my side)
>"What if it was your family?!?!" yada, yada, yada
>Mind you now, we're far from the road to this shithole, so PD/FD can't see us from the road, and only know that we're somewhere in the area because our truck is sitting there

>>17891906

>Suddenly, rednecks coming out of the woodwork
>Like literally, fucking toothless meth heads just appearing out of the trees like Predator and shit
>Everyone starting to direct anger at us
>We need to go, like, 5 minutes ago. We're alone, unarmed, and I'm brown
>A quick look at my partners, and it's on both their faces too, we need to go
>The veteran guy says some line about needing to grab extra equipment or some bullshit, whatever, back to the truck
>I'm all "fuck whitey", I'd heard the sirens of PD, and I was moving fast as fuck towards the guy on my team with a gun
>Whole way back up to the house, rednecks still appearing out of nowehere, asking me about the dead guy
>Fucking "Hills Have Eyes" and shit
>Play up the brown slave angle, tell them I just carry the gear, talk to the white boys behind me
>Break the tree line and hit the back yard, immediately some dog comes at me

>>17891913

>Shift the ALS bag to that side mailman style
>Dog bites the bag
>Look up and see Sheriff coming around house with a couple of FD guys. I'd met them all earlier, (brought Krispy Kreme donuts in with me, they don't have that shit down in Bumfuckistan)
>Broke into a sprint for them, pokerface.jpg on the outside, losing my shit on the inside
>Not phased by the dead guy, I couldn't give a fuck, but being so isolated and having all these people confronting me was too much, (I was just a student)
>Had discussed the issue of my browness earlier with these guys, (they brought it up), and they were slightly concerned about me working this area
>Sheriff goes down to find my partners with one of the FD guys, the other takes me back up to the trucks
>More FD/PD shows up in the next 30 minutes, and eventually we're cleared to leave the scene.
>Find out later that the family ended up in a fist fight with the FD/PD people who were there
>It did not go well for the cast of Deliverance

>>17891899

You just gave me a gut punch in the feels. I started dating, and eventually moved in with, a girl I met. We broke up last week, after four years together. I don't take baggage home from work, but I do need some personal time to decompress. She couldn't handle that. Sometimes I just needed to be left alone, and to do my own thing. It culminated in me burning every bridge with her. I'm constantly depressed when I think of her, and I think of her all the time, but I'm also happier than I've ever been when I just do my own thing.

What were the worse things you ever saw op? Damage wise, fucked up wise, sad wise, and so on...

>>17891913
>Play up the brown slave angle, tell them I just carry the gear, talk to the white boys behind me

kek

>>17891925
Sorry to hear things didn't work out. But it's good to know what you need and hold onto that. I hope you can find someone a little lower maintenance who understands you a bit better than she did.

I wish I had been able to show T that he didn't have to work himself to death to spend time with me. Hell, I'd have been happy just eating mac-n-cheese on the couch with him vegging in front of the DVR(this was before netflix). I helped him study for all of his certs to begin with. You'd think he would have realized I was in it for the long-haul. Oh well. I hope he figured out what he needed too.
Sorry for going off down memory lane there.

>>17891925
Police dispatch here. Fucking tell me about it man. Had a huge blowout with a good friend of mine and burned bridges with her too. Dealing with people when they're dying, or trying to kill eachother or just got molested by someone really fucks with your life outside, even if you can leave it at work.

Plus the pay and schedule sucks too. I aught to be able to buy a house and or top shelf whiskey after I have to talk to/lie to a teenager while he burns to death on Christmas eve.