Tae 4 - Every Minute Sucks

Hello all - sorry I haven't posted in a while. [Did anyone miss me?]

ObPeeve: FINALS! God, I hate them. What a waste of time, when I ...

Ahem, sorry - wrong group.

During finals week I was able to squeeze in a shift at my 'city' job. Actually, I had no idea I was scheduled - until my beeper went off and I called the dispatch office:

"Tae, where the FUCK are you?"

I know they like me, I just know it.

I worked the 11pm - 7 am shift in the lovely city of Everett, MA. Or as some of us call it - 'Ever rot.' A city close to Boston, where the IROC is king, and an errant cigarette touching the 'spritzed big-hair' of a woman could cause flashbacks to the days when Michael Jackson ran around doing his impression of 'the human torch.' I tell you: if it don't touch the ceiling, it ain't big enough.

An aside: I'm beginning to think there's a 'hairarchy' involved when several women get together. Obviously, the one with the biggest 'do' is the alpha female. The postion is tenuous, as the alpha female can fall to the many natural disasters in the wild: high humidity (bad for 'do'), hair too high (raising center of gravity - instability), and the ever-present danger - errant cigarette waving. The ability to chew many sticks of gum and smoke 'menthol' cigarettes at the same time is also a good indicator of alpha female material. But I digress ...

The shift started off well: I sat at a Dunky's for about an hour with my partner, Pam (we call her medic '007' - license to kill), and we counted the number of cops that came in and got 'Boston creme' donuts with their coffee - many. I tell you, the best way to 'case' a city - to see if their police department is 'on the ball' is to hang out at a donut shop to see how overweight most of them are. Judging by the girth of most of Everett's finest - I 'suspect' that many crimes could be committed while the city sleeps, and the cops eat.

The first call of the shift was for a 'diff breather,' a fifty-ish year-old male experiencing difficulty breathing. Upon arrival, we went up two flights of stairs to the top floor of a triple-decker. A middle-aged man was sitting on the floor of his living room, his back against an easy-chair. His skin color was a dusky blue (positive Smurf-sign), and he obviously was having a hard time breathing. I reached for his wrist to check his pulse, while my partner applied an oxygen mask on him. I listened to his lungs and heard a fine, wet, crackling noise every time he tried to take a breath. Pulmonary edema. A condition where fluid from your body gets trapped in the lungs, which slowly starts to fill. It's kinda like drowning in a swimming pool - only you're in the living room. That fine crackling noise was the sound of little bubbles of air travelling through bronchial tubes filled with fluid. Try rubbing together a bit of your hair, near your ear - that's the sound.

Anyway, he wasn't getting any air into his lungs. So the decision was made to intubate him in the house. Ah, intubation. The so-called 'fresh-air pipe,' the 'air piccolo' - this man would be playing it soon. Pam set up the equipment, and made her first attempt. Since this guy was still rather conscious, he objected to her trying to ram the equivalent of a 'giant Pixie-stick' down his throat, and batted her away. She tried again - and was rewarded by getting her glasses knocked-off. So it was my turn.

He was now on his back, I kneeled near his head, Pam held on to both of his hands. I slowly inserted the lighted 'blade' that would lift the fleshy glottis, and illuminate my goal: the trachea. He promptly bit down on the blade and started to twist his head back and forth. Joy. Another crew had shown up at this time, and helped hold his head still. I again inserted the blade, and was rewarded by the man's dinner - now several hours digested. The menu? - pasta (well-chewed I was happy to note), some bread, and a rich red marinara, with sun-dried tomatoes. The heavy, sour smell of partially digested garlic and marinara rose to tickle my nostrils. I avoided most of the onslaught by turning his head to one side, unfortunately the side occupied by Pam, who was holding his head still for me.

"Thanks a lot, asshole," she hissed at me, too soft for the family to hear.

"But Pam, I thought you liked Italian food." - her glower deepened.

With all the struggling this man put up, he was beginning to tire. His oxygen levels weren't that high in the first place, so in a short time, his struggles lessened enough so that I could pass the tube through his trachea and into his lungs. I knew I was in the lungs - as frothy white stuff started to pour out of the tube, and onto the floor. The amount this man put out was simply amazing. Some of the froth was pink - indicating that I caused a 'leetle' trauma to his throat while trying to pass the tube. Oh well.

We rolled him onto a 'scoop stretcher' and strapped him down, and began the tedious process of trying to carry this two-hundred pound man down two flights of stairs. The ironic thing throughout this whole process was that since he was getting more oxygen now that he was intubated, his level of consciousness rose - enough for him to get combative again.

Picture this: four people carrying a man on a flat metal board, the man's hands have wiggled free from their restraints, and are trying to reach and pull-out the plastic tube I just inserted. The people at his side are trying to re-restrain his hands, but his arms waving wildly about is causing the center of balance to shift, causing everyone carrying him to rock back and forth - knocking over lamps and vases. His wife scurrying this way and that saying "That's okay, don't worry about it," with every new thing we knock over. _That's_ an EMS call - 'Every Minute Sucks.'

After hauling him down the stairs, and knocking over some bric-a-brac on the first floor as well - "That's okay, don't worry about it," we finally get him into the ambulance - where I turn on the suction unit, and suction out at least a liters worth of froth from his lungs. Cleaning one of these suction units is a pain - fortunately we loaded this guy into the other ambulance. Heh - I won't have to clean it.

We get to the hospital. And as we slide him off our 'scoop, we notice that he has shit himself during transport. A long brown smear covers our once shiny (and clean) metal board. I guess I have some cleaning to do as well. Sigh - 'code brown' in progress.

That was call #1. The rest of the shift went downhill. Don't want to talk about it - yet.

- Tae

(Originally posted: Wed, 18 May 1994)