After seven months of Monday-Friday, 8-5 classroom work, and many clinical rotations at the hospital…it was time for our student ride time on an ambulance. We were afforded the opportunity to choose anywhere in the country that allowed students, so some of us were packing up to head out to big cities.
After dispatching midnight to 8 a.m. every night and then going to school all day, I was ready for a change of scenery. Three of us from class were going to be staying together in a big, beautiful, old house owned by one of the paramedics that worked for the company that was hosting us. We headed down the highway with our maps (yes, paper map books). Finally, the city was in sight! I navigated the turns, and the areas started to look less and less like anything resembling back home. I wasn’t entirely sure that I wanted to come to a complete stop at a stoplight for fear that I would be without a car when it turned green. We forged ahead until I pulled the car up to our destination. The house was everything that it was described, and our hostess was just as welcoming. I would just think twice about going out after dark.
Day one of my Paramedic ride-along had arrived! Second verse, same as the first… I had on brand new navy blue EMS pants with pink trauma shears in the right thigh pocket, extra gloves in the left leg pocket. My Rocky brand boots were shiny, and my student polo shirt was freshly ironed. The hairdo and makeup looked flawless…Prom Queen perfect. This was quite the achievement considering my shift started at 0530 hrs. (Yep…now I am using military time like a paramedic).
I climbed in the back of the ambulance (just like I did for my EMT ride-along) and introduced myself. The Paramedic looked at me and informed me that they liked to nap for the first part of their shift, so “don’t bother them unless there is a call.” Okie Dokie. I settled in to wait for that first call.
I was nervous and excited at the same time. Things were different now…I had a whole new set of knowledge and skills to use! I was an “A” student in paramedic school, so I knew that my ride-along time would be a piece of cake (white wedding cake with buttercream frosting…mmm. Now I am hungry.) I was prepared!
“Unit 101…Respond to an unconscious party.” Here we go! The sirens began to wail, and my adrenaline was pumping through my veins like water through a fire hose. My paramedic preceptor turned around and asked me if I felt confident enough to handle taking charge of the call. You bet! As we pull up, I looked out the front window and opened the side door to check my surroundings…I didn’t want a replay of sliding in anything gelatinous. I hopped out with the medical bag slung over my shoulder like I had been doing that for years.
Our patient was sitting on his porch stairs. I walked confidently up to him and introduced myself. I assured him that we were here to help, and I asked, “What made you call 911 today, sir?” He promptly replied, “I fell out.”
Things have changed with this call. I may have gotten a traumatic injury instead. “Fell out of what, sir?” He looked at me like I had two heads. “I fell out,” he repeated. “Yes, I heard that. What did you fall out of?” I asked again.
Blink, blink. “I fell out. What don’t you get about that?” I looked around to see what the patient could have fallen out of, and then I heard the loud snickering of my preceptor and his partner. I gave them the “What?” look. After another few minutes of going back and forth about what the patient could have plummeted from or out of, I was informed that “Fell out” means: passed out, or in medical terms: syncopal episode. Seriously? How does one decipher that?
So, on to the hospital we went… No I.V., no medications, no awesome super-paramedic skills. How very anti-climactic.
Note to self: book smarts were not necessarily going to help me on the streets in the real world.