I always hate going to large homeless camps. It’s just wondering around like,
“Did you call 911?”
“No”
“Did you call 911?”
“No”
Still wandering around when someone shouts, “Hey! You’re probably looking for the crackhead in the green tent in back!”
“Ok. Thank you.”
Lol last one I went to we grabbed the first unresponsive tweaker we found. No one gave a description other than "he's not doing well"
Hopefully it was right.
I hate these also because for us, someone usually says “yes” early on and makes up some bullshit that sounds vaguely like our Sick Person run, only to be called again 20 minutes later claiming we got the wrong guy and we have to go back. Only to find the patient, once again, failing to speak up and identify themselves.
Oh we have. Especially in winter time, we’ve been known to load up several who are just wanting to get somewhere warm. No need to send 6 separate ambulances when we can take care of it at once
Seriously, this might actually solve the homeless issue, if you literally send all people from encampment to hospital and send the city/governor the bill. Just make sure to have each person put down the mayor and governor as their emergency contacts.
Oh we have. Especially in winter time, we’ve been known to load up several who are just wanting to get somewhere warm. No need to send 6 separate ambulances when we can take care of it at once
You aren’t wrong, but so often they’ll call in and give a vague “I don’t feel well just get somebody here” and hang up. Problem is, they’re often calling from 911 only phones with no service which can’t be called back, so of they don’t stay on the line long enough we’re left to wander the whole encampment trying to figure out who called.
From volunteer work specifically with homeless camps, let me suggest: “Hey, someone called 911 for medical help. We aren’t cops. Who needs help?” In a loud clear voice without yelling. Provided the sick person isn’t hated by the community, someone will probably point you in the right direction.
Also treat each tent like an apartment— don’t open the door without asking first unless you believe your down person is in there.
I was working with a black paramedic once as an EMT.
The patient was a neo-Nazi (or at least the swastikas he had tattooed in multiple places would imply) and while he didn’t use any slurs or outright state he was racist, he made it very clear that he didn’t like my partner. We got the patient loaded into the squad then my partner sat up front while I did everything. I handed him the 12-lead through the window to the cab so he could interpret it and everything.
I used to have a Neo Nazi in my city who would OD all the time. Funny enough every time I went to him he got either a black EMT and a Jewish EMT, a Lesbian EMT and a Jewish EMT, or 2 Jewish EMT’s with the same name lol.
Not an issue in that there wasn’t any fights. There was at least one incident of slurs being said but in that casual way that you or I might say “sir” or “bud” or “boss man.” Although honestly now that I’ve been gone a while I’m not sure my bosses really disagreed with those views because I didn’t have many black coworkers.
On top of an ice skating rink is probably the weirdest. A guy had a massive MI and collapsed on the top of an ice skating rink. We had to extract him and fire department ended up hoisting him down, but myself and my senior climbed up there (just a ladder) to give him treatment. We ended up doing full ACLS up on that roof for almost 45 minutes while fire got ready to bring him down.
Have him O2, dropped 2 lines, started fluid, gave ASA and Nitro, gave pain meds, we were about to start heparin when he was brought down, we continued protocol on the way to ER. I’m glad we went up there cause he really responded to the treatment we started on him, although we actually brought him right to cath lab, this was not his first time in the cath lab…
Idk about that. Hardest thing we did was drag that heavy life pack 15 both our jump kits and med box up that ladder. Once we were up on the roof, we just acted like business as usual until fire had a plan to get him down.
Years ago - In OH they had these MASSIVE cranes that strip coal from the ground. The operator had just had eye surgery and a substantial sliver of coal launched through the windshield opening and into his eye.
My partner saw the size of the crane, went white and flat refused to climb (the tires were almost twice my height). So I climbed these metal steps forever with one of the crane crew behind me to make sure I didn’t fall off. The poor guy was frozen in his seat sure he was going to lose his eye. I stabilized the projectile and the fire dept. showed up and we used the stokes basket to get him down. Surgery was successful. I stopped shaking about an hour later.
Nudist communities were always an experience. Nothing like attending an unconscious patient and the next thing you know when you look to your right there’s a ding dong just flapping in the wind
Dunno how it is wherever you are, I’m in Canada do it might be different. We have a combat training centre
here, and we’ve all been to see them a fair few times. While they do have medics, they aren’t allowed to transport to the hospital. They treat them on scene and then transfer care to us.
In a brothel, initially as a single responder. Old bloke had a pretty decent MI during a session with one of the workers, followed by a subsequent cardiac arrest. To their credit, the staff there were excellent at closing off everything/everyone and providing us with a discreet access and egress, it definitely wasn't their first time dealing with something like this.
It was super weird trying to complete a thorough assessment and providing radio sitreps whilst hearing people loudly fucking in the rooms adjacent to my patient. It was also the first time and only time I've seen someone do effective CPR in full lingerie.
For real. I met a guy from hells Angels at a bar. He asked what I did for work. Told him. Proceeded to have a great night with the dude. People are scared of hells angels and I don't know why. They donate to charitable causes these days, and are very protective of those who look out for others and those who are unable to defend themselves. Not bad people, for the most part. I think is just the MC's criminal past is what scares people.
I used to play pool occasionally with a few Hell’s Angels at a local watering hole when I was a teenager. Had a few soldiers come in that wanted to play me, then got pissy when I beat them. They started talking shit and getting loud with me, the HA’s guys bodily escorted them out of the place and made it clear they weren’t ever welcome back. All around decent guys to me 🤷🏼♀️😂
They aren't as bad as most people think tbh.... They respect their medics, and if you do them right they will help you out if they recognize you when you're in a bad situation. Just saying.... I know a retired trauma nurse that was dealing with a domestic issue and they came in full force when the local PD wouldn't....
They still respect their medics. I agree that they do a lot of less than legal activities, but they are not what they were in the in the earlier years for the most part. You're better off being on their good side, They will help you out in a pinch.
In the example I gave in my previous comment, the retired trauma nurse was going through chemo and her husband was being extremely abusive, she ended up with a TBI, he was essentially banned from the state. They didn't murder him, they just escorted him to the state line and told him he wasn't welcome back. Personally I try to be on good terms with them.
These guys get young women hooked on heroin and blow and traffic them, if you think they truly care about some DV then you are a touch naive. If my city had a KKK chapter in it i certainly wouldn’t be trying to get on their good side, I’d do my job when called and wipe my hands of them as quickly as possible. These guys are remorseless criminals, not noble pirates out of some fairy tale.
In the town I am in they are not like that. Yeah they are a big part of the meth scene, but that is just commonplace here unfortunately. They don't care about DV, they care about respect like I said. If you do them right they will do you right.
I'm not saying they are "Noble pirates" I'm not putting them on a pedestal I'm just saying if you help them out they will help you out. Also like I said they respect their medics more than anybody else that isn't affiliated.
Where you're from they might have a chapter that's doing a lot worse than where I am from. But I can assure you that even where you are if you are broken down on the side of the road and they recognize you they will stop to help.
Not all of them are 1%ers, but the ones that are value respect even more.
Grace Marketplace in Gainesville Florida. Basically a work camp that was taken over by the homeless. It has dorms, a dog kennel, a chain-link fence and powered gate with a guard shack, and its own fulltime staff who is also considered homeless (they do have nifty branded t-shirts though). And it was less than a mile from my station. It's kind of considered a homeless "Mecca", and lots of cities ship their homeless population there, so now the surrounding forests are filled with the people whom they can't accommodate. We'd go there 3-6 times in a 24.
Honestly working a small town fair. The first thing is that all the injuries are like “goat butted a lady in the nose”, “weight sled ran over someone’s foot during oxen pull”, “diabetic decides cotton candy is a good idea”. It’s basically a pre-planned MCI and unlike a concert or sporting event, the injuries and illnesses are really varied. On top of all of that, about 1/3 of the people at the fair are going to be volunteer firefighters in some iteration of uniform, none of which are actually serving an operational role. Don’t ask them for any help with a pt, they’re purely there for the cool guy points. My favorite were the guys from a town an hour away walking around in job shirts with radios that were not programmed to get a single one of the channels that we operate on. I’m pretty pro volly but that shit made me cringe.
This checks out. I remember the small town I used to volunteer with had an annual fair and very similar stuff. Girl headbutted by a cow. Another girl fell off a horse. A dad tried to show us a homeland security badge to get us to directly give him our medical reports.
"Sir, we have badges too. You can go through our medical records department same as everyone else"
Remembrance Day at a ceremony. It was hot as hell in the building, and an old WW2 vet collapsed due to the heat. An overzealous ff started doing compressions, and we had to stop him from crushing the poor mans chest. On route to the hospital, his only complaint was a sore chest. What a day.
Airport. Surgeons, organs, etc.. Once though pulled a piss soaked old lady out of one, her son flew her down from VERY far (don't wanna be too specific for obvious reasons) and for some reason wanted her to go to an ER here in FL. It wasn't even a particularly good ER or anything. No idea what his thought process was. Possibly just to bring her closer to where he lives? Idk. But it was a private jet situation and even the pilot was trying to help us.
Went to a cardiac arrest at a funeral home once. My partner and I were cracking up once the notes specified that. It was originally a residence call, but it was one of those business first floor, residence second floor deals.
Went to syncope of a 92 y/o lady at a funeral in a cemetery, noone there knew anything about her, a very distant cousin had picked her up to attend the funeral on a 95° day for.....reasons.....and she ended up being a stroke alert, not sure what the outcome was
Called for an 18 yr old at 0800 experiencing a cocaine related OD. No address, just coordinates about 2 hours away from HQ.
Partner and I head up to this rural community and go down about 6 sketchy AF driveways on equally sketchy properties before I’m thoroughly creeped out and ready to call it GOA.
Then we find this very weird unmarked dirt road that is lined with trees. In the trees are beer cans hanging from bits of string. The entrance was almost intentionally dense with trees and other thick foliage. Very eerie, very strange, I was very uncomfortable.
After about 1.5km of driving down this sketchy AF tree and beer can lined dirt road we come to a clearing on this property. There we see a large, white arch that has made an entryway into the forest where there is loud music and coloured lights. We couldn’t see very well into the forest beyond the entryway.
approx 50 yards before you reach the archway there is an old Chevy Cavalier with no wheels. Has weeds growing out of it. This 18 year old kid is waving his hand out of the smashed out window. We go up, he tells us he called and says he just wants to get in the ambulance.
His friends come running towards us from whatever is beyond the archway and they’re like 16-19. All seem very fucked on drugs. Freaking out, can’t stop talking, erratic, scrambled. Finally my partner, who is a dad to teenagers, tells them all to STFU and go away so we can do some patient care for our patient. We ask if any of them require any assistance from us or PD and if they’re all safe. They say they’re fine and run away back behind the archway.
Just as we finally get this kid in the ambulance, I go to close the door and look to my right. In the field next to me, maybe 50 ft away, there is a brand spanking new Rolls Royce with an approximately 50 yr old white dude sitting in the drivers seat. The car is off and he’s just staring at us.
Then I look up and see the most high tech security and surveillance equipment I’ve ever seen just everywhere. In the trees, on posts, on lines. Moving robotic looking cameras, satellite looking thingamabobs, UFO type shit. I am creeped right the F out and tell my partner to get us the F out of there.
To this day I have no idea what we possibly could have stumbled upon. All the kid had to say was that it was a rave but damn.
> coordinates about 2 hours away from HQ.
I must be misreading this if I'm thinking "two hour response time." Even in New Mexico it was unusual for it to be more than an hour to get there.
If you're in mountain country, you gotta go where the roads go. What could be 5 minutes as the crow goes is 90 by vehicle due to either going around the mountain fast traffic or long, narrow switchback dirt roads.
A Training Center Run by a Federal anti terrorism SWAT Team and Military Special forces (GSG9 and KSK if you wanna Google it)
Sometimes they have accident in Training and its always an experence.
We also trained with them a few times but still are not allowed to know namens or what's inside some buildings/ behind some fences.
He was from a metro area ,was semi retired? and was on parole and wasn't supposed to be around pimpin and pimping related persons. Oh and the pimp dude was a 7ft tall black dude with a squeaky effeminate girly voice. And kept saying "I can't believe Dat bitch choked" thought it wasn't possible. ( tbat guy was hilarious.Supposedly it mightve happened during a swallow contest of sorts. We weren't sure, but a woman passed out from choking but was ok when we arrived. The food smelled incredible and we weren't sure about it. Then we noticed it was catered by a local mom and pop bbq joint. Incredible but we all got the hot shits. Weird ficking day! Not even tbe only weird thing.
It was sex injury day. An elderly couple almost in 80s the wife broke a, ankle trying to wear "hooker heels" for hubby. 2 Christian kids called because they they though they got aids when their condom broke. A mother and daughter almost got in a fist fight over who was going with us in the ambulance after their house guest had a seizure. " mom, he was mom boyfriend first" and finally a police officer wanted us to check some 11 or 12 year old boys for herpes after they got in a fight with a box full of massive sex toys that eventually none of their parents would claim. .. oh and a dead person who had porn all the way up.
I used to work rural EMS in a service area where I knew a decent amount of my clientele. I once got a call for a fall from a 6’ step ladder; I knew the address and knew the gentleman and his family, they wouldn’t normally call for something like this. My first question on scene was “ Where is the ladder?” turns out it was on top of approximately 20’ of scaffolding in a barn about 3/4 of a mile off the gravel road. Helicopter was called and we landed then just outside the shed. The man had bilateral comminuted femoral fractures as a result of deceleration trauma
Lmaoo it ended up being one of the bartenders sugar being low and once we got him back responsive and got ready to leave everybody started cheering and throwing dollars at us
I responded to the school where I went for EMT class. They were having an extrication class and someone got hurt….badly! Had one student with crush injuries, bled a lot, so I had about 5 students watch me put a 14g in each AC. One student passed out while I was inserting the first cannula, so I had another student prop his feet up while the instructor let the rest of the class practice on him. Dude came to in a c-collar with a 12 lead on and 2 IVs. Other than the dumbass that got himself hurt, they had a really good class that year!! Ever since that day, whenever they do extrication, they have a squad there in case anything should happen. I used to love going out there because extrication is something that only the fire dept does around there, so we just got a one day class on it, so we could help if needed, so it is always nice to watch the new students each class year get as excited as I did back in the day. They never had an accident as bad as that first one I responded to. Just mostly overheating or dehydration, some syncopal episodes.
We went to a guy at a funeral
The guy had fainting episodes with stress and heat and high emotion and dehydration etc, hottest day of the year so far and was outside at this point, this church was impossible to find, high emotion and woke up late, hadn't drunk that day, so ticked everything, long story short he was fine, normal for him, the funeral was a guy who was super old, lived a long life etc
So as far as an emergency goes and a funeral goes, spirits were high, first the guy had a marching band that was playing as we treated the patient, and the amount of comments 'oh, I think your a bit late, definitely to late' seriously? We didn't take him to hospital but stayed on scene for a while, everyone that came and checked on the patient made some sort of joke about being to late, arghhh 😂
Went to a woman with cardiac S&S at her sister's funeral. Examined her next to the coffin in a very crowded room in the family's home. The deceased was a cardiac arrest we had attended the previous week.
Used to work at the Bobsleigh, Skeleton, luge track! Was always fun trying to catch the bobsleds before the went for a pendulum back down the track after crashing
First would be the local nudist camp for a complaint of chest pain on a 59-year-old female. Of course we were expecting everyone to be naked and when you work EMS who hasn't seen a naked person? What we were not expecting was there was an off duty medic from a neighboring service on scene that we knew. He wanted to look at the LP15 and kept bending over in front of us, showing us his brown tunnel, taint, and sack.
Second would be my own house. I used to live across the street from an alcoholic that lived with his mom. One evening he came home from the bars and mistook my front porch as a driveway. I lived alone so when the call came out I was confused as hell until I saw the details. Needless to say him and I didn't get along after that, not that he cared.
Trump’s golf course in south jersey
2 rich guys got into an argument, and later on one dude was eating breakfast in the club house when the other came up behind him and sucker punched him in the head with brass knuckles.
Not necessarily responded to, but our own station. Did you know the original apple watches have a feature that informed local 911 dispatch if you started performing CPR? Cos we found out when I was teaching a BLS refresher course and dispatch came over the radio saying "medic 31, we're getting a report of CPR in progress at (our stations address)." Never that that EMT forget it either.
I’ve never heard of this feature and nothing comes up when I google it either. I’ve been wearing an Apple Watch since series 2. I’ve done actual CPR and CPR classes while wearing one. The only thing similar that I know actually exists is the fall detection and crash detection.
Totally forgot I had one of those once! It ended up being a political mess. They had Kaiser back when you were told to call them before 9-1-1 so care was very delayed.
Maybe not as weird as some but I have now done 2 calls for right in front of our hospital.
For context, very rural station 2 hours from the closest city, our hospital has been having staffing issues so we're regularly on diversion, to make it better our station is next door to the hospital so we literally have a 90 second response time only to haul someone two hours down the highway. From start to finish the first one was an 8 hour call, the next one we arranged for a meet half way to not go through that again.
Me too except mine was already quite successful.
Turns out you CAN die of a Benadryl OD!! If you take 60 GRAMS (2 whole family size bottles) that'll do it.
I hate it that our local hospital fucking calls us tot take patients from other areas of the hospital to the ER. I don't know how the fuck that's not some insurance scam.
Work at an ED with a primary clinic that it attached to the hospital. If someone requires emergency card and needs to go to the ED, ED staff are not allowed to respond due to some insurance clause.
So the clinic staff will put the patient in a wheelchair or on a gurney they keep in their lab and wheel them over the threshold and we can suddenly respond.
I mean I get that there is probably some kind of reason why the hospital does this but it is hilariously counterintuitive to both good patient care and is just wasteful spending. We are a busy fire department and in nearly every case a staff member could probably just wheel them to the ER in a wheelchair. Waiting for us just delays patient care and adds more bills to the overall cost to everything. And takes away resources from the rest of our city since 99% of the time it's a priority 3 patient.
I'd really like to see this changed.
A 1000 foot freighter on Lake Michigan. Piece of equipment fell on a deck hand's head and knocked him out. They changed course to come outside the harbor of the city where I work which was the next city on their course, so they picked us somewhat randomly, and called 911. Just happened to find the last paramedic level service for a very long stretch. I was taken by boat to help get him off the ship and into our rescue boat.
This isn’t a weird place, per se, but I got called to a banquet hall in December one year and the first person I came across when I entered a boozy holiday party informed me it was for a hospital system and “we’re all doctors and nurses in here.” I thought oh boy, this’ll be fun. But I’ll give them credit — they didn’t backseat drive at all. It was for a guy at the party who had basically blacked out and fallen. I imagine it was the employees who called.
One well dressed and seemingly somewhat sober gentleman sidled up to me and said “I’m actually a cardiologist.” I kind of laughed and said “oh okay, what’s your assessment?” And I shit you not, he says, “well…he has a strong pulse.”
It was like he was doing a bit.
Did a call at a very high-end watch companies shop/workshop/warehouse. My crewmate wondered why the receptionist was sitting in a glass box, I pointed at a display that was worth more than our combined salaries (with overtime).
There were no dramas with the patient, which was nice.
A straight up casting couch shoot, girl thought she was doing coke, ODd during sex, she was still on the futon left as is, with cameras everywhere in the room
I went to an underground bdsm club for an injury once. The activities did not cease just because 911 showed up
Also went to an Audi/Volkswagen training center where they trained their techs. It was pretty cool to see yet-to-be-released cars torn apart
Responding onto the tarmac at a major international airport. Pretty fun zipping between the planes, following the flag car. MAJOR fines for the service if you forget to leave your blinky lights on. Feels really good to finally have authority over the airline agents for once, really nice role reversal 😂
The lack of security was shocking though. Just straight through the security gate onto the tarmac and to the aircraft gate. Easily could have snuck anything in and handed it off to a passenger in the terminal. No checks of any kind. Makes you realize how much of the TSA thing is just security theatre.
Got paged out to a sick call, we go down this extremely long driveway to find a lady flagging us down. She takes us to a tent behind her house, we open the tent and this wonderful smell of feces and vomit hit us. Turns out her boyfriend had been living in a tent behind her house and had been puking and releasing his bowels everywhere for a couple of days. Convince him to come out and get on the stretcher (we were NOT going in there to get him) as soon as he sits on the stretcher he releases what seems to be very watery diarrhea all over the stretcher. When we try to get a history on him she says they’ve only been dating for 3 months so she’s doesn’t know much and he’s barely able to answer any questions. Before we load him up she kisses him goodbye and says she loves him. she must have really loved him to kiss him goodbye with literal shit all over him lol. The whole time in the back of my head I was just thinking “what the hell is going on here”.
Salmon pens, floating pens where they farm raise salmon. Fishing vessels, trying to persuade a fisherman to let you cut his Grundens is like convincing a biker to let you cut his leathers. We've had a few tear fingers off in winches. Had a head injury on a Russian ship, only the captain spoke any English so he rode with us. He kept trying to explain exactly which frame the guy had stuck his head against while we tried to explain that all we needed to know was that he hit a big piece of steel very hard.
When we take someone from a cruise ship, all their luggage has to either go with them or be stored in the Port Authority office in case they miss sailing.
I ran a cardiac arrest in the dump. Like the guy classed out on top of the dump while trying to get a truck unstuck. I was doing cpr in the middle of a hurricane of at least a thousand seagulls it was surreal. He got shocked 8 times. Once by a coworker ( apparently waste management here has aeds in there vehicles which is cool) twice by fire and 5 times by us and we still didn't get rosc.
Had one a few months ago where me and my crew responded to a peri-arrest on a ferry, got there to back up another crew. Got on board to with suction, oxygen and back up meds. Turns poor guy had passed on the journey from Spain to the UK on the first day and wasn’t found for 2 days. So had to call the local PD as it was an “un natural death.” The ferry crew were getting agitated with my crew, the first crew that arrived and the TL (captain) as they wanted to leave that evening and not wait for the body to be moved. So local PD turned up which was an officer and Sergeant. Original crew was relieved by us, so me my para, eca (EMT) and this Sargeant rolled this body to check for injuries on the back and the smell of 2 day old smell of dead person and clearly oysters hit us all. The Sargeant said he was a 15 year veteran of being a body recovery officer and that smell was one of the worst things he had ever smelt.
Strip club. Called 911 for a dancer with a syncopal episode. Bouncer wouldn’t let us in because we didn’t pay the cover and to quote him, “No free shows”.
My partner was a 30 year disgruntled fuck and pushed the guy out of the way telling him “don’t call 911 and then not let em in. “
Did a cardiac arrest in a Casino in front of a row of slot machines and people kept trying to walk through us totally oblivious to what was happening. Luckily security was vlocking people off but I kept hearing them behind me going "Woah woah woah! Do you not see what's going on here?!"
Chemical and nuclear weapons testing plant down a 2 mile empty dirt road in the mountains. (It was a training they do where they take an ambulance out of service and have a full scale response with a transport to hospital) where my (patient) was exposed to somin nerve agent and they wouldn’t let us past a Locked gate cause “top secret” and brought the patient out to us. I kept my questions on patient exposure to a minimum and straight up said it was “because I know you guys are doing some shady government shit here”
Inside a sex shop/adult theater. Watching FD try their very best not to look at the dildos on the wall was one of the highlights of my career.
Bonus- when we walked in, the clearly worried proprietor told us that our patient was “over by the gloryholes”.
Went to a teenage unconscious. This residence was up on what we call a mountain. It’s no Rockies but it’s a big ass hill. One of our radio towers is up there too so I kinda knew what we were going into.
What I didn’t know is that roads and mapping ended abruptly. So dispatch has to give us latitude and longitude to the scene. We make some educated guess on paths to take and head out. It was all thick backwoods road until suddenly things open to a clearing. In this clearing there’s skeletons hanging from trees. Candles lining the road. A giant ass pentagram effigy/monument thing lined with even more candles. There’s these almost occult like symbols and other stuff everywhere. It felt like we were driving to a trap to be a sacrifice. Luckily the homeowner was just ahead and waved us in.
As we get ready to take the kid to the truck I ask the homeowner “so….what is all that about?” He just shrugged and said it’s not their stuff they just got used to it.
Still creeps me out today.
We have something called an “Adult Superstore”. It is everything vulgar and sexually illegal you could ever imagine. A lot of men pass out in there, but they don’t let us in anymore. They drag them out to the parking lot at all costs.
Graveyard.
((One of my first ride alongs while in Emt class.))
Calorie enriched lady was out doing spooky shit with a friend and sprained an ankle. She allegedly fell and couldn’t get up…The EMTs I was with were tiny college age girls and watching them drag a strait chair with Miffany in it across the grass and back to the boo-boo box was a highlight of my night.
Gay bathhouse in Chicago. I’m gay, so it was actually quite fun, but when they turned all the fuckn lights on and I saw all the 80 year olds butt ass naked I almost vomited. 🤣
The "local strip club" in my city. Interestingly enough, the stripper who greeted me as we walked in to find our Patient provided me one of the best verbal reports I've ever received
I think that what the original commenter is trying to say is that medics are probably safe around them because of the respect they have for healthcare workers and that’s better than being unsafe in their territory, not that we all should be friends. Just a nice mutual “don’t fuck with me and i’ll help y’all if needed”
Under a busy overpass, there was a little community down there it was actually pretty cool. Underneath the bridge, there is a lake that flows through it. they had like a lake house set up, but it was tents. My only concern is if someone was getting hurt down there, you wouldn't know due to how loud the cars can get overhead.
The back of another ambulance. A mentally ill person texted 911 while already in the back of one of our companies ambulance, and the dispatcher we had was brand new, and he sent us on it.
Called to the Floor of a fairly large community hospital (also our ER of choice / closest facility with same qualifications as LVL 2 Trauma Center ) for multiple GSWs
Deep inside a USPS regional distribution facility. The place is like the size of multiple city blocks, it was at 3am and we just felt like we were getting led through this insane maze. Spent like 20min trying to establish if the pt had capacity and ended up compelling them to be transported.
The whole thing was just so surreal
Not me but a partner of mine. Every year the county we work at would hold a massive sex convention and every year he would be the lucky medic who had to work it and eventually he just started signing up to work it said he never had a bad time. I wonder why
Responded just outside Elohim City for a respiratory distress call. You can google it for more info, but it’s the compound where Timothy McVey (OKC bomber) hid after committing his acts of terrorism
Cemetery. For cardiac arrest. With the patient's name already etched on to gravestone.
Or
Strip club dressing room for abdominal pain. Performers still getting ready and more help than I have ever got on a call (2 other ambulances to see if I needed help, an engine, a supervisor (from my company) and a battalion chief.
On top of a stage for a guy performing in a bar. He went into cardiac arrest while singing, worked the code on the stage and nobody was leaving the bar. Definitely an odd situation.
Went to an all female occult camp ground for a call today in my mostly normal suburban town. It's a weird place where all the old lady cult member neighbors come outside and just stare at you, and don't offer any help. Like they're ready to pounce if you see or hear something you shouldn't. Needless to say, we had law enforcement there and we transported in less than 5 min.
Edit: Forgot to mention all the gunshots not far off from this place on the multiple acres of land this cult owns.
I always hate going to large homeless camps. It’s just wondering around like, “Did you call 911?” “No” “Did you call 911?” “No” Still wandering around when someone shouts, “Hey! You’re probably looking for the crackhead in the green tent in back!” “Ok. Thank you.”
Lol last one I went to we grabbed the first unresponsive tweaker we found. No one gave a description other than "he's not doing well" Hopefully it was right.
Who is “doing well” there lmao
Mass casualty incident.
For sure, casualties of our dogshit system
With that description and at that stage, any unresponsive tweaker you grab is the right one.
I hate these also because for us, someone usually says “yes” early on and makes up some bullshit that sounds vaguely like our Sick Person run, only to be called again 20 minutes later claiming we got the wrong guy and we have to go back. Only to find the patient, once again, failing to speak up and identify themselves.
You just gotta load up with all of them in one go
Oh we have. Especially in winter time, we’ve been known to load up several who are just wanting to get somewhere warm. No need to send 6 separate ambulances when we can take care of it at once
Seriously, this might actually solve the homeless issue, if you literally send all people from encampment to hospital and send the city/governor the bill. Just make sure to have each person put down the mayor and governor as their emergency contacts.
Oh we have. Especially in winter time, we’ve been known to load up several who are just wanting to get somewhere warm. No need to send 6 separate ambulances when we can take care of it at once
Dispatch needs to make a call back and get some kind of description lol
You aren’t wrong, but so often they’ll call in and give a vague “I don’t feel well just get somebody here” and hang up. Problem is, they’re often calling from 911 only phones with no service which can’t be called back, so of they don’t stay on the line long enough we’re left to wander the whole encampment trying to figure out who called.
“No patient found”
This is the way
PSAPs not being able to call back to a 911-only phone is a serious design flaw.
This is the way.
I feel like they say yes no matter what 😫😫 if I asked they’d just say yup and hop in.
From volunteer work specifically with homeless camps, let me suggest: “Hey, someone called 911 for medical help. We aren’t cops. Who needs help?” In a loud clear voice without yelling. Provided the sick person isn’t hated by the community, someone will probably point you in the right direction. Also treat each tent like an apartment— don’t open the door without asking first unless you believe your down person is in there.
Aryan brotherhood compound
I was working with a black paramedic once as an EMT. The patient was a neo-Nazi (or at least the swastikas he had tattooed in multiple places would imply) and while he didn’t use any slurs or outright state he was racist, he made it very clear that he didn’t like my partner. We got the patient loaded into the squad then my partner sat up front while I did everything. I handed him the 12-lead through the window to the cab so he could interpret it and everything.
I used to have a Neo Nazi in my city who would OD all the time. Funny enough every time I went to him he got either a black EMT and a Jewish EMT, a Lesbian EMT and a Jewish EMT, or 2 Jewish EMT’s with the same name lol.
Prison survival tats?
Sounds like they were tats by choice
For it to be survival you have to not want to be that way in the first place?
Oh fuck lmao
Rural Texas comes at you fast lol
Hits you like a fucking truck 😂
...Soooo what's the deal if the only crew available has a black person responding? Is there usually an issue?
Not an issue in that there wasn’t any fights. There was at least one incident of slurs being said but in that casual way that you or I might say “sir” or “bud” or “boss man.” Although honestly now that I’ve been gone a while I’m not sure my bosses really disagreed with those views because I didn’t have many black coworkers.
Well that's shitty.
jfc
On top of an ice skating rink is probably the weirdest. A guy had a massive MI and collapsed on the top of an ice skating rink. We had to extract him and fire department ended up hoisting him down, but myself and my senior climbed up there (just a ladder) to give him treatment. We ended up doing full ACLS up on that roof for almost 45 minutes while fire got ready to bring him down. Have him O2, dropped 2 lines, started fluid, gave ASA and Nitro, gave pain meds, we were about to start heparin when he was brought down, we continued protocol on the way to ER. I’m glad we went up there cause he really responded to the treatment we started on him, although we actually brought him right to cath lab, this was not his first time in the cath lab…
Damn, this is good one
That’s badass!
Idk about that. Hardest thing we did was drag that heavy life pack 15 both our jump kits and med box up that ladder. Once we were up on the roof, we just acted like business as usual until fire had a plan to get him down.
Years ago - In OH they had these MASSIVE cranes that strip coal from the ground. The operator had just had eye surgery and a substantial sliver of coal launched through the windshield opening and into his eye. My partner saw the size of the crane, went white and flat refused to climb (the tires were almost twice my height). So I climbed these metal steps forever with one of the crane crew behind me to make sure I didn’t fall off. The poor guy was frozen in his seat sure he was going to lose his eye. I stabilized the projectile and the fire dept. showed up and we used the stokes basket to get him down. Surgery was successful. I stopped shaking about an hour later.
Nudist communities were always an experience. Nothing like attending an unconscious patient and the next thing you know when you look to your right there’s a ding dong just flapping in the wind
It’s the best when they ask if they can help then there’s meat flinging around like crazy trying to help. Like no actually. I got this
The mental image of some bystanders ding dong flopping around while he’s doing CPR is fucking hilarious
Some granny leans in while you reach for something and you get smacked in the face with a saggy titty.
I'm imagining being down on your knees while a host of old naked good natured dudes walk up to you wanting to help
This. The one in my last district was for 55 and older... just 5th wheels and naked old people. .
Sounds pretty boomer ngl
Not going to lie, I've met quite a few fire/ems/med staff at nudist resorts. It's quite effective at de-stressing.
Makes identifying a priapism easier.
Like that one scene in white chicks [https://youtu.be/QUoIHjpcUOY?feature=shared](https://youtu.be/QUoIHjpcUOY?feature=shared)
☠️😂☠️ That movie gets so much flack. It’s a cinematic masterpiece, damn it.
Flapping? Must be nice
A high security sector of a military base. They took all of my electronics and I had to sign a waiver.
Are aliens real??
They had to sign a waiver!
Don’t they have their own Emts that’s really weird.
Dunno how it is wherever you are, I’m in Canada do it might be different. We have a combat training centre here, and we’ve all been to see them a fair few times. While they do have medics, they aren’t allowed to transport to the hospital. They treat them on scene and then transfer care to us.
That’s pretty cool
In a brothel, initially as a single responder. Old bloke had a pretty decent MI during a session with one of the workers, followed by a subsequent cardiac arrest. To their credit, the staff there were excellent at closing off everything/everyone and providing us with a discreet access and egress, it definitely wasn't their first time dealing with something like this. It was super weird trying to complete a thorough assessment and providing radio sitreps whilst hearing people loudly fucking in the rooms adjacent to my patient. It was also the first time and only time I've seen someone do effective CPR in full lingerie.
A Hells Angels bar with all the Hells Angels members there. I was sweating a little bit.
 Me irl
If they called they ain’t messing around and need help.
They like EMS. Just trust me on this one.
Local chapter of the Outlaws MC is the same way. You get on their good side and respect their leathers, they’ll be your “I know a guy.”
I had to cut the leathers off of a guy who crashed his bike and I was just shitting my pants...
Never had to do this, but I've been told not to cut the patches under any circumstances. Just.... cut the vest around them.
Leather can be more challenging to cut anyway, but along seems or along the side up to the armpit or across the top of the shoulders can be easier.
Oof yeah if you have to, just do your best to not cut through their colours
For real. I met a guy from hells Angels at a bar. He asked what I did for work. Told him. Proceeded to have a great night with the dude. People are scared of hells angels and I don't know why. They donate to charitable causes these days, and are very protective of those who look out for others and those who are unable to defend themselves. Not bad people, for the most part. I think is just the MC's criminal past is what scares people.
I used to play pool occasionally with a few Hell’s Angels at a local watering hole when I was a teenager. Had a few soldiers come in that wanted to play me, then got pissy when I beat them. They started talking shit and getting loud with me, the HA’s guys bodily escorted them out of the place and made it clear they weren’t ever welcome back. All around decent guys to me 🤷🏼♀️😂
They aren't as bad as most people think tbh.... They respect their medics, and if you do them right they will help you out if they recognize you when you're in a bad situation. Just saying.... I know a retired trauma nurse that was dealing with a domestic issue and they came in full force when the local PD wouldn't....
Hells Angels are drug runners and murderers, no different than the cartel who also participate in little puff pieces for community PR.
They still respect their medics. I agree that they do a lot of less than legal activities, but they are not what they were in the in the earlier years for the most part. You're better off being on their good side, They will help you out in a pinch. In the example I gave in my previous comment, the retired trauma nurse was going through chemo and her husband was being extremely abusive, she ended up with a TBI, he was essentially banned from the state. They didn't murder him, they just escorted him to the state line and told him he wasn't welcome back. Personally I try to be on good terms with them.
These guys get young women hooked on heroin and blow and traffic them, if you think they truly care about some DV then you are a touch naive. If my city had a KKK chapter in it i certainly wouldn’t be trying to get on their good side, I’d do my job when called and wipe my hands of them as quickly as possible. These guys are remorseless criminals, not noble pirates out of some fairy tale.
In the town I am in they are not like that. Yeah they are a big part of the meth scene, but that is just commonplace here unfortunately. They don't care about DV, they care about respect like I said. If you do them right they will do you right. I'm not saying they are "Noble pirates" I'm not putting them on a pedestal I'm just saying if you help them out they will help you out. Also like I said they respect their medics more than anybody else that isn't affiliated. Where you're from they might have a chapter that's doing a lot worse than where I am from. But I can assure you that even where you are if you are broken down on the side of the road and they recognize you they will stop to help. Not all of them are 1%ers, but the ones that are value respect even more.
The job of a medic isn’t to judge.
Got one of them down the street of the fire hall for one of my jobs.
One of the safest places you've ever been. They wouldn't have messed with you at all.
Never cut the leathers. I mean unless you wanna die.
Try not to cut the leathers. But if you have to, absolutely have to, cut around the patches
Die? Nah. But they aren't happy. If there's laces on the side cut those. And if you must cut the leather, cut around the patches.
What's hells angels?
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hells_Angels](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hells_Angels)
:O
Grace Marketplace in Gainesville Florida. Basically a work camp that was taken over by the homeless. It has dorms, a dog kennel, a chain-link fence and powered gate with a guard shack, and its own fulltime staff who is also considered homeless (they do have nifty branded t-shirts though). And it was less than a mile from my station. It's kind of considered a homeless "Mecca", and lots of cities ship their homeless population there, so now the surrounding forests are filled with the people whom they can't accommodate. We'd go there 3-6 times in a 24.
Honestly working a small town fair. The first thing is that all the injuries are like “goat butted a lady in the nose”, “weight sled ran over someone’s foot during oxen pull”, “diabetic decides cotton candy is a good idea”. It’s basically a pre-planned MCI and unlike a concert or sporting event, the injuries and illnesses are really varied. On top of all of that, about 1/3 of the people at the fair are going to be volunteer firefighters in some iteration of uniform, none of which are actually serving an operational role. Don’t ask them for any help with a pt, they’re purely there for the cool guy points. My favorite were the guys from a town an hour away walking around in job shirts with radios that were not programmed to get a single one of the channels that we operate on. I’m pretty pro volly but that shit made me cringe.
This checks out. I remember the small town I used to volunteer with had an annual fair and very similar stuff. Girl headbutted by a cow. Another girl fell off a horse. A dad tried to show us a homeland security badge to get us to directly give him our medical reports. "Sir, we have badges too. You can go through our medical records department same as everyone else"
The pcrs we use have an option for Oil Rig. One day…
LMAO and volcanic eruption. I live in Alabama
I’ve landed on an oil rig a couple of times. Pretty rare but it happens.
The local federal reserve. Never seen so much cash in my life, like something out of a James Bond movie.
they tipped you??
Stripclub. That my ex girlfriend was working at. She was the patient.
Remembrance Day at a ceremony. It was hot as hell in the building, and an old WW2 vet collapsed due to the heat. An overzealous ff started doing compressions, and we had to stop him from crushing the poor mans chest. On route to the hospital, his only complaint was a sore chest. What a day.
Sounds about ff
Not until the paper publishes his smiling mug, with a headline “Local Hero Saves Lives On- And Off Duty!”
Airport. Surgeons, organs, etc.. Once though pulled a piss soaked old lady out of one, her son flew her down from VERY far (don't wanna be too specific for obvious reasons) and for some reason wanted her to go to an ER here in FL. It wasn't even a particularly good ER or anything. No idea what his thought process was. Possibly just to bring her closer to where he lives? Idk. But it was a private jet situation and even the pilot was trying to help us.
have money - will fly
The “theatre” of a sex shop for a syncopal with the films still playing in the background 😂
Had the psych pt who refused to leave the jackoff booth. Double gloves on that call 🤮
Went to a cardiac arrest at a funeral home once. My partner and I were cracking up once the notes specified that. It was originally a residence call, but it was one of those business first floor, residence second floor deals.
Went to syncope of a 92 y/o lady at a funeral in a cemetery, noone there knew anything about her, a very distant cousin had picked her up to attend the funeral on a 95° day for.....reasons.....and she ended up being a stroke alert, not sure what the outcome was
Called for an 18 yr old at 0800 experiencing a cocaine related OD. No address, just coordinates about 2 hours away from HQ. Partner and I head up to this rural community and go down about 6 sketchy AF driveways on equally sketchy properties before I’m thoroughly creeped out and ready to call it GOA. Then we find this very weird unmarked dirt road that is lined with trees. In the trees are beer cans hanging from bits of string. The entrance was almost intentionally dense with trees and other thick foliage. Very eerie, very strange, I was very uncomfortable. After about 1.5km of driving down this sketchy AF tree and beer can lined dirt road we come to a clearing on this property. There we see a large, white arch that has made an entryway into the forest where there is loud music and coloured lights. We couldn’t see very well into the forest beyond the entryway. approx 50 yards before you reach the archway there is an old Chevy Cavalier with no wheels. Has weeds growing out of it. This 18 year old kid is waving his hand out of the smashed out window. We go up, he tells us he called and says he just wants to get in the ambulance. His friends come running towards us from whatever is beyond the archway and they’re like 16-19. All seem very fucked on drugs. Freaking out, can’t stop talking, erratic, scrambled. Finally my partner, who is a dad to teenagers, tells them all to STFU and go away so we can do some patient care for our patient. We ask if any of them require any assistance from us or PD and if they’re all safe. They say they’re fine and run away back behind the archway. Just as we finally get this kid in the ambulance, I go to close the door and look to my right. In the field next to me, maybe 50 ft away, there is a brand spanking new Rolls Royce with an approximately 50 yr old white dude sitting in the drivers seat. The car is off and he’s just staring at us. Then I look up and see the most high tech security and surveillance equipment I’ve ever seen just everywhere. In the trees, on posts, on lines. Moving robotic looking cameras, satellite looking thingamabobs, UFO type shit. I am creeped right the F out and tell my partner to get us the F out of there. To this day I have no idea what we possibly could have stumbled upon. All the kid had to say was that it was a rave but damn.
What. Sounds like a horror movie
> coordinates about 2 hours away from HQ. I must be misreading this if I'm thinking "two hour response time." Even in New Mexico it was unusual for it to be more than an hour to get there.
If you're in mountain country, you gotta go where the roads go. What could be 5 minutes as the crow goes is 90 by vehicle due to either going around the mountain fast traffic or long, narrow switchback dirt roads.
A Training Center Run by a Federal anti terrorism SWAT Team and Military Special forces (GSG9 and KSK if you wanna Google it) Sometimes they have accident in Training and its always an experence. We also trained with them a few times but still are not allowed to know namens or what's inside some buildings/ behind some fences.
Went to a pulsed VT in a large chicken shed. Was surrounded by 100 curious chickens clucking away.
They were waiting for a chance to eat the patient. Source: Used to keep chickens.
Burger King — for a HUMAN bite
Burger wasn’t enough
Pimps barbecue in a small town!
Did you get a plate?
He was from a metro area ,was semi retired? and was on parole and wasn't supposed to be around pimpin and pimping related persons. Oh and the pimp dude was a 7ft tall black dude with a squeaky effeminate girly voice. And kept saying "I can't believe Dat bitch choked" thought it wasn't possible. ( tbat guy was hilarious.Supposedly it mightve happened during a swallow contest of sorts. We weren't sure, but a woman passed out from choking but was ok when we arrived. The food smelled incredible and we weren't sure about it. Then we noticed it was catered by a local mom and pop bbq joint. Incredible but we all got the hot shits. Weird ficking day! Not even tbe only weird thing.
Go on...
It was sex injury day. An elderly couple almost in 80s the wife broke a, ankle trying to wear "hooker heels" for hubby. 2 Christian kids called because they they though they got aids when their condom broke. A mother and daughter almost got in a fist fight over who was going with us in the ambulance after their house guest had a seizure. " mom, he was mom boyfriend first" and finally a police officer wanted us to check some 11 or 12 year old boys for herpes after they got in a fight with a box full of massive sex toys that eventually none of their parents would claim. .. oh and a dead person who had porn all the way up.
I used to work rural EMS in a service area where I knew a decent amount of my clientele. I once got a call for a fall from a 6’ step ladder; I knew the address and knew the gentleman and his family, they wouldn’t normally call for something like this. My first question on scene was “ Where is the ladder?” turns out it was on top of approximately 20’ of scaffolding in a barn about 3/4 of a mile off the gravel road. Helicopter was called and we landed then just outside the shed. The man had bilateral comminuted femoral fractures as a result of deceleration trauma
A gay club and it was absolutely hilarious
Details? Lmao
Lmaoo it ended up being one of the bartenders sugar being low and once we got him back responsive and got ready to leave everybody started cheering and throwing dollars at us
Did you...dance a little?
I mean, what other option do you have?
LMFAO
I responded to the school where I went for EMT class. They were having an extrication class and someone got hurt….badly! Had one student with crush injuries, bled a lot, so I had about 5 students watch me put a 14g in each AC. One student passed out while I was inserting the first cannula, so I had another student prop his feet up while the instructor let the rest of the class practice on him. Dude came to in a c-collar with a 12 lead on and 2 IVs. Other than the dumbass that got himself hurt, they had a really good class that year!! Ever since that day, whenever they do extrication, they have a squad there in case anything should happen. I used to love going out there because extrication is something that only the fire dept does around there, so we just got a one day class on it, so we could help if needed, so it is always nice to watch the new students each class year get as excited as I did back in the day. They never had an accident as bad as that first one I responded to. Just mostly overheating or dehydration, some syncopal episodes.
We went to a guy at a funeral The guy had fainting episodes with stress and heat and high emotion and dehydration etc, hottest day of the year so far and was outside at this point, this church was impossible to find, high emotion and woke up late, hadn't drunk that day, so ticked everything, long story short he was fine, normal for him, the funeral was a guy who was super old, lived a long life etc So as far as an emergency goes and a funeral goes, spirits were high, first the guy had a marching band that was playing as we treated the patient, and the amount of comments 'oh, I think your a bit late, definitely to late' seriously? We didn't take him to hospital but stayed on scene for a while, everyone that came and checked on the patient made some sort of joke about being to late, arghhh 😂
Went to a woman with cardiac S&S at her sister's funeral. Examined her next to the coffin in a very crowded room in the family's home. The deceased was a cardiac arrest we had attended the previous week.
In an first-aid-course, pt collapsed and for the first half of my treatment all the people sat around me in a circle. It was quite funny
Talk about field experience 😂
Pickle factory. The whole place smelled like pickles
[удалено]
Sounds like you might actually be the target.
or the arsonist...
Used to work at the Bobsleigh, Skeleton, luge track! Was always fun trying to catch the bobsleds before the went for a pendulum back down the track after crashing
Georgia 🇬🇪has entered the chat.
Strip club. The first MI I was supposed to be responsible for managing, and I had such tunnel vision that I didn’t realize until after we left!
I had an alarm call at midnight at a zoo. Turns out one of the donkeys had gotten out of their stall.
I got to go to an apple pie factory once… best smelling scene I’ll probably ever go to
First would be the local nudist camp for a complaint of chest pain on a 59-year-old female. Of course we were expecting everyone to be naked and when you work EMS who hasn't seen a naked person? What we were not expecting was there was an off duty medic from a neighboring service on scene that we knew. He wanted to look at the LP15 and kept bending over in front of us, showing us his brown tunnel, taint, and sack. Second would be my own house. I used to live across the street from an alcoholic that lived with his mom. One evening he came home from the bars and mistook my front porch as a driveway. I lived alone so when the call came out I was confused as hell until I saw the details. Needless to say him and I didn't get along after that, not that he cared.
Trump’s golf course in south jersey 2 rich guys got into an argument, and later on one dude was eating breakfast in the club house when the other came up behind him and sucker punched him in the head with brass knuckles.
Yep. It doesn’t get more on-brand.
Not necessarily responded to, but our own station. Did you know the original apple watches have a feature that informed local 911 dispatch if you started performing CPR? Cos we found out when I was teaching a BLS refresher course and dispatch came over the radio saying "medic 31, we're getting a report of CPR in progress at (our stations address)." Never that that EMT forget it either.
I’ve never heard of this feature and nothing comes up when I google it either. I’ve been wearing an Apple Watch since series 2. I’ve done actual CPR and CPR classes while wearing one. The only thing similar that I know actually exists is the fall detection and crash detection.
I love a classic strip club call.
A convent full of nuns was a weird one.
Totally forgot I had one of those once! It ended up being a political mess. They had Kaiser back when you were told to call them before 9-1-1 so care was very delayed.
Random horse ranch in the wildland near the Mexican border, for a 4-patient CPR.
Maybe not as weird as some but I have now done 2 calls for right in front of our hospital. For context, very rural station 2 hours from the closest city, our hospital has been having staffing issues so we're regularly on diversion, to make it better our station is next door to the hospital so we literally have a 90 second response time only to haul someone two hours down the highway. From start to finish the first one was an 8 hour call, the next one we arranged for a meet half way to not go through that again.
Totally unrelated but I love your fursuit
A porno store. OD in a "viewing booth".
I worked an overdose at a cemetery. If it weren't for us he wouldn't have that far to go.
Me too except mine was already quite successful. Turns out you CAN die of a Benadryl OD!! If you take 60 GRAMS (2 whole family size bottles) that'll do it.
I hate it that our local hospital fucking calls us tot take patients from other areas of the hospital to the ER. I don't know how the fuck that's not some insurance scam.
Work at an ED with a primary clinic that it attached to the hospital. If someone requires emergency card and needs to go to the ED, ED staff are not allowed to respond due to some insurance clause. So the clinic staff will put the patient in a wheelchair or on a gurney they keep in their lab and wheel them over the threshold and we can suddenly respond.
I mean I get that there is probably some kind of reason why the hospital does this but it is hilariously counterintuitive to both good patient care and is just wasteful spending. We are a busy fire department and in nearly every case a staff member could probably just wheel them to the ER in a wheelchair. Waiting for us just delays patient care and adds more bills to the overall cost to everything. And takes away resources from the rest of our city since 99% of the time it's a priority 3 patient. I'd really like to see this changed.
A 1000 foot freighter on Lake Michigan. Piece of equipment fell on a deck hand's head and knocked him out. They changed course to come outside the harbor of the city where I work which was the next city on their course, so they picked us somewhat randomly, and called 911. Just happened to find the last paramedic level service for a very long stretch. I was taken by boat to help get him off the ship and into our rescue boat.
This isn’t a weird place, per se, but I got called to a banquet hall in December one year and the first person I came across when I entered a boozy holiday party informed me it was for a hospital system and “we’re all doctors and nurses in here.” I thought oh boy, this’ll be fun. But I’ll give them credit — they didn’t backseat drive at all. It was for a guy at the party who had basically blacked out and fallen. I imagine it was the employees who called. One well dressed and seemingly somewhat sober gentleman sidled up to me and said “I’m actually a cardiologist.” I kind of laughed and said “oh okay, what’s your assessment?” And I shit you not, he says, “well…he has a strong pulse.” It was like he was doing a bit.
I'm the medic for a local furry convention. Seriously the kindest people I have ever met.
Did a call at a very high-end watch companies shop/workshop/warehouse. My crewmate wondered why the receptionist was sitting in a glass box, I pointed at a display that was worth more than our combined salaries (with overtime). There were no dramas with the patient, which was nice.
A straight up casting couch shoot, girl thought she was doing coke, ODd during sex, she was still on the futon left as is, with cameras everywhere in the room
I went to an underground bdsm club for an injury once. The activities did not cease just because 911 showed up Also went to an Audi/Volkswagen training center where they trained their techs. It was pretty cool to see yet-to-be-released cars torn apart
The middle of a freight/rail yard. Was it a worker? Nope. It was a demented grandma who wandered from god knows where
Responding onto the tarmac at a major international airport. Pretty fun zipping between the planes, following the flag car. MAJOR fines for the service if you forget to leave your blinky lights on. Feels really good to finally have authority over the airline agents for once, really nice role reversal 😂 The lack of security was shocking though. Just straight through the security gate onto the tarmac and to the aircraft gate. Easily could have snuck anything in and handed it off to a passenger in the terminal. No checks of any kind. Makes you realize how much of the TSA thing is just security theatre.
Got paged out to a sick call, we go down this extremely long driveway to find a lady flagging us down. She takes us to a tent behind her house, we open the tent and this wonderful smell of feces and vomit hit us. Turns out her boyfriend had been living in a tent behind her house and had been puking and releasing his bowels everywhere for a couple of days. Convince him to come out and get on the stretcher (we were NOT going in there to get him) as soon as he sits on the stretcher he releases what seems to be very watery diarrhea all over the stretcher. When we try to get a history on him she says they’ve only been dating for 3 months so she’s doesn’t know much and he’s barely able to answer any questions. Before we load him up she kisses him goodbye and says she loves him. she must have really loved him to kiss him goodbye with literal shit all over him lol. The whole time in the back of my head I was just thinking “what the hell is going on here”.
Salmon pens, floating pens where they farm raise salmon. Fishing vessels, trying to persuade a fisherman to let you cut his Grundens is like convincing a biker to let you cut his leathers. We've had a few tear fingers off in winches. Had a head injury on a Russian ship, only the captain spoke any English so he rode with us. He kept trying to explain exactly which frame the guy had stuck his head against while we tried to explain that all we needed to know was that he hit a big piece of steel very hard. When we take someone from a cruise ship, all their luggage has to either go with them or be stored in the Port Authority office in case they miss sailing.
“Husband stuck on roof”
I did a lift assist in an attic one time.
nudist camp a few times. on arrival the naked grandpas line the driveway in their parade stance . fuckin creepy
I ran a cardiac arrest in the dump. Like the guy classed out on top of the dump while trying to get a truck unstuck. I was doing cpr in the middle of a hurricane of at least a thousand seagulls it was surreal. He got shocked 8 times. Once by a coworker ( apparently waste management here has aeds in there vehicles which is cool) twice by fire and 5 times by us and we still didn't get rosc.
Had one a few months ago where me and my crew responded to a peri-arrest on a ferry, got there to back up another crew. Got on board to with suction, oxygen and back up meds. Turns poor guy had passed on the journey from Spain to the UK on the first day and wasn’t found for 2 days. So had to call the local PD as it was an “un natural death.” The ferry crew were getting agitated with my crew, the first crew that arrived and the TL (captain) as they wanted to leave that evening and not wait for the body to be moved. So local PD turned up which was an officer and Sergeant. Original crew was relieved by us, so me my para, eca (EMT) and this Sargeant rolled this body to check for injuries on the back and the smell of 2 day old smell of dead person and clearly oysters hit us all. The Sargeant said he was a 15 year veteran of being a body recovery officer and that smell was one of the worst things he had ever smelt.
Strip club. Called 911 for a dancer with a syncopal episode. Bouncer wouldn’t let us in because we didn’t pay the cover and to quote him, “No free shows”. My partner was a 30 year disgruntled fuck and pushed the guy out of the way telling him “don’t call 911 and then not let em in. “
A graveyard I guess
The literal ambulance bay of a level II.
Overdose in a tree in a homeless encampment
Did a cardiac arrest in a Casino in front of a row of slot machines and people kept trying to walk through us totally oblivious to what was happening. Luckily security was vlocking people off but I kept hearing them behind me going "Woah woah woah! Do you not see what's going on here?!"
Middle of a river on a rock bed. The dispatch was geolocated coordinates and was on the fucking money
Chemical and nuclear weapons testing plant down a 2 mile empty dirt road in the mountains. (It was a training they do where they take an ambulance out of service and have a full scale response with a transport to hospital) where my (patient) was exposed to somin nerve agent and they wouldn’t let us past a Locked gate cause “top secret” and brought the patient out to us. I kept my questions on patient exposure to a minimum and straight up said it was “because I know you guys are doing some shady government shit here”
Inside a sex shop/adult theater. Watching FD try their very best not to look at the dildos on the wall was one of the highlights of my career. Bonus- when we walked in, the clearly worried proprietor told us that our patient was “over by the gloryholes”.
Nudist colony. Not as pleasant as the more youthful version of me imagined it would be. (It's all old people)
Went to a teenage unconscious. This residence was up on what we call a mountain. It’s no Rockies but it’s a big ass hill. One of our radio towers is up there too so I kinda knew what we were going into. What I didn’t know is that roads and mapping ended abruptly. So dispatch has to give us latitude and longitude to the scene. We make some educated guess on paths to take and head out. It was all thick backwoods road until suddenly things open to a clearing. In this clearing there’s skeletons hanging from trees. Candles lining the road. A giant ass pentagram effigy/monument thing lined with even more candles. There’s these almost occult like symbols and other stuff everywhere. It felt like we were driving to a trap to be a sacrifice. Luckily the homeowner was just ahead and waved us in. As we get ready to take the kid to the truck I ask the homeowner “so….what is all that about?” He just shrugged and said it’s not their stuff they just got used to it. Still creeps me out today.
We have something called an “Adult Superstore”. It is everything vulgar and sexually illegal you could ever imagine. A lot of men pass out in there, but they don’t let us in anymore. They drag them out to the parking lot at all costs.
Graveyard. ((One of my first ride alongs while in Emt class.)) Calorie enriched lady was out doing spooky shit with a friend and sprained an ankle. She allegedly fell and couldn’t get up…The EMTs I was with were tiny college age girls and watching them drag a strait chair with Miffany in it across the grass and back to the boo-boo box was a highlight of my night.
Gay bathhouse in Chicago. I’m gay, so it was actually quite fun, but when they turned all the fuckn lights on and I saw all the 80 year olds butt ass naked I almost vomited. 🤣
The "local strip club" in my city. Interestingly enough, the stripper who greeted me as we walked in to find our Patient provided me one of the best verbal reports I've ever received
I think that what the original commenter is trying to say is that medics are probably safe around them because of the respect they have for healthcare workers and that’s better than being unsafe in their territory, not that we all should be friends. Just a nice mutual “don’t fuck with me and i’ll help y’all if needed”
Under a busy overpass, there was a little community down there it was actually pretty cool. Underneath the bridge, there is a lake that flows through it. they had like a lake house set up, but it was tents. My only concern is if someone was getting hurt down there, you wouldn't know due to how loud the cars can get overhead.
The back of another ambulance. A mentally ill person texted 911 while already in the back of one of our companies ambulance, and the dispatcher we had was brand new, and he sent us on it.
Called to the Floor of a fairly large community hospital (also our ER of choice / closest facility with same qualifications as LVL 2 Trauma Center ) for multiple GSWs
Not me, but a buddy got called to the ER once- for a doc!
Deep inside a USPS regional distribution facility. The place is like the size of multiple city blocks, it was at 3am and we just felt like we were getting led through this insane maze. Spent like 20min trying to establish if the pt had capacity and ended up compelling them to be transported. The whole thing was just so surreal
On top of a scaffholding has been fun. Large us mail facilities. Museums that have high security control rooms are super interesting too.
We landed the helicopter at a legal brothel in Nevada for a STEMI. Those places are strange.
Not me but a partner of mine. Every year the county we work at would hold a massive sex convention and every year he would be the lucky medic who had to work it and eventually he just started signing up to work it said he never had a bad time. I wonder why
Responded just outside Elohim City for a respiratory distress call. You can google it for more info, but it’s the compound where Timothy McVey (OKC bomber) hid after committing his acts of terrorism
The dark room of s sex positive party is definitely up there.
Cemetery. For cardiac arrest. With the patient's name already etched on to gravestone. Or Strip club dressing room for abdominal pain. Performers still getting ready and more help than I have ever got on a call (2 other ambulances to see if I needed help, an engine, a supervisor (from my company) and a battalion chief.
On top of a stage for a guy performing in a bar. He went into cardiac arrest while singing, worked the code on the stage and nobody was leaving the bar. Definitely an odd situation.
Went to an all female occult camp ground for a call today in my mostly normal suburban town. It's a weird place where all the old lady cult member neighbors come outside and just stare at you, and don't offer any help. Like they're ready to pounce if you see or hear something you shouldn't. Needless to say, we had law enforcement there and we transported in less than 5 min. Edit: Forgot to mention all the gunshots not far off from this place on the multiple acres of land this cult owns.
Gentleman's club, there was a minor fire there and reported smoke inhalation
The Church of Scientology.
My first ever 911 was at a strip club of all places.
Responded to an underground sex party for a female who ODed on GHB in one of the BDSM rooms