Four RMAs In Two Nights

I have been extremely fortunate Thursday and last night - all we had were RMAs. First thing Thursday evening, we had a "possible seizure" call. We showed up and the woman answered and she was fine - she's four months pregnant, has a two-year-old who yakked a mile a minute (he was cute but we were there for fifteen minutes, maybe), and her boyfriend, who called from Connecticut, panicked. She signed off after we checked her out and asked her the requisite three times if she wanted to go to the hospital.

We went to the concert and it was not great. The music was 80s stuff, but it was all that popular crap like Bruce Springsteen (I never can understand how anyone with such a lousy voice can get so popular. And clearly for many people power and/or fame confers good looks - he is not attractive, either). They played Bon Jovi as well as some other stuff that I know - know - that crowd did not know. The median age of the crowd is not young.

At about 2140 we were called out for a man who fell and couldn't get up - that is what the call went out as, but I wonder why EMS Dispatch didn't just say "lifting assistance". We got there and the very sweet cop on scene (Officer Connor) had already lifted him up. We checked him out, waited for him to go to the bathroom, and he signed off, too - well, his wife did. At 96 years old, he was none too steady and definitely had trouble with his body weight, and his hands shook. Still - he had a med list of three things. I have parents in their mid-60s who take three times or more what he does!

I went off at 2200, but we had nothing else that night, and nothing on Friday, either - the call sheet was the same one I set up following the Beechwood call. Same mileage and my handwriting. We used it last night, though.

The first call went out around 2200 and I slept through it, but it inserted itself into my dreaming and I was having a nightmare when Andy at the desk blew out again. I heard that one and ran. It was for a CO alarm, but the patient was fine. And the fire company had no CO readings at all. The batteries were low. We checked her vitals and she signed off. Another useless call - but I have yet to be on a CO call with an honest-to-gods patient. Usually there isn't anyone at all.

At 0200 I was less-than-delighted to be jerked out of a sound sleep by the pager screaming... a male intoxicated in the road. He certainly was. We showed up and the responding officer said he'd thought there was a bear in the road. Wow... I took his vitals, asked him how much he drank, got his medical history (he was young - there wasn't any), told the cop he was born in 1943, making him 65 years old. Hmmm. His license was a little more accurate - mid-20s. He answered everything as though he was in the military. When I first asked him how much he had to drink, he barked, "A half a bottle of JD, sir!" I looked at him and the officer said in the same breath I did, "She's not a 'sir'." He then barked, "A half a bottle of JD, ma'am!" OK, knock it off with the ma'am... He still barked "ma'am" and "sir" throughout the whole conversation - not that it was a long one. I finished his vitals, wrote up what I had, then handed the clipboard to Brandon to have the mother sign off, as a neighbour helped our hammered patient to regain his feet. He stood up... and kept on standing up! It was mind-blowing how tall this guy was.

When I told him we were just going to have his mother sign off and he could go home, all that deferential "ma'am" crap disappeared. He was mad as hell and he was mad as hell at me! I told him he could not sign himself - he was not in a state to do so. He got all belligerent. Well, he definitely had alcohol muscles, but I had "three cops with guns" muscles! I gave as good as I got - and this was to a kid with a foot on me! Still. He won't know me from Adam if I ran into him somewhere. He's no doubt still sleeping this off.

Never-the-less, it was a sign off and we came back and went home.

Now I have tonight. At least I'm not the lieutenant!