Friday, March 21, 2008

An Odd Shift

Tonight I discovered that two of the EMS legends or whatever you want to call them are indeed true. People are a lot crazier when its a full moon, and going on duty exhausted means you'll have a busy shift.

I went on a very tough bike ride this afternoon, 40 km on some very nasty roads. I only had enough time to grab a milkshake and a few crackers for dinner, then shower and jump into my uniform before I headed to the hockey game. Completely exhausted and with a headache steadily building, I was seriously hoping for a quiet, quiet shift. Turns out that the crowd had other ideas, they were insane tonight!!

Puck to the head first - split the poor guy's ear wide open. It was quite nasty, it looked like a mouth that you could make 'talk', and it was bleeding like mad. We got the bleeding stopped, wrapped it up and sent him to the hospital. On the way back to the first aid room, we (I had a female partner and observer with me) had to fend off at least 3 "Oh, I need CPR" "I'm having a heart attack, I need mouth-to-mouth" comments from creepy men. Seriously, do they think THAT is going to work? It's quite the dilemma I have....do I remain professional and ignore them, or turn around and tell them off? Ok, ok, I always opt for the ignore, but I am tempted to say something instead!

People in general were just weird tonight, the cops kept throwing drunks out and the creepy guy population seemed to have doubled. We couldn't find our second patient, 'something in the eye', though that is not an uncommon occurance. The game went into overtime, just because I was wanting to go home so badly, and the other team scored anyways. Halfway out the doors, we get another call.....groan. An old man had run out of his portable O2 and needed more, so we switched tanks with him and sent him on his merry way. Finally, an hour later than normal, we were able to leave.

After a weirdly busy shift, I am finally able to crash. A very welcome moment, especially since I'm busy all day tomorrow and have a concert - that Shane and I are running - tomorrow night. Time to sleep....

1 comment:

Jill Pole said...

*hugs* My goodness, what a night. Murphy was having a good laugh at you. But it sounds like you came through very professionally...and I hope you get some good sleep soon.