8-21-2000

My first official whole day back from vacation.
Ken is back and we are both glad to be working together again.

The Day started off well enough
then rapidly disintegrated
and made me wish to I was still on vacation.

If it wasn't for the fact that I do enjoy my work
and Love the People I work with,
  I would not have come back.

The day was filled with the up's and down's
of E.M.S. including several not so spectacular emergencies.
a few transports and an introduction
to the latest player to the northern Ohio Aeromedical Service, MedFlight.

First I will talk a little about one of the emergencies we had,
we were called to the home of a 60'ish year old man who has some medical history but is generally healthy.

He was complaining of a headache
on and off throughout the day.
Not too unusual,
He took a few advil and went about his business.

Some time later he began to have a coughing fit
and all of a sudden he fell to his left
and was completely limp and numb on his left side.

His family called for E.M.S.

We were there 2 minutes later.
We agressively treated this man
and transported him to the hospital
in the best A.L.S. fashion available
(Lifecare Elyria style...)
Ken and I were both Thinking He blew something out
when he was coughing,
Dr. Starr was pretty sure we were right.

But the CT showed a Clot...
even though there was a clot on the ct
there was too much risk,
so he was not given Thrombolitic therapy

It was an interesting call and I learned a few things
about assessment and treatment on this call.

I hope the out come is good,
he is a spunky ol' guy
and it would suck if he was heading to the nursing home.

Later in the Shift Brian and I paired up on 93 and headed up to the Twp. for an inservice presented by MedFlight.
They are an Aeromed service out of Columbus
They recently put a Helicopter in Lodi.
Where Metro was up until a few months ago...

They were nice enough and have a good reputation.
the helicopter reminded me  of a type 2 ambulance
(in size and arangement)

The crew were Nurse/Medic and Pilot
and they acted like they
had done this type of thing before...
We'll see how they do in the field.
There's a bunch of competition in northern Ohio.

After that was done
Brian and I stayed on 93
the rest of the shift was busy.

At one point 91 was out of town,
370 was in Elyria with us.

They were at station one for a while
then there was an argument
between my self and a dispatcher
  about whether or not 370 was in rotation.

( I feel that if they are in the station enjoying all the comforts and benefit of the station they can enjoy all the fun of the rotation the dispatcher pitched a bitch fit and cried like a bitch that "it was not his job to change the rules" as if you don't have to adjust to each dispatchers moods and feelings already; couple this with this dispatchers apparent loss of memory of what it is like to be working hard and be behind in you run reports no to mention hungry and whooped while on a squad and an A-Shifter.)

So as a result...
I threw 370 out of the station and told them to go to station 4.
I am pretty sure the crew thought
I had issue with them but I didn't.

It' s not the Crew's problem,
The problem is...
There is no real order to our system.

The current Trend is a habit of changing rules
and parameters to suit the situation.

This is a bad idea !

It undermines the confidence in the company
and fosters discontent among the ranks.

There has to be a better way.


Good night.