Screaming like a girl

We had an ATV accident where a kid, guy, whatever, it's up for debate, launched himself off of his four-wheeler and face planted into something (well, the ground, but something put a nice cut on his face too.) Aside from the cut and scratches all up ons, he was basically fine, (we know now) Although at the time he was acting mental, resisting help, screaming like a girl, carrying on and such, so that we couldn't rule out a real head injury.

Possibly the best part about this call, aside from the amazing amount of amusement I got from his screaming like a girl, and the presence of a helicopter which is always fun, was that he was off the road on a farm lane that was an absolute mess. The lane climbed the side of a hill and not only had potholes big enough to knock your teeth out, it had these large humps. I can only believe these were made to guide floodwaters somewhere else so that the lane didn't become a river, but they were so big that I think that if I had driven over one, the medic unit would still be there balanced on its undercarriage. So, to prevent our truck from becoming a see-saw, I was forced to go completely off road and into the corn field. I'm worried I'll get a reputation for taking the medic unit off road into corn fields at this point. Anyway, it was good fun, and I was very happy not to get stuck.

Helicopter was called, kid was backboarded and bandaged, and all was well. I got to kneel in the dirt and give him an IV, which also made him scream like a girl. (Patients like these don't get any less sympathy for me, and I'm not going to deny that he was in pain. But, there is a line between being scared and in pain, and being dramatic.)

Its annoying/vexing to me when I can't tell if patients are being jerks, or have a legitimate problem that makes them not answer questions properly and scream like little girls. It was really my first issue with EMS when I realized that people call 911 and then refuse to answer legitimate questions, people would pretend to have something wrong with them for attention, and some people just might not have anything wrong with them at all and don't even bother pretending. On the other hand, lots of patients have strokes, brain injuries, diabetes, brain tumors, or any number of other legitimate problems.

As it was with this patient. His inability to answer questions and follow commands properly landed him a helicopter ride and a visit to the local trauma center.


Later we went for a guy with chest pain. I did the 12 lead and my partner asked me how it looked. Without giving it away to the patient: "Like crap." He had ST elevation (indicative of a heart attack) in several leads, and reciprocal depression to go along with it. This guy also vomited, his blood sugar was >600 mg/dl, and, well, that was the extent of his problems, which was plenty. We sprayed him with nitro, made a vain attempt at lowering is blood sugar, oxygenated his cells, and gave him some lovely fentanyl. What fun. Seriously. He didn't scream like a girl at all, and he actually had something wrong with him.

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