Abandonment
At long last, dear readers, I will not subject you (at this juncture) with a post of whinging about house buying, or inane travel, but finally write a post about EMS.
Back in EMT school they had the requisite lecture about the legality of what we do, or more importantly, what we don't do. What occasion, I thought to myself during those law related lectures, would I ever have to abandon my patient.
Well, strictly speaking I didn't abandon her.
We had a call to a hotel. The BLS crew beat me there and were already headed down the hall back to the ambulance when I arrived. The patient probably had too much caffiene and had an episode of tacycardia that had all but resolved itself by the time I saw her. One of the EMTs took my truck back to the hospital, and the other hopped into the drivers seat.
In the midst of starting this patients requisite IV, a second call went out to the same hotel for a cardiac arrest. I knew (or so I thought) that the next medic was at least 10 minutes away. I looked at my partner in the rear view mirror and we both mouthed 'what do we do?!' to eachother. Her partner had already left with my truck so after a minute of thought and a quick explaination to my patient I said I'd be right back, abandoned my IV attempt, took the monitor off of her, and headed back upstairs.
Unfortunately, unless I had arrived an hour or more in advance, I might have made a difference in this patient. He was wedged between the bed and the bedside table and getting him out of that position by myself was a bit of a challenge, but I like to see what hotel furniture is not nailed down. By the time I got him in a workable position, on the monitor, and coached the poor hotel employee who arrived in CPR, the next due medic got there. I gave him a quick report, took his equipment and headed back to my patient. She was totally cool, and really had nothing wrong with her by that time and we headed to the hospital, about 15 minutes later that scheduled.
Back in EMT school they had the requisite lecture about the legality of what we do, or more importantly, what we don't do. What occasion, I thought to myself during those law related lectures, would I ever have to abandon my patient.
Well, strictly speaking I didn't abandon her.
We had a call to a hotel. The BLS crew beat me there and were already headed down the hall back to the ambulance when I arrived. The patient probably had too much caffiene and had an episode of tacycardia that had all but resolved itself by the time I saw her. One of the EMTs took my truck back to the hospital, and the other hopped into the drivers seat.
In the midst of starting this patients requisite IV, a second call went out to the same hotel for a cardiac arrest. I knew (or so I thought) that the next medic was at least 10 minutes away. I looked at my partner in the rear view mirror and we both mouthed 'what do we do?!' to eachother. Her partner had already left with my truck so after a minute of thought and a quick explaination to my patient I said I'd be right back, abandoned my IV attempt, took the monitor off of her, and headed back upstairs.
Unfortunately, unless I had arrived an hour or more in advance, I might have made a difference in this patient. He was wedged between the bed and the bedside table and getting him out of that position by myself was a bit of a challenge, but I like to see what hotel furniture is not nailed down. By the time I got him in a workable position, on the monitor, and coached the poor hotel employee who arrived in CPR, the next due medic got there. I gave him a quick report, took his equipment and headed back to my patient. She was totally cool, and really had nothing wrong with her by that time and we headed to the hospital, about 15 minutes later that scheduled.
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