Volunteer firehouse shift

I ran a call to a local residence. The call was for the father of a grade-school classmate of mine. When my former classmate came into the house I saw the look of anxiety on his face change to relief when he saw me. Somehow, my being there made it all right.

Unfortunately, we had a loooooonnnng wait at the emergency room. I went out to the waiting room from time to time to give the family updates and such. the second time I went out, my classmate and his mother were joined by about 5 people from the neighborhood. All of whom recognized me.

"I better see all of you at the Crab Feast this year!" I insisted. They laughed. The Crab Feast is our hugely successful annual fundraiser.

The second call came after midnight. It was dispatched as a car flipped into the woods on the major interstate. We arrived on scene to find a PT cruiser on its side in the woods. Both the driver and the passenger were out and talking to the police. They denied any pain at all. The passenger was a rather buxom young woman who's flimsy half-blouse had popped open during the vehicular antics. Bean was quick and business-like with a blanket while the cops and firefighters tried not to gawk.

I did a quick exam of both patients and found them to be unharmed. Really! They both were belted and both were asleep when the accident happened. The alcohol on both of their breaths was a contributing factor, no doubt. I left them in police custody.

The last call was for a woman presenting classic symptoms of choleocystits or gallstones. Nausea and abdominal cramping pain woke her that morning and she was retching yellow bile when we arrived. We transported her to the same emergency room I was at earlier. We arrived at shift-change and were quickly whisked into a room! Nice!

One of the off-going nurses gave me an update on my classmate's father and we both agreed that it was good we got him into the hospital. He had called us because his legs and "nether parts" were swelling and it turns out he had gone into persistent atrial fibrillation and the swelling was caused by fluid buildup in his tissues due to reduced cardiac output. Had he not gone to the hospital, his condition could have worsened over the next few days into full congestive heart failure.

The only other news from the volunteer front is I'm getting cleared to drive the ambulance. Bean is about to be cleared to ride as the EMS provider and I'll be able to free up a firefighter if I drive her on EMS calls. The big freightliner ambulance is a lot of fun to drive. I feel like I have the biggest Tonka truck in the neighborhood. Too bad it's not yellow!

Coming up.... Maddog has a job! and Blog website changes!

--maddog