First time 911 call today

So, there I was, walking out of the local big orange home improvement store with my brother. We are discussing important things, like the outrageous prices of LED replacement bulbs for home fixtures. We both notice a young lady about 15 yards away in our line of vision and walking direction. As I turn my head to further comment, he and she smile at each other as you do when you have incidental eye contact. She was walking around the back of her SUV. Just as I turn my head back forward, she falls backwards, straight as a board, no knee buckling. We run over, I do a quick look at her eyes, I look for breathing signs, and any trembling. As I am an epileptic these are things I look for. My brother says "That's a 911 call". Just as I begin to call, while still kneeling down, a doctor comes over and identifies himself as a doctor. He heard the sound of her head hitting the ground from a good 40 feet away, as did another customer. Anyway, the 911 operator answers in the traditional manner. I give my name, location, and a general description of what happened, and a few others I figured they would ask. I remained calm, spoke clearly and slowly, and answered all their additional questions. In the meantime a nurse happened to see what the hub-bub and assisted the doctor. The ambulance showed up about seven or eight minutes later. One of the EMTs recognized the girl as a "repeat offender (patient)". She apparently does not take care of her condition. We surmised she has other "medicines" she takes based on the tone of voice of the EMT and general appearance of the girl. Call it "Medical Profiling" if you must; but it seems to bear itself out in this case. All that to say this; it was interesting. BTW, this changes me over from an "Addict" to an "old Hand"

Congrats, Old Hand, and good job!

yeah, there's lots of non-compliant patients. Frequent fliers, non-compliant, repeat offenders... call it what you want, they still clog up the health care system with their shennanigans. By that I mean, they come in repeatedly, have a treatment in hand (which costs money), then don't use it and come in again. rinse and repeat.

Self-medication just makes the job that much more "fun."

In fact, there's a pilot program going on in Philly that pays $90/month for patients that prove they're compliant. apparently it's cheaper just to pay patients to take care of themselves. How lazy/greedy can they get?

What strikes me about your account is the proximity of physicians and nurses to the scene. I have had the same experience on several similar situations,. including an archaeological convention some years ago, where my good friend and project assistant went into a totally unexpected grand mal seizure. I raced to his side, and barely beat an RN. How do they do it and what was an RN doing hanging out with diggers?

This has not been a unique experience....

Really is cool, isn't it, becoming an Old Hand.....

I just noticed that this is in the wrong section. I am sure this does not qualify as a natural or large-scale disaster. I guess I was reviewing the latest when this struck my mind. Sorry for any confusion or consternation this may have caused.

Moved up here -

I went on a long out and back bike ride, 4 hours or so. On the way out I saw an obese guy in a wheelchair kind of slumped over with a blanket on him. I blazed by thinking he was okay. While coming back the guy was still there. My car was only a few minutes away with my phone and water so I figured I'd drive towards him to see what was going on. I mean they guy HAD been sitting out for hours on a busy road and if he'd been in real distress I thought someone would have done something.

As it turned out, an ambulance was parked near my car and I rode over to talk to the EMTs. After describing the man, they spoke his name and that he was a repeat offender or well known to them. He was drunk and passed out on the street in his wheelchair.

Sad.

A while back a buddy who is an EMT told me about a 'frequent flyer". He lives near the hostpital, is a career alcoholic/unemployed mooch/one of the guys you see standing on traffic islands with a sign.

When he is away from home and wants a free ride, he calls 911 complaining of chest pains. Of course, they have to go and get him. He gets out of the ambulance, waves bye, and half the time doesn't even go into the ER, saying it was gas, he feels fine now.

And of course, the one time the EMTs will be slow to respond will be the time he drops dead of a heart attack and his family sues because it took too long to come help him.

Should do it like it used to be, you pay to ride - either a fee for services rendered or a yearly subscription/membership. But of course, these people are entitled to free rides, it's one of their rights because they pay taxes.

That sort of abusive behavior is not rare but it is also not that common. It has to be understood that attempts to charge, collect, register and subscribe are always more expensive than simply sucking up the occasional abuse as a matter of course. Enforcement, collection and exclusion cost time and money.

Far more common than indigents using EMTs as convenient taxis are the constant stream of asthma attacks, heart issues, allergy attacks, and collapse from people with chronic problems. These people are genuinely sick but they are unable to manage their disease because of a lack of insurance or resources for drugs, transport, care. Some can't or won't take their medication/s. Estimates are that a third of all the alcoholics are self-medicating for mental illness or chronic pain and that a good proportion of people with high blood pressure and other chronic diseases are rationing their medications. Cutting pills in half and/or frequency to try to get by on less.

Sometimes this has to do with the price of the medication but often it has to do with a lack of money to visit a doctor to get a refill. A lot of people can't swing the $20 for cab fare to a doctor's office, $80 for a visit, $80 for testing, and $100 for prescription/s.

Call the EMTs and you get a ride, a doctor sees you, you get a prescription, and they give you a two-week supply from samples. And often all the delays, humiliation, and abuse you can stand. Some people abuse the system but the system also abuses people.

And yes, people pay taxes. In terms of percentage of income poor people always pay more.

Last week we had an employee collapse in a different office. A couple other employees attempted CPR, but since nobody knew it, they had to be talked through it by the 911 dispatcher over the phone. He didn't survive. I don't know enough details to know that a trained rescuer could have made a difference, but it's certainly possible.

I think the survival lesson is that you can be as prepared and equipped as possible, but if the people around you (friends, family, coworkers, neighbors) aren't at all, you've got a big honking gap in your plan.

"...barely beat an RN. How do they do it and what was an RN doing hanging out with diggers?"

tsk, tsk, tsk!

A - some got into nursing because they want to help people.

B - RNs are people, too. They dig (and some even garden), they show dogs, they paint, they are acrobats, they arrange competitive wheelchair races, they skydive, they write, they shoot tin cans, they raise goats and orchids, they barrel race, etc, etc, etc.

And some of them smoke... THAT'S what surprises ME!

Sue

Yes, nurses have varied interests. I know nurses who have climbed Denali, who cave and rock climb, and even garden. But I am still surprised that one was present at a national archaeological geek fest in DC where we were swarming to hear presentations like "A Reexamination of Social Interaction in the Lower Middle Dalton Phase as Revealed by Debitage Analysis from Level C of the Jones Site, Middleburg, Illinois."



Anyway, nurses are ubiquitous, among other things, and I have been grateful on more than one occasion.

My 62 year old Mother learned to smoke and play poker in nurses school. (I still can't play poker and quit smoking 9 years ago on June 22.)

+1

And some medications, especially siezure meds, can make people
feel very ill, have a lot of side effects, and may do only a partial job of controlling the problem. Hence less incentive
to take meds. Diabetics have their challenges too.

Good show MoBob. I am always glad to see people step up and do something.
Responding is one of the hardest things to teach first responders to do.

Sometimes all you should do is make the person as comfortable as possible and keep an eye on them until help arrives.
Sometimes they need to be placed in recovery position.
Once in a while you will need some serious first aid skills, but fortunately those times are not as common as many of us expect.

I have helped epileptics and diabetics a few times.
I found the first aid and ambulance crews to be very good.

My biggest problems were with people who assumed the person displaying odd behaviour or going into seizures was either insane, drunk or on drugs.
I have seen the same thing happen with cases of hypothermia.

I always find such responses a bit troubling, especially when the person is showing clear signs of distress.

In some of the cases the people suffering were pretty well off looking, and in some cases they looked like homeless people.
It made only a slight difference in how crews reacted, and that was mostly in the questions they asked.

If you think they are diabetic I have heard it suggested that you can give them sugar because it might help and won't do harm.
Not insulin, though you can help them take it if they have it you can not administer it.
I have heard the same thing about giving 1/2 an aspirin to suspected heart attacks.

"I am still surprised that one was present ... to hear presentations like "A Reexamination of Social Interaction in the Lower Middle Dalton Phase as Revealed by Debitage Analysis from Level C of the Jones Site, Middleburg, Illinois."

OTOH, maybe her name is Jones, she's from Illinois, and thought it was a family reunion...

Sue

I've stopped a couple times for accidents (as a lay nobody) and been surprised by the proximity of nurses. Just this past St. Patrick's Day a drunk blew a red light and caused a nice wreck. I was passing by and pulled over (I only do this when there are no flashing lights yet on the scene), only to see two nurses already working on the soused patient (the young lady he t-boned was fine, fortunately). I was happy to just hand out gloves and gauze and hold the flashlight while they worked. It's been almost 20 years since my last first aid course, so I was glad to have professionals on the scene and not be hands-on myself.