Monday, March 9, 2009

Dead and just don't know it...

We were on our way to a "sick party" with abdominal pain. Nothing I was particularly excited about, but I was glad to finally be getting a call. Lights flashing, sirens blaring and through it all I can hear the tones go off again. Medic 805, medic 805 stand down from current call, need you en route code three to adams rd for a reported gun shot wound. That was strange, I thought, we don't prioritize calls, but I was kinda excited none-the-less. I'm not a trauma junkie at all, but I had been kinda wanting a GSW just so I could say I saw one. We staged for a few minutes, and talked about how strange it was that dispatch pulled us off that call for this one. We were given the all clear to proceed in, made our way over to the house, and I immediately noted that there were no first responders. As we were parking, dispatch came back over the radio, medic 805, be advised, CPR is in progress. Well, crap. Better grab all the bags now. I tossed our bags out of the stretcher and we jumped out, making our way up to the house. As we approached I saw a cop come running out of the house, coughing and spit into the grass. I figured, eh, he's probably just grossed out. Then I noticed other cops coughing, then the first medic who went in was immediately reduced to a coughing fit and came running back out, followed by her partner, and the first responders. I didn't know what was in the house that was doing this to everyone, but I didn't plan on finding out. I looked over to the medic on my truck and told her I'd take the bags to the truck and get some lines ready. So I walked into the house, trying not to breathe just in case this was some nasty crap that was making everyone cough, looked over at our guy just enough to see it was a shotgun point blank to the chest. I made a hasty retreat and got out to the truck. Our guy was loaded and the fun began. We got dual IV's, I didn't have any luck getting one cause home-boy had shit for veins on the side I was looking, if you're gonna get shot and die on us, the least you could do is have good veins. My partner is a respiratory therapist student, so while I searched for something to stick, she got the tube. By that time I'd had two unsuccessful sticks so I told her to give it a go, and I took over the airway. We put an occlusive dressing over the wound, and a big trauma dressing over the chest and started pumping him. He was in an ugly agonal rhythm, we gave EPI and he went into an even uglier junctional rhythm. After the epi wore off, he was back in the ugly agonal rhythm, second epi didn't touch it, atropine didn't touch it. We were getting to the hospital now, and nothing had changed with him, but he still had a very faint pulse and a blood pressure, the army took over from here. After about five more minutes they called him. Then, the cleanup began...

And I thought I was gonna get out with just a routine abdominal pain...