car crashes

So the past 3 calls I have run have been car crashes. I really like being able to go to a car crash and really check it out. It's like having permission to rubber neck, except that I am not in a car and I get to actually look at all the fun details outside.

The first accident call of the three was pretty interesting. An 18-yr-old female tried to do a U-turn on a busy road causing a "broadsiding" accident. The 18-yr-old guy in the other car got out all pissed off and started yelling, cussing, and threatening the poor little girl who was half his size. That was not cool, and it could've gotten him into a lot of trouble with the police. They actually talked to him in front of us in the ambulance. He might have been riding with them, instead of us. He wasn't hurt too bad, but his lip had been busted because the rear-view mirror fell off and hit him. His car was totalled. Hers was nearly totalled.

The second call was scary and neat to check out when we went to the scene. Some 40s-yr-old lady had just nailed a telephone pole and chopped that sucker in half. Here's the kicker: the top half of the pole was stuck in the front of her truck and the power lines were just hanging precariously out over the road. Needless to say, we approached the scene very carefully. She walked away from the accident and would not allow us to even touch her, but that was okay because the officer on the scene was ready to haul her off to the big house where the sun shines through bars. She had been obviously drinking and the police officer was about to get off work.

We might have had a real problem had the pole fallen out while we were on scene. First of all, we were a little too close to the fall path of the power lines. Secondly, there were some onlookers in the next yard leaning on their metal chain-link fence clearly in the path of those falling lines. One of my partners yelled over for them to get away from the fence, and the man looked at him like he was a retard. "No, you are the retard... he's trying to save your life" is what he and I wanted to say. This crash became a huge neighborhood reunion as everyone couldn't help but come out of their houses at 9:30pm to check it out.

The last accident had the "worst" injury. It happened at about 1am at an intersection where a solid green light is in a left-turn lane (yield people!). My suspicion is that the daughter in the car turned and didn't see the oncoming car, and that other car t-boned the side that the mom was on. She seemed to have some sortof back injury, so we had to back-board and neck-brace her.

I have been kindof hoping for some cool calls, but checking out the damage has been very interesting. I am also still waiting for my first code (dead person) so that I can learn a lot and experience being around someone who has just died. No, I'm not morbid, I just need the experience. It is bound to happen sooner or later.

6 times in one night??!!

Ok, so, when I got to the EMS station last night, I somehow knew that it was going to be a rough night. However, I didn't think it would be that rough.

I know you're probably saying, "Whoa, really? You must have seen some interesting stuff." Man, I wish!

I got to the station I'd say around 6:50pm and immediately put my stuff down and ate some dinner. I ran into Bradley and he told me that both teams were out and that we couldn't run any calls since there was no 2nd person. They were out running a code (dead person)-- why can't I ever seem to get those kindof calls... grrr!

I did however check off the entire inside shelves and drawers without a checkoff sheet in the unchecked ambulance (which is a hard thing to do) and only referred to a check off sheet in checking off of a couple of the bags. So, in this, I felt like I had accomplished something.

Well, we were definitely slow, especially as we waited for the next call. We had an observer (you're allowed to observe if you want for up to two times a month) and he got to see the code. Of course he would, when I haven't ever seen any! LOL.

I watched some TV, we all had coke floats, and then I pretty much went to bed. This was the start of chaos. In short, someone was probably in training at the dispatch station last night. Why did they do that? Probably to torture us.

First call, we were first up. The light pops on and the tones go off. The confusion sets in. They had called both us and Morrisville. We wasted 5 precious minutes with central while they tried to figure out who's call it was. Finally, they made up their mind! It was ours. We got up for a nosebleed, though. An 11-yr-old boy had woken up with a nosebleed at 12:30am and then passed out after seeing his blood. The mom freaked out, called us, but everything was fine by the time we got there. No blood, no unconscious patient, nothing. We checked him out and headed on back to the station. That is what we call an unbillable call.

Then came 1:30amish. Call for us. We weren't up, the other team took it. Again, bright lights and loud noises waking me up.

Next interruption of my precious sleep.. about 2:30am. Call for Morrisville. The tones rang over our intercom for them and us (thus, the bright flourescent lights came on). Why? I'm not sure. But it woke us all up and it wasn't even our call.

3:15am- call for us. We had three trucks running, so we weren't up again. However, this call put us up next as the other other team took it. Again, woken up, this time during the middle of a dream. Why was I dreaming about tsunamis? I don't know, but it was kindof scary and weird. Glad for the interruption of the dream but not the sleep.

4:00am- call for us, but it wasn't in our district. Our tones rang and the lights popped on. We heard the address and then called up central and said, "Hey, that's not our call. It's Morrisville." Thanks for the wake up call (sarcastic!). They had to do the tones for Morrisville, so more loud noises.

Thus, after all is said and done, I'm not running on a lot of sleep today. Plus, when I sleep in the "guys dorm" there is always snoring. Boo. It also takes some time for us to get back to sleep after the very abrupt and unsubtle wake up calls we get. Christian had written earlier in the call log that it had been a slow day. That is always a jinx. Thanks!! I'm guilty of saying it though.

The moral of the story is: Do not train new dispatchers at night. They will mess up and make everyone miserable through their mistakes. I do appreciate them, but would prefer that they train people during the day. This way, we wouldn't have gotten woken up so many times by mistake. If that person wasn't in training, they need to be trained again.

Stabbing, seizure, and fever

Sorry Bridget, there aren't any extemely interesting things to report from EMTing last Thursday, but I thought I'd tell everyone what experiences I picked up.

So, I have kindof coined these terms: EMTing, EMTed, will EMT, etc. You all know that EMT stands for Emergency Medical Technician, yet I have made it into a verb on many occasions. Being an EMT is not about the title; it's about action. So, I feel that using the abbreviation to tell people what I am doing, going to do, or did and saying that is most appropriate.

Now to move on to the calls of last Thursday (I would have written sooner, but I went to the beach Friday-Sunday).

Our first call wasn't interesting at all. We went on standby, and as we drove to our standby location, we went off standby. It was pretty much a waste of ten minutes and 4 miles.

Then, we got a call about a 27-yr-old female who apparently went into a seizure. So we drive over to her place and find that she has recently had surgery for an extremely badly broken arm just under the shoulder (3 pins). She was on some medication that required monitoring and minor shocks to work. This is what, most likely, caused her to roll off the couch into a seizure and roll around on the floor on her broken arm. Ouch. She was dazed, confused, and mostly scared about the whole incident.

The third call of the night was the most interesting. It comes over the radio just after I went to bed as a stabbing. I got really excited thinking I was about to see some cool stuff. They described the incident as domestic violence, so when we got there we had to wait for the police to secure the area... in the cold. That wasn't fun. It was cold, and the wind was blowing and cutting through you like a cold, windy day in Boone as you walk up a hill that channels the coldest wind you will ever know.

On a side note, I need to invent insulated latex gloves. I could make a lot of money off the EMS and Fire Departments.

Finally the scene is secure. I lug the Trauma bag down a small hill to discover a 33-yr-old man with blood all over his hands. Upon further inspection, his stab wounds appeared to only be minor lacerations. This is when I got a bit disappointed. I had gotten excited for a few tiny slash marks.

Apparently, his wife is psychotic. She has been addicted to heroine. He finally got fed up, mentioned the big D word and she got pissed. She pulled out a pocket knife and started slashing at him. Then she grabbed his keys, motorcycle helmet, and their 4-yr-old daughter and sped off in her car leaving him stranded with bloody hands (as he tried to protect himself). He was mostly concerned with his daughter and not himself or his "wife."

The last call of the night was another elderly person (as we get a TON of those) with a fever, high blood pressure, and high blood sugar. His fever had been too persistent for comfort so the wife called us.

Thankfully, since I had to work at 8am the next morning, we didn't get any calls after I went to bed at 1am. But I had gotten up twice, and that made me especially tired (man I am getting old, wanting to go to bed at 1015pm). Either way, I still enjoy volunteering.

Superbowl Commercials

I am a huge fan of the commercials during the Superbowl. This is the only time I like commercials. I am really only an intense fan of the game itself when the Carolina Panthers are playing, but I tend to try to choose the underdogs and watch the game for fun.

I was pretty disappointed last night with the Superbowl commercials. Only 4 of the many commercials were really good. Then, for some reason, there were several commercials that were just repeated over and over. Take for instance, the new Ford Mustang convertible coming out. I would've ranked that one as cool, except that they repeated it ten billion times.

Next, are the recurring themed commercials. The monkeys they used to advertise the online job source just got annoying. The first time, I was like, "oh, I get it. Are you working with a bunch of monkeys?" Then there were just several of the same. It was tiring.

The 4 unique commercials that I enjoyed are as followed (ranked highest (1) and on down) with descriptions after:
1. Ameriquest's Cat commercial- this was the funniest one for me. I continued to laugh after the commercial was over! Here is this guy, with all intentions of cooking his honey a lovely dinner. The cat likes to get on the counter. He shooes the cat off the counter and proceeds to cook italian food, red sauce being the kicker. As he is chopping something up, the cat jumps on the counter and knocks the pan of red sauce all over itself and the floor. Guy freaks out, picks up cat covered in sauce, lifting it above the red sploch on the floor, knife in the other hand, just as gal walks in. It flips over to "Don't judge to quickly." hehehe.
2. Diet Pepsi, P-Diddy commercial- Here is P-Diddy, on the way to the Academy Awards. His car breaks down in the desert. Diet Pepsi truck comes by and picks him up giving him a ride to the awards. Everybody is shocked at what P-Diddy appears to be driving. This starts a new trend where everyone is getting a Diet Pepsi truck, most pimping their ride up! At the end, Carson Daily drives by P-Diddy and hollas at him to check out his ride as P-Diddy gives him a confused/"what tha" look.
3. Cell Phone Ad- Guy claims his service has worked pretty well for him all the time, except a few unimportant times. Then you see a pet store trying to call the guy and explain that instead of taking home a Boa, he has taken home a very poisonous snake. This information breaks up over the phone as the guy is playing with his "pet" snake. He says, "Come on, gimme a kiss" as the poisonous snake bites him!
4. BudLight- Scenario: Parachuters on an airplane, hesitant guy. Leader tries to lull him to jump by tossing out a six-pack of BudLight. He hesitates, and then you see a man run by him and jump out without a parachute after the beer. The two realize that that man was the pilot and the leader jumps. "Just too good to pass up."

So, these are my top picks for the Superbowl commercials 2005. Now to reminisce a little.

Some of my more favorite past commercials have included products such as a few dot.coms, 7up, Pepsi, and Budweiser. My favorite one is a hard pick.

There was a dot.com that tried to shoot hamsters through the "O" on a wall that had a hole through the center with a small, high-powered cannon. They repeatedly missed and the host would say stuff like "oh, so close!" It was absolutely hilarious. They finally did aim right and get one to pass through. I know it enraged some animal right activists, but they did show the hamsters walking away ok. I was shocked, but laughed the whole time!

I loved the frog commercials. "Bud" "Weis" "Er."

Then there were the 7up commercials. There are so many hilarious ones. I loved the original 7up guy with the dreads. Now, he was funny. One of my favorites was when he asked everyone to send pictures of their "cans." Instead of getting a bunch of pictures of cans of 7up, he got a bunch of pictures of people's butts! My favorite line was "looked like two big Christmas hams." Then he ends it with, "Mom?!!" The 7up people always came up with something creative, whether it be random machines in random places, or a guy that chased a cheetah that drank/ate his 7up can.

The herding of the cats instead of cows.

The cute Pepsi little girl!

Sometimes, I can't always remember what exact product they were advertising, but I can remember the jists of my favorites. I also can't stand ones that use people who I don't really like, such as Britney Spears. Ugh, who wants to see her in another skimpy outfit? Not me.

Well, if you have any favorites that you can think of, write a comment and remind me. I probably will remember it, and if I don't, it would be great to see your thoughts and opinions! These are all that I can think of off the top of my head, and I know I have had more that I have liked!

Dreams

So I have had several pretty intense dreams in the past few days. I can't always remember the details of my dreams, but I do wake up in an emotional state because of them.

I have always had intense dreams every so often. To some extent, my dreams in the past were so intense that I physically carried out actions in my sleep.

A more common instance when I was younger was that I would actually sleep walk. I slept walked into my brothers room during a storm and you may not believe it, took a shower in my dreams. How did I do that, you might say? Well, I was dreaming that it was 6am and that it was time for me to get up and get ready for school. So I got up, took a shower, even shaved my legs in a half-awake, half-asleep phase. When I walked out of the bathroom in my towel, I noticed that my parents were sitting in the family room watching TV. This was unusual as they are never up at that hour and that's when I realized I had been dreaming. I played it off of course. When I woke up in the morning, I didn't really believe I had done it until I touched my legs. Clean and smooth!

Most commonly, I would wake up not knowing I had gotten out of bed and done something weird unless my toe hurt (I stubbed my toe one night) or one of my roommates told me that I did something weird.

My first roomie in college told me one of the weirdest things I ever did was get out of bed, kneel on the floor and move my hands like I was checking plants in a garden. While I did that I said, "the flowers, the flowers!" My roommie then proceeded to tell me that the flowers were fine and that I needed to go back to bed. Very odd! I do not remember doing that at all.

I have a fear of dangerous spiders and I hate roaches. Occasionally, with my travels outside the US, I have come in contact with them. Often, when I was little I would wake up screaming that there was a bug, wake up the whole house, and have my dad and/or brother come in to see what was wrong. There was nothing wrong and no bug--> I was dreaming. I still have those occasionally, but I don't scream. I more like wake up turn on the light and search for where the bug has run off to before realizing that I am dreaming.

Any of you who have shared a room with me know that I sometimes talk in my sleep. I definitely don't remember what I said, and sometimes what I say is incomprehensible. Occasionally, I say the funniest things. We could carry on a whole conversation and I would have no idea that we did. The moral is: do not say anything important to me unless I am fully awake! =p =)

Lately, my dreams have been distressing and odd. I had a dream one night that those kidnapper terrorists in Iraq had kidnapped and killed everyone that I loved. Another night I had a dream that my fiance and I broke up because I was busy. I have dreamt about snow shutting down the Triangle, and even about random fairy-tale like stories. I hope that none of the bad ones are omens for the future in any case. Which leads me to my next point....

A couple of the dreams I have had have come true. One night I dreamed that the Panthers would lose in the playoffs. That was the year that they did lose a week later after my dream. I also dreamt that the traffic lights would all be green on the way to church one morning. They were! (Don't ask me why I dreamt about traffic lights back then; I have no idea). There have been others, and I just think that, over all, they are coincidents and just plain weird.

I attribute the latest dreams to the stress that I have been under. From worrying about responses from medical school, to planning a wedding, being busy all the time, and being over-committed, it's no wonder I don't even have time to let my emotions out. I guess the way my brain deals with it is through dreams.

Well, whatever the reason for my dreams (don't analyze them too much), at least I know I dream in color. That in itself is unusual as most people dream in black in white or can't remember. And, I can practice speaking Spanish in my dreams (which I have had several dreams all in Spanish--- I did understand them!). I think I sleep better without dreaming anyways.