You do NOT need an ambulance.

You my friend, you need a taxi(or that car in your driveway will do just fine.)

3 calls. 1 transport. None needed.
Call 1-
Code 3 response to an Assault. Usually, this gets me excited(morbid-maybe). Trauma, Cardiac emergencies–you know, playing with our cool toys. Laryngoscopes, Needle decompression, drugs, the Defibrillator. Those are the nifty little gadgets that suck us all in.

But you can tell if a call is going to be exciting when you walk up. If it’s bad(in the “good” way) PD is panicking on scene, FD looks like their heads are going to explode. Cop cars are parked all over(they seem to let their fellow officers know when the good shit is going on) and looky-loos are all over the place.

None of that here. Matter of fact, a new young female officer being FTO’d was in control of the scene. 3 Sergeants and not one of them was even out of their car… Bad news. This “assault” had resulted in a scratch–deep mind you–to the face. He needed a doctor, but not an ambulance.

See, most people don’t get a difference between the two. You can go to the ER on your own. I don’t have to drive you. As a matter of fact–if you stand up when I walk in your door, say “ready to go?” and look at me with a smile–I do NOT want to drive you. We’re not a taxi. We are well trained medical professionals who are supposed to respond to EMERGENCIES.

Now I get it. PD was following procedure. But we did not need to come Code 3. We didn’t need to risk our lives and the lives of others to get to a guy who has a cut that isn’t even so slightly oozing blood.

The day gets better though!’

Code 3 response, called as a “FALL”. I’m sure you remember the “falls” from yesterday… the luck returns.

This time though, it wasn’t a gray haired 80 year old grandma ready to talk me into a coma. It was a 12 year old girl with a mother who apparently thinks 911 is the answer to saving herself a trip to the urgent care clinic that is 3 blocks away(nearest hospital… 2 miles… hospital of choice–across town.).

Seems our young friend was running and hit one of the few remaing ice patches. Biffed it a little and scuffed her knee up pretty good. Range of motion is great, CMS intact, no swelling, etc, etc.

It WAS a good scuff–but it was a knee scuff. How many of us have scuffed our knees up good? How many of us call 911 for it? Gimme a break!

I understand being concerned about your kids. That’s what you’re supposed to do. But there is a difference between that and gaming the system.

CALL 3, Code 3 response… “Sick Person”

Our 59 year old male patient was at the Urgent Care clinic with flu signs and symptoms. He’d been in earlier this week and they’d drugged him up good, but had been worse and thought he should get checked out. So, like the responsible, unassuming gentleman that he was, he had his wife drive him to the nearest weekend clinic.

It was his Doc that felt he needed to go to the hospital–and somehow couldn’t tell dispatch enough info to prevent them from sending us at 80 MPH. Sure, he was sick. But he wasn’t dead sick. He really didn’t even want us to take him–but complained of some heart palps so we felt it better to give him a nice monitored ride. His BP/Pulse/resprs were all great. 12 lead negative for AMI. No other S/S of a Cardiac event so we transported with comfort in mind–though my 2 IV attempts on his dehydrated and rolling veins prob didn’t help him tooooo much.

One of those days I guess. You win some, you lose some. Mostly, the system loses. I don’t want to discourage you from calling 911. But remember, If I’m with you, I can’t help someone who might need it more. So if you aren’t sick/dying/dead someone is likely going to need a lot more than you. Hospitals do love it when we bring you in though–saves them from triaging and asking all those silly questions—so long as they listen to me give report and actually pay attention so they don’t have to ask them all over!