Tag: EMS

A Mental Health Odyssey – Still Here

A Mental Health Odyssey – Still Here

Gratitude and Light in the Dark

When I wrote A Mental Health Odyssey, I honestly didn’t know what would happen. Hitting “publish” felt a little like standing naked in the middle of traffic — raw, exposed, and bracing for impact. I wasn’t sure if anyone would read it. I wasn’t sure if anyone would care. And if they did care, I half-expected whispers, judgment, or polite distance.

What I got instead was the opposite. Messages from colleagues in EMS who admitted they’d been in the same hole. Supervisors who could have looked the other way, but didn’t. Members of Marina’s congregation who reached out with warmth I didn’t see coming. Even people I barely knew told me they saw themselves in my words. It felt like people started handing me candles in the dark, one by one, until the room didn’t look so terrifying anymore.

Continue reading “A Mental Health Odyssey – Still Here” →

McClain, Paramedics, Qualified Immunity, Other Thoughts

Many of you may have already read the verdicts rendered for Jeremy Cooper and Peter Cichuniec, two Aurora-area Firefighter/Paramedics who were involved in the care and transport of Elijah McClain in 2019 in Aurora, Colorado. The encounter between Mr. Mcclain, Aurora PD, and Aurora FD ultimately resulted in his untimely death. For those unfamiliar with the case, the brief summary is thus:

A suspicious person call resulted in a PD stop of Elijah, who was walking home from a convenience store with the merchandise he purchased. Several Aurora PD officers on-scene attempted to restrain Elijah, ultimately utilizing a carotid choke hold to subdue him to the ground. During this time, EMS was also summoned as he was suspected to be suffering from “excited delirium” – a diagnosis made by PD, not by EMS, as they had not yet arrived on-scene. When AFD arrived on-scene, according to body-cam footage, the FF/Medics were directed by PD to restrain Elijah with Ketamine because of his apparent excited state (it was later determined he was likely hypoxic from the carotid hold, and not because of an underlying drug- or psychosis-related delirium state) and the paramedics, without performing their own physical exam, checking any vital signs, or determining the appropriate course of action, seemed to follow directions from APD, who do not have medical control authority over AFD. The paramedics administered 500mg of Ketamine (likely an inappropriate dose and inappropriate medication to give in the first place), and then placed Elijah in a prone position on the stretcher for transport. No vital signs were assessed and he remained handcuffed and prone for enough of a period of time to cause apnea (stopped breathing) and went into respiratory arrest, ultimately going into cardiac arrest and dying while under EMS care and in APD custody.

Continue reading “McClain, Paramedics, Qualified Immunity, Other Thoughts” →

Out with the old…

Out with the old, and in with the new, they say, right? It’s a small thing, but the red penlight on the right has been with me for the better part of 15 years. I think it maybe was a gift when I graduated from paramedic school. It’s been in my sleeve pocket or shirt pocket on literallyevery single EMS call I’ve gone on since then, and has assisted me with assessing thousands of patients. It recently started malfunctioning, and despite having survived several trips through the wash, untold rolls under the stretcher wheels, drops down stairs, and being forgotten in ambulance footwells, patient homes, and on sidewalks, somehow it always managed to find its way back to me. Tonight it finally gave up the ghost, and I replaced it with a new blue one of the same model, a Streamlight Stylus Pro. (why in the world would I look for a new model after such good service from the original?)

I know many of my colleagues trust the disposable penlights handed out by the service they work for, but there’s something meaningful and tangible to me of having my own diagnostic tools available and at the ready. I think my wife rolled her eyes a little when I expressed some sadness at the idea of moving on from ol trusty rusty here, and I get it. It is, after all, just a thing, an inanimate object that I have assigned meaning to over the years. It has no feelings or thoughts and won’t know that I have replaced it with a cleaner, shinier, better-working version of itself. And yet…. there’s a tiny part of me that will miss ol’ red, it won’t be the same penlight I’ve had for all these years in my pocket. There’s something to be said for consistency, and I find great comfort in it. Anyway, can’t help patients with a broken penlight, so I must move forward and start another 15 year adventure with blue here, and see what kind of trouble we can get ourselves into!

Thanks for reading my ramblings. If you got this far… are there any tools or gadgets you hold on to despite their obvious replace-ability?

End of Shift

This post authored by Ventricular Escape Beats contributor siren911.

bootsI may be hanging up my boots. I was diagnosed with Lyme disease in 2007 but was probably infected long before that , perhaps even before I was a Medic in 1996. It was diagnosed as Chronic Tertiary (or end stage) neurological Lyme disease because of the length of time that I had had it, that it was in my CSF and brain and that I was as far, stage wise as I could be. I honestly didn’t take it as seriously as I should have. After all, I got sick every 4 years and always recovered. Continue reading “End of Shift” →

New Home, New Site!

Welcome to the new home of my EMS-related thoughts and rantings! For those of you who followed me on The Nightshift Squirrel, thank you so much for making the jump to this site. I’m not entirely sure what happened to the guys I was working with on that site – they’re still active on facebook, but have completely stopped updating the site and have stopped responding to my emails and messages. So, rather than just continue to manage their facebook page for them, I’ve decided to step out on my own. I plan to recruit a couple other EMS and public safety type folks to contribute here, as well.

For those of you who are just joining us out in TV land, WELCOME!! Thanks for joining me. This should be an exciting adventure. I plan to post as often as I can, but in all reality, the life of a paramedic is an unpredictable one, and some months I might post several times and other months you might not hear from me. If YOU would like to contribute, please email me at dave@ventricularescape.com and I’ll happily add you as a contributor to the blog or the facebook page, whichever you’re interested in.

Take a look around – I’ve reposted my favorite blog posts here, and I plan on migrating over some of my other, older entries, too. Stay tuned!

Best Job I’ve Ever Had

 

ambulanceThere are some nights that I wonder how I ever got myself into this career. There are other nights that I wonder how I ever thought I had a meaningful job before I got into EMS. Most nights are a blend of both extremes. Toned out in the middle of the night for an MVC on the interstate. A drunk driver has crashed his car into a guardrail. Continue reading “Best Job I’ve Ever Had” →

Code Green – Mental Health in EMS

codegreen

It’s time to call a code on our mental health.

Everyone in EMS experiences stress. Some of us work for rural, remote EMS services that make only a few runs a month. Some work for busy, urban services that make hundreds or thousands of runs a month. There are many ways in which such services differ, but no matter the size or type of service, we’ve all been stressed out by a call, by a patient, by a coworker, by home life – and at one point or another, you will have a hard time dealing with that stress. Continue reading “Code Green – Mental Health in EMS” →

Overdoses and Junkies

narcan

We’ve all been there… Toned out for another “unresponsive/unknown” call, and arrive on-scene to find a known “junkie” has “overdosed”…again. But, is this really an overdose? Continue reading “Overdoses and Junkies” →