In broad daylight?

So there I am sitting in the front office of our fire house. The front office is a lot like a fishbowl with 3 walls consisting of mostly tinted glass. Directly in front of the fire house standing next to the dumpster is a woman we have met in the past. We know her to be a prostitute addicted to meth. we will call her meth ho. She starts talking to a guy on a mountain bike. ( yeah I laughed about the bike too) As she is turning on the ho charm, meth ho begins pointing like a crazy person different directions. Then I realize she is pointing behind near by buildings and walls. I am thinking there is no way she is going to do this in broad daylight, is she? Along side of the fire house is a church with some side exits facing the front office. One of these exits has a 3 ft wall around the steps. And sure enough meth ho motions the bike guy over to this little alcove on the steps of the church. But bike guy doesn't know what to do now that he is there. So he is standing straight up looking around like a groundhog. (must have been his first time.) Anyway meth ho frantically motions for him to get down. Meth Ho remains on the corner for a little while looking around before scurring over to the church steps. 3-4 mins later both parties emerge from the alcove and quickly go in opposite directions. Crazy huh? Well about 20 mins later meth ho is over at the drug houses (also seen from the firehouse) spending her hard earned money. Everyone should work in the ghetto. Its just that entertaining!

Parking brake only works when you use it

The first morning of our 48hr shift is a busy one. We have a lot of paperwork, rig checks, daily routine and some maintenance issues to attend to. The other day we were in the middle of this routine when a large, older white man walks through our employee parking lot and straight into the station. He stood out on account of his skin color but also he was wearing coveralls. I was near the door so he approached me and asked if anyone owned a toyota truck. I had to think about it, but I remembered the station captain owns an older 4runner that could pass for a pick up with a shell. I advised the visitor who owned one and asked why. He replied in a tone that let me know he was less than impressed with whatever had happened: "because it just hit my truck!" I look out the back of our station and almost one block away, in the neighboring parking lot that is on the other side of a street; is the captains truck wedged in between the rear wheels of a large semi truck. Apparently our beloved station captain had forgotten to put his truck into gear or set the brake. I will skip the response that we got from him when we told him. But his truck had reversed out of our station parking lot (without hitting any of our trucks. remember this is shift change so the lot is packed.) crossed the street, made a gentle turn to access the driveway and across the parking lot that is a full city block. We thought it was hilairious. He wasn't impressed. He was even less impressed with one firefighter who chocked the 4runner once it was returned to its original starting spot.

Dont pretend to be dying to 911 when you are not

So I get a call for a 6D1 to some crappy apartment. For those of you lucky enough not to use the Clawsen system that is a shortness of breath call and the D part means its important. Well enroute dispatch tell us that the pt is advising they might pass out from fatigue and the door might be locked. My partner and I are about to arrive on scene when our "medically trained" dispatch advises that they have lost contact with the caller (pt) and can hear agonal respirations in the background.So being a fire medic unit when we arrive on scene I am able to grab a set of irons as well as our ems packs. As usual at all our crappy apartment buildings, there are a lot of people just milling around in the courtyard. These people, when asked a question usually respond with "huh?" And tonight was no exception. My partner and i ask 2 different people the location of apt 70 and we both get blank stares in response. Luckily we find apt 70 and began banging on the door. Well when you make this much noise late at night in an apartment complex where no one has jobs, all tenants come out to investigate. As my partner and I begin to force the door using the irons ( flat head axe and haligan tool) I hear several people yelling from the courtyard "Someone call the police! Those 2 guys are breaking into that apartment!" Luckily PD was soon on scene to field any citizen complaints. I guess the fire department trucks, clothes, tools etc were hard to see.
We force the door open (with some damage to door and frame). And once we locate our dying agonal patient in the back bedroom she is face down kneeling over a bucket. Before a question is asked the dying patient turns her head toward us and asks: "you guys just broke down my door didn't you?" Turns out our "patient" was detoxing from booze and was vomiting. When asked why she didn't answer the door, she replied she was too weak. But to get to the ambulance stretcher she had to walk out of her apartment, down the walkway and down a flight of stairs. At this time all the wondering tenants were close enough to offer their assistance. Some were even dropping names in an attempt to gain access to the scene. good times

I'm back!!!!

I have returned from my FMLA (paternity leave)still in one piece. Mom and Baby are doing well. Baby was born at 7lbs 8oz and now tips the scales over to 10lbs plus. She still is waking 1-2 times a night. The wife is tired but she is doing a great job especially when I am at work for 2 days. The 4 yo older brother loves his little sister. He is acting out a little, but its hard to tell if it is from the new addition or just 4yo boy stuff. I have returned to work so the blogs will resume! Thanks for reading my therapy!

Baby is here!

The newest addition to the FFPM family arrived this weekend. So I have taken a few weeks off of work. I could substitute stories from work with stories of a newborn, but I fear that I may scare away some of the followers. Maybe I will anyway, depends on how tired I am.
Until then I'll try to find something else to entertain my small brain.
I hope the ghetto will still be there when I return.

Oh man, Marvin shot himself in the face!

We get dispatched to a gun shot wound (GSW) call. Enroute the police notes come up on the computer and it says the patient shot himself in the face while attempting to shoot his "girlfriend". Upon arrival we find a guy who has in fact been shot in the face. He is also stuffed into the extra cab of a truck in the parking lot. Strange location since that is not where he was shot. As we are pulling him out and getting ready to rapidly transport to the trauma center, I am watching an exchange between the police and a woman. The woman is screaming that if he (the pt) lives she wants to press charges. The story is something about he came over to collect "rent" from her. I am pretty sure "rent" is code for profits made from prostitution. When he threatned her with the gun a struggle ensued and he shot himself in the face. As we were transporting the pt to the hospital we all started talking about the scene in pulp fiction when Vincent shoots Marvin in the face.

Saturday afternoon at the gay bar.

So like I have mentioned, I work in the "seedy" part of town. I have been assigned to my station since August and for the first time for me, we were dispatched to the gay bar for a fainting episode. The comments from the rest of the house start before we get to the truck. So we respond and pull up in front of the bar where The Village People are flagging us down. Not the actual Village People Group, but a few bar patrons that resembled the group. One member had a very impressive mustache. They all follow us in to the bar. My crew consists of 2 men and 1 woman. The female on our crew was prepared to protect "her boys" until an aggressive appearing lesbian made eyes at her. Apparently at that point we (boys) were on our own, as she was scared for herself. As we make our way around the bar, we are attracting some attention and a bar patron tells us that the patient "is a large man". For the first time ever in my EMS career, I was hoping for an overweight patient. Anyway we find our patient lying on the floor and was not feeling very well. His head being supported by a little skinny guy that was happy to remain in place as long as he was needed. The patient was; by his estimation, approximately 500 pounds. Well, the auto BP cuff (yes we are that lazy) does not fit his bicep so it is attached to his forearm. The auto BP cuffs are notorious for being inaccurate (but yet we are still too lazy to use the manual one) The reading comes back BP 100/60. The heart rate 28. Possibly inaccurate but it was confirmed by the pulse oximeter. Ah ha!! I think I know why our patient had passed out. So, possibly due to lack of blood flow our patient will not follow commands or allow us to assist him up. He insists on doing it himself. So Mr. 500lbs with a heart rate of 28-30 struggles, grunts and sweats himself up to kneeling. With some more grunting and a lot of sweating he attempts to stand. In the middle of this impressive effort to get to the gurney, our patient's pants fall to his ankles. And of course, our patient was not wearing any underwear. A large group of bar patrons are looking on and I don't know how embarrassed our patient was, but we were a little uncomfortable. The female of our crew was frozen with her mouth hanging open. Her only statement about what she saw later was " It was just so ......... big. I have never... It was just so big" I think she will be scarred forever. Luckily the other member of our crew was kneeling down directly behind our patient (eye to eye if you will) and as much as he did not want to, he reached down and restored a little dignity to the call. Remember our little helper? He was very determined that someone take his phone number down and provide it to the patient. Apparently they had just met and things were going well before the fainting spell. So as we were trying to render care and closing ambulance doors this guy is demanding us take his phone number. The medic who actually wrote it down got some grief for taking it down. Things went pretty well after that and we delivered our very nice patient to the ER alive and well.