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"Greater love has no one than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." John 15:13

Everyday thousands of men and women show up at work ready to make the ultimate sacrifice. Every so often...one of them does...for the benefit of complete strangers. This week an LAFD Firefighter was killed in the line of duty in an area close to where I work. The 800 and medic units from that area often transport their patients to the hospital I frequent most. (See story at http://lafd.blogspot.com/2008/03/los-angeles-firefighter-killed-in-line.html)

Their sacrifice reminds of how fragile life is, how courageous some men are, and most importantly of the ultimate sacrifice that the Creator of the universe made for unworthy, ungrateful objects of His mercy.

"Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5:7-8

But God. But God. We were helpless and hopeless. But God. We were still sinners. But God. God, the Almighty, Holy, Just, Merciful, Creator of the World...died...for me.

LA Times Story

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-explosion27mar27,0,4394475.story

Skills

Apparently I am so proficient at opening Band-Aids that it is worth the energy to walk all the way across the room, past two firefighters, to get me to open it instead of opening it yourself.

6-Hour Call

We had to run a transfer last shift that took us 6 hours. We don't usually run transfers...especially wait and returns...but somehow we got this one. We had to take a 320 something lb patient to an open MRI because he couldn't fit in the hospitals closed MRI. They scheduled the appointment for 1600. We get caught in LA traffic and miss the appointment by 15 minutes, so they tell us we are at the back of the line and have to wait until everyone else goes first. So about 2.5 hours later they finally call us in. We get the guy on the table and they tell us it will take at least 1 hour, maybe more if he moves or something (you have to hold perfectly still for an MRI). So we go upstairs and pack up our stuff so it is out of the way and are on our way out the door to kick it for an hour or so while we wait. Then the tech comes upstairs and tells us that the patient can't hold still so she can't do the test so we have to come get him and take him back to the hospital. While we are working to move him back to our gurney, ,my partner looks at me and goes "Liz, watch your footing." I look down and see that he has just peed all over the floor (and my boot). Fun times. Makes for a good story.

3/12/08

Our first call of the day came out as a rape/assault. We pulled up first on scene and made sure we were "clear to enter" since the cops weren't there yet. Our dispatcher informed us that there were no notes in the information about staging out for PD and told us to "enter with precaution." My partner laughs...irritated at the inappropriate word usage. "What does "enter with precaution" mean?" I pull out the gurney and start down the driveway of the motel. Part way down I decide wait for my partner to catch up with me...after all, we are supposed to use "precaution" and he, being the awesome partner that he is, is very protective and I know I will hear about it later if I keep heading towards the room by myself. As I wait for him I see the room door open and a young woman walk out, purse in hand. She walks up to us and I can see the makeup streaming down her face from crying. I can tell she's been beat up around the face and she has blood on her shirt. The first thing she says to me is "I don't need that", looking at the gurney. Still, we have her sit down and try to get the story. "My boyfriend beat me up" she tells us. I ask if he is still around. She states that he might be, but that he "probably got on a bus around here." By this time the fire department has arrived. The medic asks if I am riding in the back today. I assure him that I am. Even if I wasn't I would have jumped in the back on this call. He asks me to get her loaded up then try to get the story from her. I jump in the back with her and ask her what happened...and this is what her story was.

After being raped last night by a stranger and being taken to the hospital for a "rape kit" and some medications including a "morning after" pill and something to prevent gonorrhea, the police gave her a ride back to the motel where her boyfriend was. She came in and didn't feel like talking about the rape with her boyfriend (he was aware of what had happened) and went to sleep. In the morning she woke up to her boyfriend trying to "do her." Still torn and sore from the night before she told him to get off. He insisted. She thought he was messing around. "Get the f--- off me!" He still pushed himself on her. She started to fight him. He asked her "did you fight him? did you fight him?" She starts to scream. He covers her head with a pillow. She is still trying to figure out whether or not he is serious or just messing around. The more she fights the more violent he gets, eventually choking her out. I look into her eyes and see the blood vessels in one of them are all blown. Her eyelids are so swollen I have a hard time getting them to open so I can check her pupils as she continued with her story, tears streaming down her face. She gave up fighting and just tried to not think about what he was doing to her as he continued to choke her and beat her. Finally he stopped and she escaped to the bathroom. After a few moments, she tried to make a break for the door of the room. He shoved her into the wall then kicked her in the stomach, hard. She lay on the floor curled in a ball as he pulled on his clothes and left. She walked to the reception desk where she asked the lady behind the desk to call the cops. The lady asked what happened and the girl said "never mind what happened, just call the cops." The woman insisted to know what had happened before making the call then finally decided to turn the phone on in the room so the girl could call from there. The girl returned to the room and called us.

After relaying the story to the medic, a female police officer I recognize comes to the back of the ambulance and informs me that she is going to ride in with us. I am thankful to have another woman there with me. I continue with my assessment of the 19 year old girl. She has neck and back pain from being beat up and choked. Abdominal pain and tenderness from where she was kicked. Wrist pain. Her eyes are bloodshot from being choked and her face is swollen from the beating. She looks at me and asks "does my face look really bad?" I tell her that I can tell she has been beat up, but that it doesn't look that bad. She is a beautiful girl. I splint her wrist and give her a cold pack for her face. At the hospital one of the nurses asks me if I think she is a prostitute..."there's just too much going on here" she states. I disagree. The girl is too upset about everything to be a hooker. There is too much pain in her eyes.

chinese water torture

We all are familiar with Chinese water torture, where water is slowly and randomly dripped on someones forehead making it impossible for them to sleep and eventually driving them insane. Last night was like that for me and my partner J, only in our world, instead of water dripping constantly and randomly, its a phone ringing...constantly and randomly. That is part of the torture of it...you never know when the next one is going to come...so its impossible to rest easy. However, we do have the hope that at 0700, while the phone will continue to ring...it won't be for us. Even though our total number of calls was only 11 in 24 hours...we did not sleep until at least 0400. (I didn't even make my bunk up until that time.) None of our calls were particularly interesting either. Oh well. Maybe next shift there will be something worth a post.

3/7/08

- Difficulty Breather
- 18 m/o swallowed top of Visine bottle
- Syncopal episode w/ dislocated shoulder + neck/back pain
- Sternum pain secondary to assault w/ piece of marble (in custody)
- Shortness of breath (severe)
- Headache
- Auto vs. pedestrian (DOA)
- Constipated
- Man down (ETOH)

Threats

"I'm gonna take your badge off you and open it up and slice your throat with it!!!

-my patient to me...(apparently she didn't like me very much)

ems superstitions

OK, someone please remind me never to title a post "quiet shift" every again!!! I am not usually superstitious...but as soon as someone says its quiet...it is usually very busy for the rest of the night after that (or in this case the month). I have at least a dozen stories to add...but that will have to come later (I'm still too busy to have the time to write.)

exactly what i needed to hear (read)...

"They're all worth it," he insisted quietly. "They each look like the Almighty, and that's worth saving." - j.c.