So, don't get me wrong, I do like the fact that I can say that I save lives for a living. Truthfully, however, I've encountered just as many "fed-ex" type patients (I pick them up, then drop them off) as I have true emergent patients. That being said, that does not mean that those patients who were not having what I would call a true medical emergency have nothing to teach. I have learned a great deal from the different types of people I've encountered. And even if I haven't learned anything new, some of these patients make for great stories...like the patient I'm about to tell you about.
Keep in mind, I was an EMT-Basic, working on a BLS ambulance. We had a contract with the local fire department to transport all the BLS patients, while the paramedics for that fire department would transport the ALS patients. We get called out code 2 (normal traffic, no lights and no sirens, as most of these calls were) to take a patient from them. The only patient info we had was a "sick person."
We show up to find half the fire crew and some police officers outside laughing. I don't even need to enter the house to smell what the big deal was. It was the smell of a huge GI bleed. For those of you who have never smelled a GI bleed, imagine the smell of blood mixed with the most potent smell of feces you could possibly imagine...then multiply that by a factor of 10. Normally a GI bleed is an ALS worthy patient, so as you can imagine, we started to get curious. I wasn't until we heard the story that we understood the BLS nature of this patient.
Let me start by saying that the patient would only give us the name "Battle-god of the motorized two-wheeled vehicles." OK, this wasn't the name he actually gave us, but is equally rediculous as the name he really did give us. Not knowing his true name, this is the name that went on the run report, and being a HIPAA grey area, I'm playing it safe. This gentleman was at a friend's house, smoking pot. He wanted to ride home on his motorized two-wheeled vehicle, so proceeded to place all the weed in a glass cigar tube, cork it, and then place it up his rectum. He hit a bump too hard on the ride home, that he cracked the glass cigar tube. Once at home, he couldn't pull it out, so he called 911. While waiting for 911 crews to arrive, however, I guess he felt he had some spare time to kill, that he managed to uncork the glass tube (still in his rectum, mind you), pull out the weed, and smoke it. Needless to say, saying the guy was completely high is an understatement.
The fire crews on scene couldn't make up their mind who was going to "inspect" the area, so they decided to call for the BLS unit (me) to deal with it. The patient being stable, in minimal pain, and no serious bleeding, I proceeded to place the patient on his side on the gurney, and transport him code 2 (a very stable patient) to the hospital about 2 miles from the scene. I was very proud of myself about keeping my composure during patient contact, however the patient seemed in surprisingly good spirits....hmmmm, I wonder why. I did, however, insist on giving the receiving nurse and doc report outside of the patient's room, in fear I might insult the patient with the grin I know I was going to have on my face repeating his story. After giving report, the last thing I hear as the patient's door is closing is the doc as he greets the patient saying, "Dirty Harry, how ya' doin'?!"
I was going to request a copy of the x-ray, only to find out the the doc went ahead and just ripped the tube out before I was even done writting my report, and then did an x-ray afterwards. One of the greatest parts of this, in my opinion, is that my partner and I still saw him from time to time. He would tell everyone around us (whether he knew them or not) that we saved his life, even after we tried explaining to him that our actions had absolutely to effect on his life (we just drove him to the hospital). We would alway call him "Voldemort"...ok, not really, but I can't say what we actually called him...you get the point, and he never corrected us. I have often wondered, however, what his real name actually was.
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