“Beep! Beep! Beep!” The pager went off, followed by an alert on the Nextel.
“714, Dispatch.”
A slight feeling of annoyance overcame him, but only for a fraction of a second. He reminded himself that he signed on for this job to help people, not to sit in the ambulance and stare at his phone all day. He put his phone in the dirty cup holder and reached for the Nextel clipped to the sun visor, as his partner simultaneously slid the pager out of its case and anxiously searched for details.
“714, go ahead.”
He came to the quick realization that his initial angst was more a product of his nervousness than his reluctance to run another call. Practice yields confidence, he said to himself over and over.
“714 I need to show you in route to Mercy General, picking up out of ER bed 7, for a 78 year old female, status-post fall, history COPD, dementia…O2, suction precautions needed; this is a BLS transfer.”
At least it’s not another gurney transfer, he thought. Now I can practice putting someone on oxygen, and maybe I’ll get to suction the patient in route. I just pray she is not incontinent.
“Copy, show us in route, Mercy Gen.”
“Do you want me to start the paperwork,” his partner asked. “Sure, thanks.”
As they accelerated onto the freeway, he reviewed the procedures in his head for using the portable oxygen tank. Make sure valve is opened with O2 wrench; turn flow regulator on to make sure gas is flowing; make sure there is enough O2 in tank for the transfer; turn on main O2 in the rig; make sure gurney is stocked with a nasal cannula and non-rebreather mask.
They pulled into the ER ambulance bay and he scanned for a spot to back into. He counted three fire medics, an AMR rig, and a First Responder crew. Damn, he thought, they must be slammed! A little extra patience, he encouraged himself, mentally preparing for his encounter with uptight nurses and doctors. He opted for a spot furthest away from the ER entrance, leaving the closest parking spots available for ALS crews dropping off the most critical patients.
He reached for the radio, turned up the volume, and waited for all traffic to clear. When silence filled the air waves, he pressed the transmit button down and, feeling cool like the first responders in the movies, let dispatch know that “714 is 10-97.” His partner suddenly stopped writing, he clicked the radio volume up two more notches, and in a synchronized effort they both sat as still as possible in silent anticipation. After a brief pause, dispatch responded in a faint voice that reminded the EMTs that the dispatch center was in a completely different city, about 45 miles away: “copy, 714 is on scene.”
Reaching across the center console, his partner unclipped the Nextel from the driver-side sun visor and clipped it to her cargo pocket. “Got your keys?” he asked her. Yep, she assured him by shaking her keys back and forth. He clipped the pager to his belt, reviewing in his head the information he would need to pull from it during the call. Bed 7, he recalled as his partner pulled the gurney out from the rig.
The EMTs pushed the gurney into the ER, wheeling it up against an unused wall. Pagers buzzing, alarms sounding, and phones ringing. The steady, alternating beep of a hundred different heart monitors resembled the midnight chorus of a bullfrog colony, the source of whose ribbets you could not pinpoint.
The hallway beds were full, not surprisingly. They’ll be happy we’re freeing up one of their beds, he thought to himself. Some patients were quietly sleeping, some chatting with family members, while others screamed out in pain. Some stared blankly into the wall, most likely sedated by the liquid pain-killer making its way down the plastic tubing, through the needle piercing the wall of the vein, into the bloodstream, and eventually into the heart which then pumped the medicine to all systems of the body.
The crew exchanged a quick smirk, as they took note of the usual ER commentary: “What is going on? Give me my pills! I need to leave! I have been here for 12 damn hours! Get me out of here!” Nurses and Doctors trotted smoothly around the emergency room like a group of Tennessee Walking Horses, juggling paperwork, clipboards, needles, drugs, and stethoscopes.
He approached the nurses’ station. “Who are you here for,” snapped an RN. “We are here for Bed 7, Smith I think.”
Like a chameleon that changes its colors and emerges from its guarded state, after realizing that foe actually turned out to be friend, the nurse replied “Oh great! Thank goodness. We really appreciate it! I think that’s Regina’s patient. Just a moment.”
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