A Trip to the ER – Part One

“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.”

Spurious Transmissions

Welcome to my blog! This is my first venture into the Blagosphere and I have been thinking hard lately about what to name it.  It seems to me that the name of a blog is one of the most important things about the blog itself.

I closely considered my (now) fellow bloggers out in the world and asked myself, “What criteria should a blogger take into account when naming his or her blog?”  Like the title of any good book, the name of a blog should convey meaning about the subjects or issues that it will address.  A good book or blog title could be the name of a protagonist, or a setting in which the book or blog takes place.  It could be a metaphorical allusion to key themes, or a symbolic description of the main idea.

Having defined what I thought to be a virtuous blog-naming dogma, I then asked myself, “What will I write about?  When will I write?  What will be the scope of this blog?”

The first answer that came to mind was that I will probably not have time to write very often.  Of course, that begs the question, “How often is often?“  I also considered that the scope of my blog will probably be very broad: I have no idea what to write about!  I am 24 years old and most of my inspiration to write comes from my everyday experiences, both good and bad.  I have a B.A. in English and I don’t read as much as I should, and I’m hoping this blog will inspire me.

So, having concluded that I will post new blogs occasionally at best, on topics that will vary from politics to wilderness emergency medicine, I now need a title that will convey my thematic tendencies, right?

The first idea that popped into my head, for God knows what reason, was Spurious Emissions. Spurious Emissions are radio emissions “on a frequency or frequencies which are outside the necessary bandwidth and the level of which may be reduced without affecting the corresponding transmission of information”  (I learned this term studying for my HAM Radio license test, call sign: KI6RKL, although I never talk on my radio).  In other words, spurious emissions are undesirable electromagnetic emissions that interfere with a message being transmitted over radio waves.  Although the name sounds cool, this does not fit my newly formed description of my blog!

However, being an English major and considerably obsessive compulsive, I had to dissect the term a little more to make sure it didn’t fit, mostly because I really liked the sound of it: Spurious Emissions. I found out that the word Emit means “to give forth or release.”  I’m not quite sure if I am giving anything through my blog, and I sure as heck am not releasing anything.  I decided to try Transmit: “to dispatch, convey; to communicate.”  This seemed much more appropriate and consistent with my goals, which have yet to be defined.  At least “to communicate” is a vague-enough purpose on which to start.

So, I considered using Spurious Transmissions for my blog title.

Blogging is a process of writing (duh!?).  But really, a good blog doesn’t just address an entertaining topic.  The way in which a topic is discussed or communicated is as important as the topic itself.  Great writers make bland subject matter seem interesting.  They are able attract readers that may not necessarily be interested in a certain topic, but that feel some sort of connection to the writer’s method and style.

I miss terribly (never though I would say this) the days I spent in college exploring each and every dark corner of a particular paper.  There is nothing more satisfying than being understood.  Getting an “A” on a paper meant my communication was received and my ideas were understood, even if the topic was bland.  Writing effectively is a process of identifying your Spurious Transmissions, those transmissions outside the necessary bandwidth of communication.   Good writing requires you to tune your frequency according to the audience, in order to be heard as loud and as clear as possible.

So, for now I’ll stick with Spurious Transmissions.  I may tune my frequency later though.