Crazy, Embarassing Stuff That Happens on the Ambulance...

I've been thinking about writing this for a while.  This post is all about the crazy, embarassing stuff that has happened to me over the years of driving the ambulance.  Like everything else on this blog, I probably made it all up out of my head and/or copied the ideas from dumb forwarded e-mails.  Either way, it's still funny.  It's a little cheesy, but some of you are into that, so here it goes...

Jelly is Jelly, Right?
We responded to a 38 y/o white female with diabetes, who was complaining of low blood sugar. She was able to swallow, so we decided to give her oral glucose. I had to go out to the ambulance to get the computer, so I told my partner to give her "some of that glucose jelly stuff." When I came back in, I asked him how it was going, and he said, "not good, she keeps spitting it out, saying it tastes bad." I started raising my voice at the lady, saying, "maam, you need to eat this jelly...your blood sugar is low."  Then I got a closer look at the jelly he was feeding her. It was KY Jelly; we carry it to lubricate the breathing tubes. It was all over her lips and chin, and it was streaming off her chin, onto her clothes.  Good thing she was not conscious enough to realize what was going on. I said, "Let's try this other flavor; maybe you'll like it better."  We switched to the strawberry one, and somehow she didn't think our glucose jelly tasted so bad anymore.

Breasting Problems
We responded to the home of 85 y/o woman, complaining of breathing problems.  She had CHF.  I put a stethoscope on her chest and said, "Big breaths, maam."  She responded in all seriousness, "They were a lot bigger, but they've gotten kinda saggy."  My partner couldn't stop laughing and had to leave the room.  I had to turn my face in the other direction and pretend to be getting something out of our bag, so she couldn't see me laughing.

Nicotine Patch Abuser
We responded to the home of 42 y/o black male who complained of feeling chest pain, racing heart rate, and being really dizzy.  He said he was trying to quit smoking, and he was using the nicotine patches to help him quit.  We took his pulse and found out it was 220 and pounding (really high...60-80 is normal).  We asked him when the last time was he put on a patch, and he said, "well...the doc to' me ta' put one dese patches on e'ry eight hours, or when'r I really wanna smoke, but I runnin outta places ta put notha patch."  We opened his shirt and found out he had adorned his chest and shoulders with about 15-20 patches, one every few hours, for the past couple of days.  No wonder his pulse was racing; he had created a beautiful nicotine patch collage.

Bedridden...15 Years Ago
We responded to the home of 55 y/o black male who was bedridden.  He had diabetes and major foot problems (missing one foot and missing several toes on the other foot).  He was complaining of low blood sugar.  Somebody asked him, "How long since you've been bedridden?"  He kind of laughed and responded, "damn, iss been bout 15 yeaz, when ma wife leff me, since I had me some good sex in this here bed."  It took me a second to realize what he thought I asking, but then we all realized it at once and busted out laughing.

A Taxi Cab Is The Last Place You Want To Be When You're Not Giving Birth
One day I was tending to 65 y/o woman with a headache in the ticketing area of an airport, and some Asian dude came running in, yelling at us, "My wife's going to have her baby in the taxi." The man beat me outside, and I guess I lost him, but I saw the taxi of his Asian wife right in front of me.  I opened the taxi door of an Asian lady and told her to lay down.  She kind of laid back, while looking kind of startled, but when I went to lift her dress to take off her underwear, she gave me some resistance. Then, wondering where the husband went, I realized there were several cabs, and I was in the wrong one. The lady, whose baby I was about to deliver, was not even pregnant, and on second thought, she hardly even looked pregnant.  Good thing she was Vietnamese, and there was a severe language barrier, otherwise I'm sure she would have chewed me out and complained on me.

A Song That Got Stuck in My Head...Came Out at the Wrong Time
I don't know how the song got stuck in my head, but I kept wistling this song all day long.  We responded to the home of 35 y/o white female, complaining of a vaginal bleed.  She was 2 months pregnant, and she was probably having a miscarriage.  When I went to put a bunch of pads in her pants, to absorb the blood, I had to have her pull down her underbritches.  As I was putting the pads on the woman's vagina, I started whistling again (probably in an attempt to exude confidence and experience).  The woman got kind of irritated with me and asked, "are you seriously whistling the 'wish I was an Oscar Meyer Weiner' song?"

Highly Dignified Way of Dying
We responded to the home of 58 y/o hispanic male, who was in cardiac arrest. We tried to revive him a little, but he had been down too long before we got there. The paramedics told me to the wife that he was dead and that he had a pretty big myocardial infarction. While we were packing up our stuff, the lady called her daughter and told her daughter that her husband was dead "they said cause of a big fart, or something." I try not to laugh on scene of dead person, while the family is around, but I couldn't help it this time.  The paramedics quickly corrected her, "Maam, it was a heart attack."