Woof woof arf arf. I’m the doghouse.
I’m under doctor’s orders to have no patient contact or fire duty until my stitches are out. I’m off the schedule, sure, but I have some exceptions to the rule. Natural disaster, mass casualty incident, and CPR are at the top of the list.
First was the training exercise I went to this morning. I behaved myself (mostly), but VWife’s definition of ‘light duty’ and mine are not the same. Mine was that I went to the exercise, but did not play with the power tools; hers was I stayed at home and sat on the couch all day.
The exercise was a rescue following a tornado. We were given the use of an old house trailer that the owner wanted demolished. A couple of dummies were put inside, and the trailer was rolled onto its side. We did a standard size up, victim search, and forced entry. I did valuable stuff like man the wasp killer spray (LOTS of the little bastards, too) and run to the truck for tools.
After we extracted the dummies, we destroyed the rest of the trailer and put it in a dumpster too small for the job. Ate lunch, and I went home to catch the hell waiting for me.
But wait, it gets better. I cleaned up and laid down for a nap. There was a rescue page right after I got to sleep; a guy near the VunderLair but not a neighbor was arguing with his girlfriend, passed out, and was not breathing. Oh. Shit.
The dude was about 5 miles from home. I drove past his place twice because he had no visible numbers on the mailbox (PSA: make sure your numbers are prominent), and when I got inside, two people were attempting CPR poorly (but bless 'em anyway) and the victim was on the couch. Chest compressions like that are worthless because you just push him into the cushions. The wimmin folk in the house were freaking out, and it was potentially ugly
I felt for pulse and listened for breathing, none. Moved him to the floor, and I started compressions. The Chief and his wife showed up, and I had needed help.
When the ambulance showed, we loaded and went BOH to the hospital.
At one point, we got him beating on his own, weakly, but the doctors called him about 10 minutes after we got him to the ER.
I was also complicit in the biggest lie I’ve ever been around. Our cars were still at the guy’s house, and there was family there.
“How’s he doing?”
Uh-oh. We don’t want to tell them, because it could get ugly all over again. “The doctors were still working on him when we left. We got his heart going again near the hospital…” Then we got the hell out of there. Sorry, but that one I’ll tell gain willingly.
Oddly enough, VWife didn’t tear into me when I got home. She could tell from my face we lost another one, and was wise enough leave me alone.