Good morning, Mumpers!
I am artfully avoiding grading exams.
Watch me procrastinate!
See avoidance like you’ve never seen it before!
She’ll even clean her house before picking up a red pen!
One shiny quarter will get you a look at the most Persistent Procrastinator!
Sigh…
I won’t be caffinated for another hour or so - I wait until I can drink the free stuff at the office. That way I don’t have to clean my coffee pot at home. And it makes the drive in more fun 
It should be quiet there today - people are starting to drift off to their vacations.
I wonder if it’ll be warm enough at lunch to put the top down on my car. I hate it when I can’t enjoy the weather!
-D/a
Come back anytime! Most of us won’t bite. 
Good morning! Most of the people in my area of the call center floor are blissfully off today. The loud ones are all gone. Maybe, just maybe, I might get some work done today!
Sticking my head up to say howdy and now its back to irk.
I’ve known for more than a year that my present job as an engineering contractor with the Coast Guard was going away at the end of this year, and I’ve been furiously job hunting both within and outside my present employer since I found out. As I write this tale, I’ve been verbally offered, and have accepted in principle, a new job with my present company, working out of the divisional headquarters in southern Maryland. This means we will be moving, probably at the end of January, but things are not yet finalized.
I’ve been on medical leave from the rescue squad since late September, because of herniated disks in my back. All too slowly, I’ve recovered, and this past week I took an extra run that caused me no pain problems whatsoever. I figured it was time to go back, most of all because I owed it to buddy Tollie to tell him face-to-face what was going on with my impending job change. This is the tale of a shift from hell.
I arrived at the station at the appointed hour, did the usual change of shift bullshit. Within 2 minutes of going officially on duty, Tollie and I looked each other eye to eye.
“Catfish?”, I asked.
“Catfish!” was his reply. Our usual Friday routine is to eat the catfish special at one of the three local eating establishments. We grabbed our ambulance and headed out.
Along the way, I dropped the bombshell on him that we were moving out of Cottonfield County. Major bummage reigned, but he also understood why.
No sooner than having told him the bad news, we were paged for a sick woman; we were roughly halfway to catfish at the time. The call was in the far east side of the county, and it took us a while to get there.
It was a routine bullshit run. The woman had the flu, became dehydrated from the copious vomiting, and wanted transport to the ER. I was happy because I managed to get an IV in her on the second try, because I was out of practice.
We took her to Suffolk, and as we were leaving the horsepistol, I said, “Uh, Tollie, my pager is crackling…” We were out of reception range, so lots of static means there was significant radio traffic. We started the unit, and the radio had the ability to get clear traffic. We heard “…10-18 and 10-33…” and “…just east of the dump…” 10-18 means get your fanny there yesterday, and 10-33 is used when a life is in danger. Tollie lit up the lights and siren while still in the ambulance bay, and I’m sure he endeared us with the ER staff. Fortunately, there was a second crew dispatched, because at normal driving speeds, we were a half hour away. We made it there in 20 minutes.
When we got to the scene, about half of the sheriff’s department was there, as well as large number of fire and rescue folks. For ethical reasons I can’t say why, but the patient was someone well known in a good way to the emergency responders in the county. To say any more would leave him identifiable.
The patient is a Type 1 diabetic, and has a shiny new insulin pump that is not yet regulated. He had gone hunting earlier in the day, didn’t have anything with him to eat, and came home extremely confused and hypothermic. When he got inside, he passed out completely. A check of his blood sugar gave a number in the low 30s, which is dangerously low. The other crew administered glucagon and D50, standard treatments for low sugar.
Two consecutive glucose checks showed his sugar to be in the mid 200s, which is high, but at least he wasn’t in any more danger. We knew he was going to be OK when he started sassing the 20 or so people standing in his living room. Tollie and I last saw him on the way to the shower to warm up.
“Catfish?”
CATFISH!!!" was the reply. It was roughly 7:30, and the restaurant was only a short handful of miles away. Dinner was great, as always. We were finishing, and giving the waitress some grief when the radio lit up with verbal traffic about a wreck just down the road. Tollie and I jumped up from our seats, startling the waitress.
“What’s wrong?”
“We’re about to be paged.” Just then, the tones sounded, and every head in the place turned to us to see what all the noise was. I threw a $20 on the table and we ran, because the initial report was an entrapped patient. On the way, we called to have the helicopter put on standby, and had the crash truck and a second ambulance paged.
We arrived, and I looked at the trapped patient. She was a mess from numerous facial lacerations. Knowing there were four other patients walking around, I decided she was the most critical, and crawled into the car with her. Have y’all seen pictures of people jumping on trampolines, where they pull their legs up and twist them to one side? She was in that type of position, and when the car was t-boned, the doorframe and dash crumpled around her feet. Oddly enough, this was a good thing, because if she were sitting feet forward, she would have suffered major tib-fib fractures to both legs, and maybe partial amputation of the right.
There wasn’t much I could do for her inside, except be with her and call the shots for the extrication. To take vitals meant I’d have to get under her clothing, and it was way too cold to do that to a trauma patient.
Our assistant chief rolled up with the crash truck. Stormin’ Norman is a dead ringer for a young Norman Schwarzkopf of Desert Storm fame, and our Stormin’ Norman is also a DS vet.
They set up lights around the car, then decided the roof needed to come off before using the spreaders to free her legs.
“Bob, we’re going to break the glass.”
"OK. Someone get me some blankets. " People inside need to be covered up to protect them from the shattered windows.
Pop-BANG, and there was the sound of tinkling glass from the rear side window. I didn’t have any blankets yet, but that window was far enough from both of us it didn’t matter.
Pop-BANG, and my back felt a thousand little hits. Then my butt got suddenly cold and very prickly. Instinctively, I jumped up, and banged my head on the roof. I started bellowing.
“GodDAMMIT, Norman, wait until I get us covered up! Now I have shards down the crack of my ass!”
“Oh, sorry…” was the reply. The blankets arrived, and we covered up while the last wind was broken and the roof sawn off.
Next came the spreaders. That was an experience because any movement, including those to relieve the pressure on the patient’s feet, caused her considerable pain. After about a half hour of work, she was free.
An exam shoed the obvious facial injuries, a concussion, rib related back injuries, a possible broken pelvis, a broken ankle, and the other foot was broken. She faced implantation of lots of hardware, and possible facial plastic surgery. She flew to Norfolk General. As we were finishing up the transfer, Norman appeared, and ordered us to transport her kids to Betsytown for evaluation.
“Uh, dude. This was our third back-to-back patient. We have no linens, IV supplies, or much of anything else.”
“You’re the only unit available, and all you have to do is transport for evaluation. The kid’s grandfather will meet you there and take custody of the kids.”
:grumble: In came two young boys, ages four and six, both cute as a button, and exuberant as can be. The four year old had a bump to the head, and his brother had a belt burn to his right shoulder. Transport was routine, but rather fun, because we played with the kids, and the four year old especially talked my ear off. He was rather proud of the Matchbox car in his hand.
I cleaned out the linen cart at the hospital so we’d have something on board, and we headed to the station. It took us a full hour to clean the unit and restock. I was far too wiped to do the ton of paperwork for all the patients, including one from earlier in the week, so I went to bed. It took three hours to do the reports when I got up at 5 AM.
The parting shot is the Mayberry VFD also ran Operation Santa Saturday night. It’s always fun to hear them talk to Santa, and give them goodie bags filled with all kinds of stuff to rot their teeth. This year, we did it in an ice storm, and I wasn’t warm and dry until about 2 AM Sunday.
The question mark in the title indicates the uncertainty I have right now concerning job and relocation. I haven’t yet signed on the dotted line for the new gig, and until I do, everything is in flux. To be optimistic, I’ll have stuff nailed down before the end of the week, which is Christmas, and I’ll be turning in my gear to both stations immediately thereafter. If the weekend was my last rescue run, then it was a doozy of a finale.
Volume 3 will pick up after moving and joining departments in Maryland. New turf and new friends…
Wonderful story, as usual, VBob! I wish you all the best in the job hunt, and when you finally land somewhere, I hope you get to join a VFD unit you love.
I’m about to go jump in the shower, and start running errands. I told a work buddy I’d meet him at the gym, too.
Warm hugs for all the freezing Mumpers.
Laterz!
Good morning! And thanks for the tale, BBBBBobbio, that was indeed a doozy! Looking forward to having you up this way soon–I’m not -too- far from FCM and I’m sure that the local VFD and rescue squads are always willing to welcome new folks to their ranks.
It’s too cold out!! Whine whine. 
It could be worse, though - there could be deep snow or ice and freezing rain! Guess I gotta look at the positive side of things. My son will be home tomorrow!!
Hope everyone has a great Monday.
Are you sure Merryland is big enough to have a “southern”?
It is big enough for eastern, western and southern. I gues they left northern out to economize.
Great story: I really hope it’s not the last. I enjoy reading these.
It’s funny how low BGs affect different people different ways. Our daughter walked up to me and said, “Mom, I’m shaky,” which is her normal sign that she’s going low. Her BG was 34. I thought that 34 would be glucagon, not glucose tabs.
Whenever someone is low, as long as they can talk, or at least follow directions, you can give then glucose tabs or paste. They have to be able to voluntarily swallow.
This patient is a skinny little runt, and I’m kind of surprised about the use of the glucagon because I would ahve figured he didn’t have enough glycogen in his liver to matter. Maybe that’s why they did the D50, too. Don’t know, it all happened before we got there.
Exactly. Our directions are:
Coherent: glucose tabs or juice.
Awake but not swallowing: cake icing, rubbed on the inside of the cheek or squirted between cheek and gum.
Unconscious: Glucagon, 911.
Thankfully, we’ve never gotten below the glucose tabs yet.
Great finale VBob.
On a not-related note: OW
Came home Friday night and tried negotiating the stairs in the dark. A cat to remain unnamed (I’m looking at you Bear), ran past me, made me trip and now my right ankle is the size of a softball. (one of those girl’s 12 inch ones, not a real man’s Clincher).
Ice and rest did nothing for it this weekend, so later today I’m off to the ER to have it x-rayed and all. This is the ankle which, when I was 15 suffered a partially torn Achilles; when I was 19 tore two ligaments slipping on the ice, when I was 23 tore SIX ligaments playing softball (picture my foot twisted so badly they had to set the first full leg cast with my foot pointed down and outward about 30 degrees, and my shin bones separated by about an inch more than they should be).
This doesn’t feel nearly as bad as those. I can limp, stairs aren’t impossible, just painful.
Ow.
THE NEW STOVE IS HERE!
The stove that we needed before Thanksgiving! It’s here! They’re putting it in!
I’ll go back and read later.
BusDude ow! Maybe you should never use that ankle again. It’s tryin’ to kill you! :eek: 
Great story BBBobbio if’n it is the last one for Cottonfield County it was a doozy of one to go out on! Leave 'em with a bang I say!
I just had me a sammich and am goin’ back to the irkplace for a couple more hours. It’s slow cause it’s Crimmus week and nobody appears to be callin’ about stuff. Oh well, ain’t like I didn’t think it’d be this way.
Later Y’all!
ETA: Spaz ** YAY!!! WHATCHA GONNA COOK???**
Catfish!
Terrific OP!!! I only have one thing to add:
Ya’ll know what the difference is between a catfish and a lawyer? One is a scumsucking bottom-feeder living off the misfortune of its fellow creatures and
the other one is a fish.
[QUOTE=SpazCat]
THE NEW STOVE IS HERE!
The stove that we needed before Thanksgiving! It’s here! They’re putting it in!
[/QUOTE]
Let me hazard a guess - you bought an LG stove?
We’ve never gotten below ‘able to swallow but in tears’, which is about 2.5 by the Canadian blood glucose measurements. I would like to be able to translate, and I’ll ask about it at Gnat’s next clinic.
If he survives that long. I may kill him today. He’s been explaining why it’s okay to run out into traffic, wishing his house will burn down, and pushing over his baby brother. And shouting gleefully and smacking me. It’s like he’s experimenting with being an awful person, in spite of consequences and punishment. I’m this close to letting him run out into traffic to see if the cars want to play.
He may not see tomorrow.
Or I may just eat a lot of chocolate during naptime. My MiL (who came yesterday) brought me Green and Black’s with dried cherries.
Of course it is - haven’t you read my location?? Sheesh… 
Granted the Eastern Shore does extend a bit farther south along the Delmarva, but they can’t be eastern *and *southern. I think there’s also a Central Merrylande, and the rest is “the part surrounding Baltimore” - so there ya go.
BBBobbio, you need to settle in Mechanicsville and join their VFD - then you can ride past my house in a Santa Suit! I suppose you could do it anyway - I won’t judge. 
Home early today - our CO has given us 59 minutes every day this week and next. So yay. I should use the time to do laundry, but I don’t think so. Yet. Maybe later.
Last night, we went down to Flat Iron Farm to look at the lights and displays and stuff. It was cold and I felt sorry for the horses and other critters in their unheated and mostly open barns, but I assume the farmers know when to cover them up and all that. There were displays of old-time toys and tons of John Deere stuff and miscellany for sale. We walked around for about an hour, **FCD **was making wise-acre comments, and we generally had some quality, if frosty, family time.
Big excitement at work was the power burp and subsequent discovery that the UPS for our building isn’t working. Nor are the emergency lights in the ladies’ room nearest my office. That’s not good.
What else… um… nothing. Just another day in paradise. At least it’s a short week.