Damn, I never would have guessed what would have happened…
I am an EMT in a small town, working a low volume system. For me to run 5 calls in 12 hours was unusual.
On Sunday I began my internship at Albuquerque Ambulance. I work a shift from 6pm until 7am. I had no clue what I was stepping into…
my first call, 2 minutes into my shift, was a heroin overdose. I quickly ran calls 2-8 over the rest of the thirteen hour shift.
Monday I was off because my preceptor was sick.
Tuesday night all hell broke loose. Over the 13 hours of my shift my truck never sat still for longer than 15 minutes. It was not unusual for us to never make it to our post from our last call before going to another. The calls I responded to included two car accidents, two falls, one heart attach, one suicide attempt, one boy with a twisted ankel and no one spoke English and several cancelations on scene by the first responding unit from Albuquerque Fire.
In all I ran 12 calls on tuesday…twelve calls. I had no idea how overworked the 911 system in my city can become.