EMT thread

Just fyi, I left EMS almost 4 years ago now. Protocol at that time was full immobilization. However for that patient, if I remember correctly, we did our best to immobilize him left lateral in a pseudo "recovery" position.

From what friends have told me there's been a recent trend to allow patients - that are able to - to self-immobilize or in a comfortable position. (Reason being that from studies on immobilization done in the field that overly aggressive immobilization to prevent C-spine injuries was ironically contributing - possibly - to more C=spine or general spinal injury).

Yeah

Yeah that's what most protocols are like now. We sometimes put C collars on patients, that's about it. Some of the really rural folly fire depts still do it.

aw hell you can do that working at a convenience store. or going to a convenience store. or living in san francisco

now, the panhandlers in los angeles! gave one $20 cause he told me he was the coach of a stranded high school girl's lacrosse team. that's some quality story telling right there

I work in a cornerstore now lol. I've pulled my gun 3 times

Full immobilization was such a pain. Fucking cheese blocks, C collar, spider straps, tape, etc etc.

While posted on a corner once, had a hobo I was familiar with come up to chat. (Guy was a little out of it was but was entertaining nonetheless).
Anyway he straight up concocted some story about him being on the verge of a pharmaceutical breakthrough for pain management that involved intravenous demerol and nasal. And he needed $5 to fund it.
>He def got the $5 for that story

I'm a volunteer EMT. I hardly get to go on medical calls though, since my position is technically making sure that firefighters don't die on the job. I'm mostly rusty because of that and I constantly have to keep reading up on shit since almost never put most of the stuff into practice. I just got my state license renewed though. I might as well, since all the fees are covered.

Most exciting call was being on standby on the tarmac of a major airport, since they thought a passenger plane might crash due to a busted up front landing gear. Nothing happened in the end, which I was sort of relieved, since I was still in class and the MCI lesson wasn't covered properly due to not having enough people for a full scale simulation.

The calls I see are boo boos at my work (which is actually Jow Forums related, but not medical related), since I had the position of company volunteer first responded pressed onto me. Not that I mind, but it's pretty dumb that I get called on to make a decision on whether to send someone who stubbed his toe home sometimes.

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>deciding if a stubbed toe should go home
Sounds like a school nurse

Left after 5 years.

Fuck that job.

>aw hell you can do that working at a convenience store
You'd make more money and have better hours working at a convenience store too. EMS is an absolute shit job unless you're one of the few percent of people who manages to hang on long enough to get a fire job.

you emt niggas need to be paid more. id never do that job for 12 an hour

just glad I'm not a nurse in the UK. they apparently get paid as much as we pay CNAs here

Im an EM physician AMA

Fuck you're killing my motivation

How do you enjoy the job?

love it

Could you go into detail about it?

You can learn a lot as an EMT and do some cool things. Just be thinking about what comes next. You don't want to be one of the people who gets stuck in private EMS, they have very sad lives. I did it for a couple years, then had enough and got a real job. I missed the medicine, but there's no way in hell I would ever go back to EMS, so now I'm in med school.

I mean yeah. Generally if you shoot you should also know the basics of how to patch up a gunshot wound. Gauze, chest seal, etc. If you're going to make a career out of it, dont be like the ass ages I met when I broke my tibia and fibula. bastards dropped me. Totally fucked up in loading me into the ambulance.

I hope you like fat people OP, because you are going to be carrying them. A lot.

What does your schedule look like? How much research is done in EM?

I used to work with several former EMT's. They seemed like assholes, mostly. I think the job does something pretty negative to your personality after a while. But hey, it's honestly a pretty vital job so kudos to anybody who does it.

What percentage of your time is sitting around waiting for a call?

Good luck to you.

I went from EMT to RN. Today is my third day off orientation. Drinking coffee and browsing before going to work at the hospital.

And OP, yes, develop a plan and have some kind of upward mobility. Becoming an EMT for the first time is exciting for sure. What you learn though is a tiny, tiny little sliver of actual medical intervention. Keep moving up, and if you enjoy medicine, consider becoming a nurse or paramedic. EMT Basic will become soul crushing and give you a life of poverty if you pursue it past 2-3 years.

Anyway, congratulations and have fun!

In my country you have basically two types of ambulances:

- Patient transport. People who can't just take a taxi and might or might not need medical assistance. Things like geriatrics who can't properly walk or dialysis patients or people after stroke etc.
- Actual emergency. Called for actual emergencies, if you can't resolve it by yourself you can call a doctor (usually when they tell you to "just have a look") or if it's something like stroke, reanimation, accidents of all kinds, a doctor is sent along right away.

I was stationed in a rather rural area. Night shifts were mostly getting paid to sleep.

I have a story about some old dude threatening us with a gun, family tragedy, ambulocetus transport. Want to hear?

Enjoy the soul sucking profession, I did it for 7 months before applying to medical school for the clinical experience and it was one of the shittiest jobs Ive ever held. Garbage hours, worse that average customer base than your average service job, and shit pay for the work you do. Also the truck you drive is fucking everything E350 is shit E450 is shit but less shit than the E350 and the Mercedes busses have the best cabs if your not a fat fuck. All this being said it was an interesting experience if nothing else and you truly appreciate what you have when you see and transport poor fucks, especially the pysch pickups.

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Tell it

I might write a story or two when I get off work.
>get call for back pain
>show up to motel and go to the room
>door already open and the smell of stale alcohol and vomit polluting the air
>declare and peek inside
>every inch of space has some sort of empty hard liquor bottle on it
>most bottles I have ever seen in one place
>room empty
>lady comes up from behind us asking if we were the "medical professionals"
>sure
>she is clearly drunk and we ask if this is her room
>she says yes and says she called 911 so we can help her get back her pizza
>what.jpeg
>apparently some dude stole her hot and ready as she was walking back to the hotel with in
>was very pushy about getting us to help her
>cops show up and give her a choice between the hospital or the drunk tank
>she sadly chooses the hospital
>give her the warmblanket™ that cost you an extra 40$
>she bitches about food for the entire ride.

Not really sad but one of the more memorable trips. Oy perk about the job was you got to raid all the medical supplies. Got all my stuff for my IFAK working there.

Just be aware that you will be paid in peanuts even though what they do is technically vital.
EMT is one of those things where you don’t get paid a lot in the slightest but you do get to do and learn some cool things on top of getting some bar stories if you’re into that kind of stuff. So maybe something you may not want to make a career out of but something you can do in the moment, just keep learning what you need to learn and doing what you need to do to move up in the medicine world. Or realize that kind of work is not for you in any sense of the word for whatever reason and move on to other pastures.

$13 a hour for ptsd, no personal life, drunk, always tired, getting pissed and shit on just to be able to share the same chubby girl every other ems guy has fucked on the job doesn't sound like a fun time. Plus you'll be surrounded with trump loving bootlickers who have the same attitude as cops and old ass white people for the most part.

This times a thousand.
There's three types of EMT, old dude that has been running shit for two decades, usually pretty chill, someone you can learn atleast a bit from.
Young dude that is pretty chill, does it because its fun/thots dig it, cant really learn anything from him, but these are the guys you actually look forward to working with.
Young dude that is such a waste of life and space, that doesnt have anything going for him other than the "prestige" of being an EMT. Usually insufferable assholes that inevitably get wrapped up in some annoying shit, usually pulling you in with them.
Also just quick fyi none of them have actually any idea of what they're doing. They dont know fuckall about medicine, most they can do is reanimate you.

Also lemme hit you with a quick horror story
>beeper goes off, get in the car, radio tells us to call them real quick as they gotta give us some infos on this one
>apparently the patient is psychollogically not really well adjusted, we should just check it out and call if we need anything
>get to the place
>nice house in the suburbs, definetly expensive
>average looking dude 40-50 year old dude and a teenager greet us at the door tells us its the kids mom
>enter the house, looks normal, smells a bit like dog but whatever
>quite a few flies though, like not enough to be all like fuck thats alot of flies, but enough to be noticable
>enter the kitchen
>morbidly obese woman sitting in the kitchen chair
>the legs bro
>the fucking legs
>completely covered in sores, scab, pus and everything bad below the sun
>some maggots crawling here and there, flies keep landing on it
>legs actually look like they melted, imagine mozzarella on a pizza and you kinda know what the pus looked like, except more yellow i guess
>ask her if she can get in our chair
>nope she's too fat for the chair
>great
>just barely get our stretcher into the place
>tell her to get onto the stretcher
>no if she gets onto the stretcher she'll never be able to get back up
>start arguing with her
>eventually colleague is so disgusted and annoyed he tells her to "get on the fucking stretcher or we're leaving"
>it actually works
>get to the ER
>first one nurse comes in and goes wtf
>then doctor #1 comes in
>doctor #1 tells the nurse to get a dermatologist
>suddenly people come in from everywhere, someone taking pictures for the documents
>great enough people to get this disgusting fat bitch on the ER table i want to go home
>ready to take her over
>grab the sheets below her and wrap them around her legs
>of course i get the fucking legs
>3,2,1 shove
>feel the scabs tear off as i lift the legs
>get the very intense urge to vomit, drop the legs get out of there
>never look back
Not a great experience.

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Fucking gross. What caused it?

Well as an EMT you can get used to never actually finding out. Well maybe if you get some friends in the ER's you can ask them.
It was just a very bad case of Ulcus cruris venosum, the exact case for that is probably a combination of different factors.
She was morbidly obese, probably had diabetes, probably high blood pressure and other cardiovascular factors.

Are fatties worse than the homeless?

Oh and combine that with her reduced mental state, inability to cooperate with treatment and her probably scratching the fuck out of her leg and there you go.
I mean it probably wasnt even that bad as it was, hopefully, very superficial.
As a now surgeon, you see worse cases usually with subcutaneus absesses and shit. Those are worse, especially when you operate them and they neglect the aftercare. Perfect space for bacterial infections.

Alrighty then. In greentext, as it is the norm.

>Get call for a "special task"
>We, public ambulance, go to help private medical taxi
>The patient: A hamplanet
>200 kg, nothing less
>Never before seen such a mass of meat
>Take her out of the emergency room
>Only covered with a blanket, can smell the gank from below
>Haul the cattle into their car, drive to her home
>It is a reulgar detached house
>Enter, it's clean and tidy, presumably maid
>Enter living room
>Cream colored carpet with a hospital bed
>Around the bed an assortment of dried up reddish-to-brownish stains
>One man each corner of the extra large carrying blanket
>Since houses are built for normal people, have to do acrobatics to actually get her to her throne of shit
>20 years, 70 kg, arms almost fully extended to get around the hallway
I still wonder how I didn't explode a disk in that house.
On the same day, our last call was yet ANOTHER call for help with only 190 kg to haul into the first floor, up a very narrow flight of stairs. That pig refused to move to ground level and the fire department told her next time they would cut open the window and carry her out by crane.

More to come soon

I got lucky, i didnt have much of either.
The fatties are annoying because they usually live in the 20th floor without an elevator, making carrying them an annoying chore.
The homeless can range really. They're not all bad, but it just feels like a waste of time to get them anywhere.
No one cares about them, they dont care about themselves, you'll probably see them again in a week with the same problems.
If you ask me we should just stop helping them in general.

I've got a police doggo one
> Be leaf EMT
> Go to call in nicer part of city cause methhead gonna methhead
> Big high native dude running around with hammer, knife, spraypaint and bear spray
>Guys pretty fucking big, probs 270ish, bald and covered in shitty tattoos
> Vandalizing nice houses, drove past one going to call in cul-de-sac that just said big bear. Most are incomprehensible.
> Get story from popo, apparently big chief bear sprayed the canine they sent at him
> Don't fuck with police dogs. The handlers treat them like officers.
> Big chief got tased 10 times, hit by the arwen (pic related, bean bag gun) 7-9 times, covered head to toe by the police OC spray, plus doggo was gnawing on his feet for a while to boot.
> Turns out chief had a history of trying suicide by cops

Funny enough, guy did almost die. Entered state of excited delerium and heart was in V-tach, but was still getting enough circulation that he still managed to spit on my partner before we snowed him and he went sleepy time.

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This. The job sucks. Why would anyone want to be in a field where YOUR tax dollars are paying for other people's bad health decisions (or simply just being a fat lazy fuck)?

I originally wanted to help people...now I want to accelerate the collapse of this poor excuse of humanity lol.

Fuck people and degenerate drug addicts.

Fucking people with their legs man. Just had a tweaker who broke both of his ankles 10 months ago (can't remember how he did it, he was too high at the time to notice). Decided not to take antibiotics or change his socks more than once every few months, plus no showers. Dudes skin was just a black mess. He didn't even call, it was someone who came in to clean and saw his sockless feet and called. Smelled absolutely rancid, so we gave him the shit burrito special and handed him over to the nurses kek

I like the medicine, its fast paced, lots of variety, lot of thinking on your feet, the procedures, the really sick cases and true emergencies are super fun

there's a lot of bullshit patients in EM, patients that don't need to be there but whatever. Lot of fucking retards too

10 hour shifts, 4 shifts a week

I don't do research but there are options available

What do you get paid

The states seems to suck ass. We have the same problems in Canada (bullshit patients, tonnes of drug use) but we do seem to be getting better mental health stuff here in Alberta. Also the pay seems better, minimum wage is around 16 and I started at 26, upper end of EMT is 36ish and end for paramedic is 36ish if that puts things into perspective. School was about 8 months full time all in (9-5, 5 days a week) to get my EMR and EMT, paramedic is 2 years with 2 weeks on and 2 off.

I made the mistake of working in the town I grew up in. It fucks with you.
The problem with small-town EMS is most people don’t understand that I don’t want to talk about the job. I don’t want to be asked about calls when I go get my groceries or I’m trying to get a drink on my day off.
We’re also located between two major highways with a really high fatality rate, so the winters are brutal.
The calls that will ruin you are the kids.

Pro tip:
If you’re the one giving patient care, someone else can talk to the family. Don’t make their tragedy become your own.
Don’t work in a small town if you live there.

EM pay is 300-450K depending on location and how much you work

Next, "family tragedy". This one is rather short.

>Get a call to "have a look"
>When we get there, a young man (son) is holding an older man (dad) in his arms like doing a heimlich maneuver, mom in another room
>Being the wise rookie I was I reflexively took the emergency ruck with me
>Immediately throw everything out, intubate the guy, call doctor
>When he arrives, he can only pronounce him dead
>He had throat or lung cancer or something and the tumor burst. He basically just spat blood once and was gone.
I gtfo'd as fast as I could while my older colleague had to tell the family.

>warmblanket™ that cost you an extra 40$

This isnt a thing, right?

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I want to be a FF but it looks like they're making a ton of new guys either be EMT-P qualified or having them get certified within a few years of hire. How difficult is it becoming a Paramedic? the way it looks how things are for Fire you almost need it to get hired anywhere.

I can't tell which are the bigger faggots of the medical world that think they're hotter shit than they are, EMTs/Paramedics or Nurses. They'll all so fucking annoying with pretending they're the word of god.

Butthurt firefighter detected.

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Kek this

>excited to help people
EMT's are hardly qualified to do shit, and even if they do know how to save a life, their hands are tied by bureaucracy. Nobody wants to get sued.
Then you'll spend your working hours fishing dead children out of a pool and giving it CPR till someone "qualified" to say it's dead tell you to stop, all because the parents thought it was okay for their 3 year old to swim in the pool alone because "the dog was watching him."
The scenarios in which you might be able to help someone are usually drug overdoses, and they'll be your regular customers. You'll end up knowing them by name, and get to watch them decay over the years and never bother to strive for more than their next fix.

Honestly, you'll probably be doing society a disservice.

Nurses are worse on average.
EMTs atleast have some chill people that are aware that they exist as a taxi service/occasional chest compression machine.
Nurses actually think they know shit about medicine.

>Honestly, you'll probably be doing society a disservice.
fuck

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Yeah thanks for your service you fucking faggot

Sounds like my experience in emergency animal medicine. I used to feel bad for pets and their owners, now the only way I can cope with things is to laugh because I can't I can't fucking stand the absolute shit-tier people that I have to deal with on a daily basis.

It's a treatment they can bill for, I bet. Had a teacher in high school that was also on the small town EMS. Said everyone got an O2 mask on because they could bill for it because that ambulance doesn't run on pixie farts.

>working in hopsittle
>private ems always bring in/taking out patients
>99% of the time its a team of two overweight girls

why is this profession so popular with fat chicks? its not like its particularly comfortable or easy. Hell it doesn't even PAY that good, its practically just a part time job for people in medic/fire school before they get a big boy firefighter job.

My hospital has an archaic supply management system and literally nothing is kept track of if it's not a controlled substance. Over the 4 years I've worked there I've stocked myself up on tons of useful shit you can't buy.

>Honestly, you'll probably be doing society a disservice.

you mean the people who pay taxes and deserve emergency medical service?

>deserve
Healthcare is not a right.

Personally, I think doctors are the most annoying they blow what it costs in a New England or California to buy a house for a piece of paper and then act if by divine right they are lords and ladies (Some even king and queens (And a good bit gods and goddesses) and that you must bow down to their inherent superiority or face their autistic watch (Which is usually crying to your supivisor or the body administrator if you work in that type of setting about how you forgot to clean up their peanuts)

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if you pay your taxes they are.

it is.

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EMTs/Paramedics are at least cool. I'm a veterinarian, and I can't tell you how many times I've fucking braindead nurses try to lecture me on medicine or refuse treatment because they think they know better. Like I didn't go to school for 10 years to learn how to treat things that can't talk. My favorite is when they actually try to treat their animals themselves and end up harming them instead. Every cat that I've seen die because someone gave it Tylenol was a nurse. Fucking Tylenol! And some of the at home bandage jobs that I've seen are absolutely terrifying.

I doubt you've ever even considered the dangerous concept you're trying to implement by declaring everyone has a right to a specific service.

>I've fucking braindead nurses
Were they at least hot when you fucked them

i've always wondered, is there animal CPR? i've heard some people in the vet business say no one ever does it but i figure at least with a dog or cat you could maybe do decent enough compressions.

butthurt premed mad because he's too dumb and couldn't get into medical school

senpai were talking about emergency services not healthcare. everyone who pays taxes pays for emergency services so they are entitled to them.

>senpai

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Usually they're either fat or have the "can I talk to your manager haircuts".

Yes, there is Animal CPR. I actually have the privilege to work for a state of the art emergency practice, so all my technicians are well trained in it and we do perform CPR on a weekly basis.

Most rDVMs don't do it because they're fucking incompetent and afraid to do CPR because they're incompetent and their staff are usually just glorified dig walkers.

My advice though, unless you are putting your per through a routine anesthetic procedure, decline CPR. If something codes due to trauma such as a hit by car or from something chronic and degenerative, it's only about an 8% chance that we'll get them back and they'll most likely code again soon after.

Do you have any say over if you work day or night?

Don't you guys see a lot of illegals going there everytime they have the flu or something?

Only private services in my state buddy

whats the rate for doggo compression?

early on no but once you get seniority you can dictate your hours. Depends on the group you're with

we see everyone. Homeless, illegals, doesn't matter

honestly though the job has made me incredibly racist

>Homeless, illegals, doesn't matter
It should matter.

no, it shouldn't. people like you are way too common in the medical field.

About $500-700 for the first 15 minutes. Covers the cost of all your material costs and labor for intubation, IV catheter placement, several doses of Epinephrine and Atropine (or other drugs), suction, venous blood gas, venous cut downs if IV can't be placed, etc. Costs rack up fast after that. Clients tend to think it's expensive and complain often, but it's several hundred dollars worth of materials on top of labor costs because it essentially takes everyone off the floor and takes priority over other patient care.

Way cheaper than what a human ER would ever cost, and we don't exactly profit from it, but you'll be surprised how often I get called a piece of shit by hysterical clients with no money over charges that I do not set. Honestly, this job sucks. If I could do it all over again, I would go into human medicine. Veterinary medicine the same amount of costs in terms of education, student loan dept and time investment, with a fraction of the payoff. In emergency, all I do is keep alive things that should be euthanized and euthanize all the things that I want to save. There's a reason that this profession has among the highest suicide rates.

sorry by rate i meant the rate of compressions

Roughly 2 per second or 100-120 per minute. Everything with canine and feline is pretty much the same as with humans, except compression techniques vary slightly between breeds and species. Usually performed laterally.

>be upstanding taxpaying citizen
>have medical emergency and catch an ambulance ride to the hospital
>recieve several thousand dollar bill for oxygen that I didn't need, and being taxied 3 miles
>homeless Joe is is OD'ing in a children's playground again, someone calls EMS
>homeless Joe gets narcan to save his life, a trip to the hospital, a blanket and is released within a few hours
>if he ever gets a bill at all, he'll never bother paying it
>does it all over again next week

I'm not stating that it's unnecessary to have EMS, just said the way the game is currently run, you'll probably be hurting society more than helping. The legit emergencies where he'll get to help contributing members of society are few and far between. The vast majority of his work will be blowing tax money on the dregs of society and giving the big financial dick to lower middle class families that may be without healthcare to recoup all the money lost on dealing with scum.

really i figured it would be faster. Yeah i assumed you'd just kinda squish the ribs from the sides.

Last one, with guns and police. I live in a noguns country.

>Get a call between 10 and 11, routine task, haul some old woman to doctor so she can get pronounced senile and get an official custodian
>in such cases, police has to tag along
>we arrive at the house, police with custodian already waiting
>ring the bell, old guy tells us she's not there
>old guy apparently used to be some warsow pact policeman or soldier or whatever, supposed to be blind
>anyhow, he sends us somewhere else where she might be
>she isn't there, the people sent us somewhere else
>she isn't there, on our odyssey through the city we meet some old lady and held her in place (politely) until police comes
>they already laugh because it's not her
>we let the startled old foreign lady who didn't understand a word we were saying go her way
>return to original house to confer
>look up to the apartment, see a woman in the window
>we go up, police takes her out by force
>old guy yells something like "let her go or I'll shoot"
>yeah, whatever, old blind geezer
>we are on our way down the stairs when he comes out of the apartment fumbling with some kind of pistol
>I yell "He's got a gun!"
>We storm down the stairs because nobody wants to get their skull capped
>Remember it's not the US, so police doesn't swiss cheese him immediately
>In the end it was a three hour standoff until a local swat team stormed the apartment
>We couldn't leave beause our car stood right in front of the window
>Nobody died that day

And now the punchline
[spoiler]It was a gas pistol[/spoiler]

I am still not sure if it was unwise to not claim any kind of PTSD from that day. I mean, I am not traumatized, at all, especially after the big twist and I would probably feel like a fraud, but if I can fuck the country like it fucks me, I am all in for it.

if you care about the cost you can always refuse transport

Cats and small breed dogs do have much higher resting heart rates, but allowing for proper recoil and refill is more important than compression rate. Studies have shown that people can really only do about 100-120 compressions per minute for over 2 minutes before fatigue reduces the effectiveness, hence why we do them in rotations. Again, it's all pretty much exactly the same as human med.

I get the strong feeling you're just being intentionally stupid.