Graeme Taylor - A Paramedics Tales: Hilarious, Horrible and Heartwarming True Stories

A Paramedics Tales

Graeme Taylor

A Paramedics Tales

Hilarious, Horrible and Heartwarming True Stories

Copyright 2020 Graeme Taylor

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior permission of the publisher or, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from Access Copyright, .

Harbour Publishing Co. Ltd.

P.O. Box 219, Madeira Park, BC , V0N 2H0

www.harbourpublishing.com

Edited by Betty Keller

Cover design by Kim LaFave

Text design by Carleton Wilson

Printed and bound in Canada

Printed on 100 percent recycled paper

Harbour Publishing acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Government of Canada, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Title: A paramedics tales : hilarious, horrible and heartwarming true stories / Graeme Taylor.

Names: Taylor, Graeme, author.

Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20190232137 | Canadiana (ebook) 20190232218 | ISBN 9781550179026 (softcover) | ISBN 9781550179033 ( HTML )

Subjects: LCSH : Taylor, Graeme. | LCSH : Emergency medical techniciansBritish ColumbiaBiography. | LCSH : Emergency medicineBritish Columbia. | LCSH : Ambulance serviceBritish Columbia. | LCGFT : Autobiographies.

Classification: LCC RA645.7.C3 T39 2020 | DDC 616.02/5092dc23

For Lars and Zara

10-4 message understood

10-7 off air/at scene (crew leaving the ambulance)

10-8 on air/on the way (crew in the ambulance)

ALS Advanced Life Support

Ambu bag and mask a manual resuscitator used to help patients breathe

BCAS British Columbia Ambulance Service

Block a group of shifts (e.g., two day shifts followed by two night shifts)

BLS Basic Life Support

Call request for an ambulance (e.g., the car is out on a call)

Car ambulance

Code 2 routine (normal speed)

Code 3 emergency (lights and sirens)

Code 4 dead

Code 5 police

Code 6 firefighters

Code X ambulance not used (e.g., Were Code X or Were ANU )

Crew ambulance crew (normally a driver and an attendant)

EMA emergency medical attendant (a paramedic)

ERP emergency room physician

Intubating placing a flexible tube into the trachea to maintain an open airway

IV intravenous (e.g., Start an IV line)

Jump kit a large bag with emergency medical equipment and supplies

Laryngoscope a metal device designed to facilitate visualization of the throat

MVA motor vehicle accident

OR operating room

Oral airway a rigid plastic tube used to maintain or open a patients airway

Unit chief ambulance station chief

Zero break

While these stories are based on true events, many names, places and other details have been changed to protect the privacy of patients, their families and medical staff. And no, I didnt write about your auntlots of people get stuck in the toilet! Dont bother taking me to courtIll deny everything.

I dont want my readers to think that emergency medicine is one long series of screw-upsambulances sliding into ditches, stretchers careening down cliffs, paramedics discussing sports with dead patients. I write about such weird and wonderful events because most people wouldnt read a book describing typical ambulance calls: that is, the ones where the patient has a heart attack, is treated with medications A, B and C, stabilized and transported to hospital. But ambulance work also proves Murphys Law: sooner or later anything that can go wrong will go wrong and make a great story!

These stories combine my own experiences (I kept detailed notes throughout my career), with stories told to me by co-workers. My thanks to all the ambulance paramedics and dispatchers who contributed to this collection. I have retold them in my own way, and I bear complete responsibility for the depictions of people and events.

A Paramedics Tales would also never have been written without my wife Feries encouragement (and prodding), and without the support of Harbour Publishing and its excellent staff. In particular, I am grateful for the patient editorial guidance of Betty Keller and Arlene Prunkl, who had to put up with an author who kept adding new material long after the maximum word total had been exceeded and final deadlines passed.

Above all I would like to express my gratitude to the British Columbia Ambulance Service for granting me the opportunity to become a paramedic, and to the many people I had the privilege to work with. I am especially indebted to Michael Wheatley and Mike Havard, who kept me going with their friendship and good humour during my final years working on ambulances, when my back was giving out and my nerves beginning to fray.

It happened almost every time I met new people. They would start with, And what do you do for a living?

Im a paramedic.

A paramedic? You mean you drive an ambulance? they would ask, getting strange looks on their faces. I was never sure whether it was awe or disgust.

Yeah, I drive an ambulance.

I wouldnt want your job! How do you do it?

Well, Id answer, it sure beats working nine to five.

But you must see a lot of terrible things!

Yes. I hoped they would lose interest if I kept my answers really short. But they rarely lost interest.

How can you stand the bleeding and all those dead people? they would persist.

I would try being honest. Actually, Im a vegetarian, I would say. I dont like blood or dead things. Thats why I cover wounds with bandages if people are alive or stuff them in body bags if they arent.

Most people changed the topic after that. In fact, most people stopped talking to me altogether. But some brave ones just wouldnt quit. You must have seen some pretty strange things! they would say, eager to hear something really gruesome and depressing.

All right, I would reply, giving in. Let me tell you about the time my partner and I were carrying an old guy out of a swamp and his dentures fell out And I would start on a story that I found absolutely hilarious, never knowing whether my audience would crack up or turn away, appalled by my insensitivity to human suffering. The thing is, you wont survive long in emergency medicine if you dont have a black sense of humour because enough tragedies occur every day to keep all the angels weeping.

But that wasnt all I saw on this job. Paramedics are exposed to a vast spectrum of human experience, often in the most surprising and delightful ways. And the best part of working in this profession is that it is one endless adventure. You never know what will happen nextwhere you will go, who you will meet or what you will be asked to do. You show up for work, and life takes you from there, usually at high speed.