Sunday

I had to end my senior project with a bang. Tonight, at about 9:00 a tone went out for a motorcycle accident at 216 Main Street, Andover (right in front of the Andover Pizza Chef). A truck had collided with a motorcycle with two passengers. The man in the truck was unhurt, but the two on the motorcycle were pretty beat up. The man on the motorcycle had a possible femur fracture and broken left arm, and the woman had a break in her lower left arm. They flew in the DHART for the man because of his possible femur fracture and they took the woman to Franklin. I was so overwhelmed because I arrived on the scene and was the only EMT there. There was a first responder but everybody was looking at me for answers. I started with the man and found out what was wrong. Thankfully Andover's ambulance soon arrived. I was put in control of the woman. I wanted to put her on oxygen, but I couldn't find another regulator. With the help of a few others, I had her rolled onto her back on a back board. Franklin soon arrived with Jason and Joni who came to help me. It was all so stressful! I definitely got tunnel vision, zeroing in on one thing. Chris, who had driven me there, told me I looked professional which was a little reassuring. I learn more things every time. I'm pumped on adrenaline and I still have to finish my self evaluation which is due tomorrow at 8:00 am tomorrow...

Friday

Today was supposed to be my last day at the fire department...Unfortunately I found out that there had been a HUGE fire! About 6 towns were called! I was so sad because the only "fires" I had been to were fire alarm activations. I'm sad my project is over, but I'm also glad that I'm sad because that shows that this is something I am actually interested in. It's good to find out that I can handle seeing blood before I go to college for nursing.

Thursday

As soon as I got up, I went to Chris's house and we went and spent most of the day doing laundry in downtown New London. I already knew how to do laundry, but not in that quantity. We spent about 5 hours and nearly $50 dollars! But we came prepared with movies and snacks. We munched on Twizlers and Starbursts while we watched Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift in between loads. Good bonding time. We share everything! That's one of the first things you learn in kindergarden, right? Sharing! But maybe this wasn't something you want to share...

Wednesday

I got off of my shift at 7:15 and then took Irene out to breakfast at the Blackwater Diner! My day sort of started going downhill from there...I had a lot of fun kayaking and surfing waves on the Pemi, but soon after I found out that I had lice!! I spent the rest of the day at Chris's house with his mom who spent about 3 hours picking them out! Quality bonding time.

Tuesday (24 hours)

09:00: Toned to a "CVA" (stroke) up at one of the nursing homes. The woman was very confused about what had happened and where she was. The nurse there kept talking about her pace maker and how she had had a history of cardiac problems. The woman also was complaining of abdominal pain and she had had bowl problems the past few days. Under supervision, I took her blood glucose level! We transported her to FRH.

11:25: Toned to Andover, Flaghole Road, for backup, but we were canceled en route.

11:35: Re-toned to Andover for a paramedic interception. We started down Rt. 11 and they came speeding by us. We turned around and found them by the side of the road. They had a man who was very dehydrated with an altered mental status (the tone said status 2). He said he hadn't eaten in about a week. Joni took blood and hooked him up to an IV. It took a few tries because he was so dehydrated. It was nice to see my buddies from Andover!

15:00: (3:00) We went on a tour of a new rehab building. It used to be an old orphanage, but had ben converted into a place for people to go recover from alcoholism and drug addiction. It was a great building, but looked like it could be a nightmare in a fire. 

Phil and Emily came to visit!

18:15: (6:15) We were toned to a fire alarm activation right next door to the rehab center we had just visited! I sat up front with Kevin in 7 Engine 1 and got to sound the siren! They had filled the building with smoke from cooking but there was no fire. 

The rest of the night was very quite!! We watched the Sox (they won 2-1) and I fell asleep in an armchair around 11. 

Monday

A recovery day from the weekend. We had a few 'smart' guys doing the directions and we got back to Proctor around 11:30 from our kayak race. At least we had had an amazing dinner at Applebee's. More studying and then I went over to a friend's house to make a cake for the fire department. 

Saturday + Sunday

A shift was on Saturday, but unfortunately we had a kayak race and I couldn't work with them! We drove all the way down the Cornwall for our race on Sunday. It was a great race and Proctor was represented very well at the awards ceremony. 1st and 2nd for the K1 Junior Women; 1st, 2nd, 4th and 5th for the K1 Junior Men; 1st for the K1 Men; 1st for the OC2 Men. It was a fun weekend!!

Friday

Today I had another day off. I have been reviewing my EMT-Basic book after discovering that there is a lot I have forgotten! My hope is that I will study to take the test when I go home for break. We had a big practice day today for kayaking because our last race is on Sunday! We had an advisory dinner at the Houstons' and then I went to Concord to pick up my sister!

Thursday (12 hours)

6:50- toned to an injury from a fall. 90 year old woman. When I heard fall, I was thinking of somebody falling off a roof or something. The woman had fallen in the bathroom and hit her head. She was bleeding a little from the head. We put a collar on her and took her to Franklin.

8:00- toned to a medical alarm activation. It was a false call (the woman had been sleeping) and I think we ended up just scaring her more.

9:05- We received a call from highway patrol about a motor vehicle accident. It was a very complicated call, to say the least. On the way, we saw a green truck (without license plates) driving towards us, and when it saw us it turned around and followed us back to the scene. The people in that truck ended up being 2 of the people involved in the crash. What supposedly had happened was that there were 2 cars involved in a head on collision. Car 1 had one man, and Car 2 a man and a woman. They hit head on, seriously injuring the woman in Car 2. The man in Car 2 went down the road to get another car and then he and the woman started to drive to the hospital. When they saw us they turned around. The man in Car 2 took the woman out and put her on the ground. She had 2 big lacerations on her head (she had broken through both layers of glass and plastic on the windshield) and was bleeding profusely. "She's going," somebody said and I thought 'I'm going to see this person die.' I tried to keep calm and do whatever I was told to do. We wrapped her head in gauze, put a collar on her and back-boarded her. During this, I held c-spine and then we loaded her and headed toward FRH. I kept talking to her to keep her consious. Her level of consciousness came in and out, with a downward trend. We called for the Dart and transported her to FRH. She was in a tough state. With an MOI of 'trying to stop her forward motion with her head' she wasn't looking too good. Her fiance was taken to the hospital by Tilton-Northfield and the driver of Car 1 was taken in for blood tests. The Dart arrived and they lifted her out. We have not heard any news, but everybody seemed to be calling us to see what happened. 
                

Car 1 is the Dodge sedan and Car 2 is the red pick up. In the left picture, you can see the white spot on the windshield is where the woman put her head through. 

For an online article: 

http://citizen.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080516/GJNEWS02/46810414

We later found out how much more complicated the situation was. First of all, all 3 people worked together. Car 1's driver owned an auto dealer and Car 2's driver worked for him. The woman was the fiance of Car 2's driver and also the secretary at the dealer. Car 2 had skid marks about 75 feet long leading up to the crash, but Car 1 did not have any. As you can see in the first picture, Car 1 had driven all the way across the yellow lines and Car 2 was all the way in the break down lane. Both drivers reported to have seen "an animal run across the road" ("something like a mountain lion") and had swerved to avoid it. Car 2's driver at first denied to have left the scene, even though there was evidence that he obviously had. He came on to the scene at the same time we did in the ambulance, but the car he was in was untouched. He reported later that he had 'borrowed it' from somebody. We found out that it had come from the dealership. Also, the red pick up involved in the crash, belonged to the driver of Car 1. Later, when the police were investigating, they found Meth and Cocaine in Car 1. This was no accident. Were they playing 'chicken' to see who would swerve first? Or were they trying to hurt somebody?

My first car accident! It was a very exciting day and all the calls happened before lunch. It's a good sign when you don't want to leave at the end of the day.

Wednesday

Another day off. We almost went to paddle the Winny today, but I thought that if we had another incident in Franklin my ego at FFD would be ruined!! We did some work with gates and ended practice a little early.

Around 8 I went to the New London Hospital with Chris because he's started developing a rash/bump. It was interesting to see the other side of the medical work. I am used to taking people there, handing the care over to the ER people, doing some Temsis and then peacing out. We were there for sooooooo long!!! I even had to leave early. 

Hopefully we'll have an eventful day tomorrow!!!

Tuesday

Today was a "recovery" day for catching up on sleep. I studied a little more on the heart rythems and EKG patterns I had worked on with Joanie. Long kayak practice to make up for the one I had missed. 

Monday (24 hours)

After a busy weekend, with a kayak race and formal, I was not very excited to get up at 5:30 on Monday morning. However, this 24 hour shift with A was a little more eventful. Everytime I got I progressively get more calls. In the morning we washed a few of the engines and went on a call to "E". She was a very sweet elderly woman who 'couldn't find her pulse' (she had been feeling her forearm for a pulse and found none). All of her vitals were normal with a slightly high glucose level (she reported to have had 2 cups of cocoa for breakfast). Joanie taught me a little about all of the medications and their purposes. I've got my work cut out for me if I ever want to be a Paramedic! In the afternoon we went to the Peabody House for a woman who had had abnormal heart rythems. After, we had some training about the heart and what different rythems looked like. SN node, AV junction, left and right bundle branches, Purkinje, P Q R and S waves... Around 6 we responded to a call for "an allergic reaction to a bee sting." When we arrived, our patient was alert and breathing normally. His vitals all turned out to be perfect and we decided he didn't need to be transported. He said he had had an incident about 10 years ago where he had gotten stung 10 times and had had a reaction so he wanted to make sure he was OK. Joanie made an amazing dinner of bourbon marinated steaks and "homemade" potato and pasta salads. We didn't get a single call all night. I woke up the next morning thinking I had missed something, but when I looked at the log nothing had changed. I guess I still have the "white cloud effect." 

Friday (24 hours)

Today was my first 24 hour shift! The morning was pretty quiet. We had a call to a possible fire at the sewage plant down the road, but there was no signs of smoke or fire. We did some more work with the hoses and went to the river to train on the boat. Right after we suited up (in these huge orange float-able suits) and started down the river, a tone went out for a medical call. Our patient, "M", had a case of the "leg shakes." We transported her to the hospital and left her at triage. We suspected some kind of street drug. Once again we took the boat out, this time uninterupted. Jason 'prepared' us a great meal of stuffed peppers. The evening was very quiet, except for the Sox game. Around 1 am a tone went off and I nearly catapulted myself out of my chair. The call was to "R", a 'frequent flyer." He was slightly intoxicated, but less belligerent than normal. He was taken by the police and we returned back to the station. No more tones went off for us, but Laconia and Tilton-Northfield were very busy and the loud tones kept me awake. I ended up watching lots of country music videos and long infomercials until shift change. 

Thursday

Today was sort of a preparation day. I rested up for the long weekend coming up. I am doing a 24 hour shift with A, then I have a kayak race on Sunday and another 24 hour shift with A on Monday. I had kayak practice with the team and I did some "community service" and drove a friend's mom to the airport in Manchester. 

Night Call

(written at 0:05(12:05), but the internet shuts off at 0:00(12:00) so I was unable to post until now)

I just got back from a call. I am not sure how much is considered confidential so I will be a little vague on the details. The call came at 21:45(9:45) to the house of an elderly woman complaining of chest pain. She described it as feeling "like somebody had tied a rope around her middle and was pulling on it." She rated it as a 10, but she appeared to handle it very well. She reported to have taken some Codine (left over from a surgery in January), but this did not seem to make her feel better. She did not have any alergies. She had last eaten at 19:00 (7:00). We loaded her on to a stair chair and then to  a stretcher. Transport to FRH went very smoothly and her vitals stayed constant. I am very glad that I do not have a shift starting at 6:45 tomorrow!

Wednesday

Today I got to see the other side of rescue work today. I was not scheduled to work a shift at Franklin today so I trained some gates for kayaking and ran a river with the team in the afternoon. We ran the Winnipesaukee ("Winny") River, which runs right through Franklin. It was a nice class III-IV run. We avoided the "Room of Doom", an old mill foundation that had water pouring into it and would trap you inside, and made it through the monster holes. However, Ali's boat went through a nasty one that ripped her out of her boat. The fast water sent her boat speeding downstream. Luckily she got safely out of the water, with only some scratches and a pair of bruised knees to show for it. Her boat sped down under the railroad bridge and right over the mill dam. A man working at the mill reported that he had seen "a red boat crash through the dam in about 20 pieces." We scouted the river for fragments of Ali's boat and finally found it in a strainer down by the fire department. We waded down to retrieve it and found it in one piece...but very torn up. When we reached the street we found that we had drawn quite an audience. The rescue truck, ambulance and rescue boat (as well as a few cop cars) were all waiting  and ready to pull people out of the dam. I can imagine how it would seem from their prospective. Seven kayakers, mill dam, people in the water, broken boats. Luckily everyone came out of it OK with only a slight subluxation of Ali's shoulder (but it is a very common injury for her). Still alive.

Tuesday (12 hours)

Jake's was not open for my morning caffeine, but I had some quality coffee with the guys at Franklin. I think with it being my first day I put a jinx on the shift. We had one whole call and it was about power lines that were down. I just tell myself that it's a good thing because it means everybody is OK. I did get to go to FRH with Steve to replace some of the meds on Engine 1. This week is also "Student Government Week" so some kids from the high school came over to see what it's like to be a firefighter. We set up a ladder next to the tower and practiced climbing up and repelling down. I attempted to learn the "Aussie" way (repelling upside-down). Afterwards, we took out all 8 ladders and scrubbed them down. My first day involved lots of cleaning. After dinner we did "station chores." I stuck around a little after 7 hoping that something would happen. Not so much. Friday will be good. 

Monday

Day 1 of Senior Project 2008!! The schedule that I worked out with Dept. Chief Smith did not start me until tomorrow so I did some preparation for my project. I worked on planning out my schedule and spent the afternoon washing the East Andover ambulance with Diane. I am looking forward to my first day tomorrow! I got all of my gear from Phil and I've already tried on my stellar "uniform". I have a 12 hour shift with D tomorrow starting at 6:45 am. I hope Jakes is open early so I can stock up on coffee and Red Bull :)