Day one

First day was Thursday.  Todd is my preceptor and Matt is the EMT/driver.  Both of them are really nice and helpful.  Our day consists mostly of driving.  Drive to post... drive to patient.... drive to hospital... drive back to post to only get called in 10 minutes to pt.... drive to patient.... drive to hospital... and the cycle continues.  Since we only spend about 10 minutes on scene I do feel like I sit almost 12 hours of the day.  I try to get out at post sometimes, or we'll walk around a grocery store, it's till not much.  Driving in traffic is the worst.  Matt isn't the best driver, he drives the ambulance as a car and doesn't think about those in the back so much.  By the end of the day I feel kind of sick, since the last few hours are usually full of traffic.  Alas, it is still fun.  My first 2 days were slow.  They said an average day is 12 calls.  Day one was only 6.  Still kept us pretty busy for most of the day, still more calls than I ever got in Rexburg/Idaho Falls! 

Day one was an observing day for me, to get use to how they do things and their protocols.  Some patients worth noting:

• Some women who was having difficulty breathing, about 8 pillows were stacked behind her to hold her up.  She weighed about 300 lb. and I was looking at her one leg hanging off the bed and her other leg to see how we'd lift her.  Turns out she only had one leg... Her left leg had been amputated and was a fat nub just sitting up there.  I was caught a little off gaurd. :/
• The only emergency of the day was to a 66 y/o M having an asthma attack we did every step on their protocols.  For me it was good to see the process that they went through and how fast they caught on to how severe this was for the guy.  We'd only asked him if he had asthma and if he tried his albuterol, before we had our own oxygen on him and was nebulizing our albuterol with his atrovent.  Crazy!
• The rest of the day was to sick people not feeling well, or minor injuries.

Something I love about being here in the south, no matter if the patient is extremely sick or just called us becuase they couldn't get up, they are so thankful that we were able to come and help them.  It's so nice of them!  So far at least, I'm sure I'll have other patients that aren't so thankful, but everyone has been nice, funny, and easy to talk to. 

I've found many new places I want to explore downtown too watching out the back of the ambulance window.  I try to see street names and write them down so I can remember them for later!  Can't wait to go back and explore!