Tree on 2 houses and a car

Our first call of the day, shortly after lunch. The house on the left is currently empty. The car suffered some damage from the tree, but the carport took the brunt of the damage. The house on the right only had 1 person home when the tree fell. You can't see it in the picture, but they had a metal roof over the front porch area. We ended up taking the chainsaw and K-12 to the tree and roof, respectively. The front door was the only means of entrance/egress so we had to do something.

Oh yeah...and I was driving the engine...whoohooo!!!!!!!!

I finally made it down to see this handsome guy today. He's doing so good right now. The ferrier wasn't trimming his feet correctly so there's a new(to us) ferrier. He trimmed the toe down a lot and put eggbar shoes on Leo to support and encourage his heels to grow. The other guy had let the toe get long to the point where the heel had slowed growing and since the toe was so long, it forced everything into weird angles. Thankfully, Leo turns 5 this month, since he's young there shouldn't be any permanent damage...I hope.

And in other news, that pit bull that attacked my dog went after a human yesterday while I was at work. The guy's hand was pretty ugly from what I was told. The dog is at the pound right now, and our court date is in 3 weeks.

Currently, the bills from my dog's injuries are totalled over $4,000. I'm not sure how much the ACL surgery will cost. Not that we expect the pit's owner to pay a single penny, it's just the principal of the whole thing right now. He's never once apologized, not for either attack on my 2 dogs, or yesterday. All 3 times his dog was off-leash, and off his property. The 2 most recent times, they didn't know the dog had even escaped.

Dog attacks

One of my dogs was attacked by a pit bull a couple weeks ago. She developed a bad infection (even with antibiotics) and had to have a couple drains placed and become a cone head for a week. Her drains are now out and she's healing great. Next week, we take her back to see if she's good to go to have her torn right ACL repaired. It was also torn during the attack.

Eventually, we plan to take the pit bull's owner to court for vet bills...Well, let me rephrase, if he doesn't skip town we're going to try.


More about this later, I'm at work and duty calls.

Tornado hits Atlanta

Last night downtown Atlanta was hit by a tornado. So far, there are 30 injuries, 0 fatalities. I can only imagine how much worse it would've been if the SEC game had let out. Thank God for small miracles.

Many buildings have major damage, everything from blown windows to flooding to the roof being ripped off or collapsing.

GSAR was mobilized last night, not long after the storm hit. I believe GEMA and FEMA are also in Atlanta assessing the damage and helping to clean up.

Grady Memorial Hospital, Metro Atlanta's only level 1 trauma center, sustained damage also. Ambulances were diverted thanks to the damage both to the building and the surrounding area. Power poles, trees, and debris prevented units from reaching the hospital. I haven't heard what time they cleared enough damage to reopen for ambulances, but I would think it was a priority and should be open by now.

All traumas were sent to Atlanta Medical Center, just a few blocks away. AMC is a level 2 facility and the only other trauma facility inside the perimeter. There was massive damage all around AMC, but I haven't heard of any damage to the hospital itself.

It was a night from hell, the storms were wild. I was a little worried, but I'm also slightly freaked out by lightening if I'm not inside a building.

**Edited to add the picture**

Oops

Missed the driveway, no injuries and with the help of a van and a chain, the Jeep was towed back onto the road.

Sorry for the lack of posting, I've been sick for a couple weeks. Currently, I'm coughing so hard/much that I can hardly breathe afterwards. Working tomorrow is really going to suck.

Multiple GSW's

Last night we were called out to a GSW victim. We found the patient sitting in the backseat of a patrol car (not in custody, just sitting there waiting on us). The senior medic (a Captain) wanted the guy moved to the stretcher before starting an assessment, being on the transporting unit, I turned into the stretcher-fetcher.

Keep in mind our patient is approx. 6' and 300lbs. In the rig, we find 2 entrance wounds on his upper right thigh, 1 inside, 1 outside. Also 1 entrance wound on the outside of his left upper thigh. He's a big guy and we can't really get to the backs of his legs to do a better assessment (thanks Cap.)

Vitals 160/80, pusle 88, sats 99% room air, respirations 20.....We called in a report to our trauma center at this point.

I started an 18ga IV in his left AC, and attempted to give a bolus of Lactated Ringers. **I think the IV was positional and the patient kept calling everyone on his phone. **

I kicked everyone out of the truck so I could have room to move and also so we could get on the road. I finished cutting off the guy's pants and found a 2nd entrance wound near the first on the left thigh. He was also complaining of pain when he moved his right leg, and his "nuts are numb".

I called in an update, 4 entrance wounds, vitals 152/80, pulse 86, sats 99% on room air, respirations 20 nonlabored, IV established giving bolus, ETA 10

The patient's blood pressure continued to fall enroute and he became diaphoretic (sweaty).

Blood pressure was 114/52 on arrival to the ER, pulse 92, resp. rate and sats unchanged. Once the patient was moved to the ER's stretcher, we discovered a single exit wound on the back of his right thigh.

I left to type up my report and when I went back inside to drop off the copy, they were taking him to CT to rule out a pelvic fracture. You could clearly see 1 intact and fragments of a 2nd bullet in his left leg, they thought the round that didn't exit his right leg may have bounced upward and hit his hip.

I'm going to try to get an update on him next shift.

Nothing too interesting to report from work lately. We've had a few calls that I guess I could write about, but they're not too interesting(at least I don't think so). The only call I want to write about I'm going to hold off writing about until I can load a picture of the EKG strip. I'll give a little info as a teaser, severe hypothermia.

You win some, you lose some

While some calls are inherently worse than others, there's always those calls that we get more involved with emotionally. For some, it's traumas that get the blood flowing, for others the critical elderly patient does the trick. No matter how new or experienced, parent or not, everyone goes on high alert when the call is about a small child, especially cardiac arrests.

Fortunately, most calls that are dispatched as pedi arrests, really aren't arrests. Unfortunately, most that actually are arrests, are extremely hard on all involved. I've been fairly lucky in my career and haven't been on very many of these calls.

I remember my first one very well. We were dispatched for a 3 month old in respiratory distress. On the way, we were updated with CPR in progress. My partner told me to stand by the truck and if the child actually was in arrest, he'd bring her to the truck and we'd work on her there.

Onscene, it seemed like the moment he walked through the door, he was on the way back out with the baby in his arms. She was blue from the nipple-line up.

In the rig, we started CPR while my partner prepared and tried to intubate. As soon as the the tube was in place, a nice little geyser of milk came up through the tube. It was obvious at that point that when the home care nurse was feeding the child, she aspirated the milk.

I still don't know how he did it, but my partner also managed to find a vein and start an IV. I was ready to use the IO needle if needed.

A few months later, I attended a regional Star of Life awards ceremony where I was presented a Star of Life award. These awards are only given if a patient, confirmed to be in cardiac arrest, is able to leave the hospital expected to make a full recovery.
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More recently, we were sent to a 1 month old in arrest. There was already 2 units onscene when we arrived. I jumped into the ambulance along with my partner to see what I could do to help. When my partner unlocked the drug box to grab the Epi, I pulled the IO needle out of the bottom of the box and asked if he wanted me to go on and get access. He gave me the green light so I wiped the area of the leg with alcohol and mentally prepared myself for what I was about to do. I also tried to think back to the academy, which was the last time I used an IO needle, and that was on a mannequin. I double-checked my placement and went for it, digging the large needle through skin, tissue, and bone. It went in with a creepy "pop" I could feel. The line was hooked up and flowing extremely slow, which is the best you could ever hope for from an IO.

We worked our hardest all the way to the hospital, and the hospital staff did their best as well, but it just wasn't enough.

In the last couple weeks there have been a large number of SIDS cases. My guess is that this may have been one of them and the parents just happened to be awake and found it early.

If you have kids, give them a hug and tell them you love them.