I Tried Paramedic Academy

a day, yes, absolutely the first thing is always the most difficult, I think it is really difficult. to describe what it's like just because like I said it's very different every day, sometimes it can be very exciting, very exciting, other times it can be scary and terrifying, and it can also be sad or disappointing, it says shortness of breath, it's not there anymore conscious even before. We arrived at the actual apartment where she was, we could hear the family screaming, crying. Initially, I saw the patient, she was unconscious and responsible, lying on the floor. My first impression was that she was not alive.

Daughter said she was in the other room. I heard her come down while she was eating. I

tried

CPR, I got it, I had my teammates, they were starting the IV, checking vitals, putting her on our heart monitor, I had other teammates that were giving her medications, so teamwork is very important, we can accomplish a huge list of tasks that are vital to that patient in a really short amount of time, hey, I'm the Stillwell South Metro

paramedic

, doctor 21, coming to you, non-emergent altered mental status, she has a gcs of 11, this it's a possible narcotic overdose, it should be there in about five minutes, it's like watching an octopus's tentacles stretch around the ambulance. you guys are like bringing it all out working together thank you yeah that's the best part is we've all been working together for so long and we've trained together and we practice this together and when it comes to the actual event it works like a charm. should we eat before, yes, let's have dinner, I know because we may not get another chance, let's do it, oh my god, this looks so good, it's amazing, so it's true that firefighters can cook very well, some of them, some of them are terrible, y'all go. to sleep tonight are you really sleeping I don't know how I'm doing I don't think I'm going to sleep yeah no I mean honestly you just have to go about your life day by day properly because we're here for 48 hours so if that means we're leaving to sleep for 20 minutes and we get a call, that's great, but you can also run the risk of not getting a call all night and being able to sleep, so you just have to deal with that, you really have to learn to deal with that. kind of emotional atmosphere, as well as being ready to perform next time, that comes with a real camaraderie that is really bonded between those people, so it will run out. of bones, the fastest, yes, working with a team for 48 hours, if you spend a whole year, you spend a third of your life with these people so that they really become your family.

Things like playing dominoes or watching movies together, those are really important team-building moments. For us, HP believes that the goal of Dominoes is to screw everyone else because they eat together, clean together, and sometimes act together through some of the most stressful events in their lives, so closeness translates to how we act. at work knowing that we can trust each other. 54-year-old man conscious and breathing. He has a pacifier and feels like he is having a heart attack. So Michelle, we have a 54 year old man that he has been drinking in and out of. conscience, they canceled us, oh damn, definitely, when you're asleep and you're trying to get some rest between calls, it can be really hard to wake up and get ready, get down to the platforms while you're still trying. to find out where you are, so what exactly happened?

We were called to a nearby area that is actually a jurisdiction of a different fire department and then it's the first one, nothing like being woken up in the middle of the night and it's a false alarm, so next up is going to be a bunch of traumatic things, so when we can't innovate and we can't ventilate, we do what's called surgical cricothyrotomy, we're going to make a hole in this person's neck and we're going to cut this membrane and we're going to put a tube directly into their neck going directly into your trachea is a pretty invasive maneuver and this is our plan c this is the end of the road for us there is no plan d so Some kids at a tech high school 3D printed these tracheas for us and they are hard plastic anatomically correct.

Can we point out yours right there? You are literally touching someone, so with your left hand you are going to take and feel that reference point, make sure you have a good aim, there you go, with your right hand, very carefully, you are going to make an incision this big, a little bit deeper and a little bit higher, okay, no cutting you, you're just I'm going to stab that membrane another way and that way we'll create a hole. Okay, don't move your left hand. Yeah, well, I'm not moving. You'll put that tube in the hole. You may have to push quite hard.

Okay and then remove this? Yeah, take it out and then your partner won't come and start lighting up. There you have it. Okay, you just performed surgery in the back of an ambulance. A collapsed lung can be due to a penetrating injury where it could be a sharp object, sometimes a blunt object, a bullet that force causes air to escape from the lungs and for the space to begin to fill with air, it begins to close. the lungs, so we use an anterior or front location of the body to basically puncture someone's chest and remove that air, so, uh, the front air needle in the chest, right girl, that's pretty deep in there, yeah , it's a big needle, it's like a capri-sun straw, I don't like it, this here is our goal and like you. come in, you're going to keep an eye on your green valve, it's going to come loose, that's how you know you went far enough and that's good, oh, but it didn't happen very quickly, oh, it came back up, yeah, it happened very quickly, oh my god, that's it. how careful you have to look at it there is a heart here there are big vessels there we don't want to put holes in them what you have done is simply give it a path for the air to leave that chest cavity those lungs can begin to reinflate and they are no longer putting pressure on the heart now that you made a medical call we're going to move on to the trauma so our next scenario that we have planned for you is a car accident so today I'll be the uh car accident victim took about uh probably about an hour to get me fully dressed here and all the facial makeup and injuries there, did you volunteer to do this or were you told to do it voluntarily?

The scenario is going to be a traumatic scenario. You will receive an important self-extrication call. You will be in a vehicle making sure it is safe. Making sure that I can access this patient and handle the whole scene from a medical standpoint, oh my gosh. the car overturned, start treating the patient, okay, let him in, okay, his chest is moving a little, he's breathing, he's breathing, he has trauma all over his face, he's bleeding, we need to cover him with gauze, OK? They're about to open the window, let's cover him with this blanket, cover him up to the top, we don't want any glass to fall on him, okay, you're going to have to pack that wounded backpack, he'll bleed out if we don't stop that, let's keep packing the backpack, let's pack quick, quick, ah sir, can you hear me sir?

So he's not alert to any of this. What do you think of that airway? I think we're going to have to go down his throat. It's definitely not like that. It doesn't seem like we're going to get very far with our mouths. I'll get you ready for a Craig. Alright. His scalp is alive. The same. Find that reference point. Can he feel the membrane well? I think he has his target right. You have a good cross section, enough to look at this finger, enough, put that finger there, don't lose it and it will go towards his toes, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, it's okay, we're okay, stethoscope, let Brian squeeze the bag let's listen to his chest, okay, that sounds good, yeah, sounds good, sounds good, let's go to the left side, this bag is getting hard to squeeze, okay, I can't hear anything, no I can hear nothing on this side, but I can hear. on this side, yeah, so what's going on there?

The bag is collapsing hard, the lungs collapsing, start tracing down, count the ribs, the second step right here, the needle is ready, remember to hold the top, look at your valve, look at the green, hold the top , make sure he doesn't bury her. pretty quick and then it comes back up so that's right where we need to be so you're gonna pull the needle out as I go and we're in place that bag gets easier to squeeze yeah it feels easier and we're carrying We're on our way to Skyridge Hospital, this is Jasmine Heather, can you hear me?

Yeah, go ahead, okay, we have an unidentified man who appears to be in his 30s involved in a bleeding mba. We performed a cricothyrotomy and performed needle decompression on his left side. side is okay, you will start an IV in about 10 minutes 15 15 minutes okay, we will have a room ready for you upon your arrival now, when we get there, you will have to make noise in the big room, people are listening to you they want to hear what what do you have to say my hands are getting tired do you want me to take over for a while no no no no I'm just saying these are things I don't think people think about yes, ambulances pass by passing by You're probably in your city all the time native and you have no idea what is happening behind.

This could be going backwards. Next time you look, you're going to come out on this left side and I'm going to transition. bag for you, so go ahead and get down, watch your steps, you are going to enter room one, we are going to turn to go upside down, unknown age, male involvement, stronger, man of unknown age involved in an arterial hemorrhage of the NBA on the right shoulder. we filled him with rapid clots two IVs we gave him a sore throat and a needle decompression on the left side vital signs vital signs are blood pressure 90 over 60 heart rate 120. let's see where he is or well you all are amazing so many thanks for letting us, I don't know, experience a small part of what you do every day, pleasure, oh yeah, great, start to take your face off that final scenario.

It was crazy, a lot happened this week. I have learned a lot about what it takes to be a

paramedic

even though I have just scratched the surface of Mount Everest than what it really takes, so thank you all so much for taking the time, it is our pleasure, you paid attention , they learned a lot, they really took our lessons seriously and I think they did a great job. I work at our trauma center now I'm so happy to have you oh