Since we're currently covering the topics Health and Medicine, I would like to tell you how a typical 12-hour shift within the Ambulance-Services looks like. As you might have read in some of my preceding blog posts, I work as a voluntary paramedic at the Austrian Red Cross in Linz. I've made the experience that lots of people don't really know what a paramedic does all day long. Most of them assume a paramedic works in a hospital. That's completely wrong! So let yourself plunge into my world of "being a paramedic (for one day)".
06:30 am - Getting ready for the shift
A typical shift starts at 7 am, which is why you need to check if the ambulance car you'll be driving with is OK. What does that mean? Within an ambulance car, you have a number of various equipment. All this equipment needs to be checked if it's working (e.g. the stretcher [folding bed used to transport the injured]), if it's still usable (e.g. the antiseptic) or how much oxygen you still have aboard (see the portable oxygen cylinders in the second picture). If everything's alright, you tell the dispatchers (the ones who take the calls and then send out the vehicles) by radio that you are available. Have a look at the pictures what we have in our ambulance cars (among lots of other stuff).
07:00 am - Ready to rumble!
Now that the dispatcher knows we're on standby, we might receive a call soon. We don't know what's going to happen next or which kind of patient we're going to get. Maybe it's just an elder woman who is living alone, toppled and can't stand up on her own. Or we assume the worst and we could be sent to a car accident. Anything can happen!7:44 am - Our fist mission
Beep, beep the radio goes. It's time to save the world.
Have a look at the picture on the right hand side. This is what our terminal
looks like. For those of you who speak German, you'll find that no
trouble to understand. There are a few abbreviations, though, which even
German speakers might not be familiar with.So let's have a closer look:
EO stands for Einsatzort, which means the place where something happened (e.g. an accident) and we therefore need to go to in order to help our patients; the Irish Red Cross calls it the incident location.
Dia stands for Diagnose, which means diagnosis. In this particular case we have a patient who suffers from Tachykardie (tachycardia). The prefix tachy- says that something is accelerated whilst cardio/cardia is always linked to the heart. If we have problems with our heart, for example, we would see a cardiologist.
Pat stands for Patient (patient). Our dispatchers always suggest to which hospital our patient should be brought. In this case it says nach AKH. That means we'll bring our patient to the general hospital.
KEO stands for Koordinaten Einsatzort and tells us the exact coordinates of our incident location.
In the very last line we come to know that a GP had a look at the patient already and finds it necessary to bring him to the hospital. (HÄND war vor Ort).
How will we treat our patient?
Our patient suffers from tachycardia, which means that their heart beats really really fast right now. First of all, we will tell our patient to breathe calmly. One of us will feel their wrist to check the pulse. A normal heart beat is about 80 (+/- 20) per minute. Our patient has a pulse of 130(!). We also take their blood pressure, which turns out to be at a normal rate (120/80). The most important thing now is to quickly bring our patient to the hospital. While driving to our destination, the patient should sit up straight as that's easier to breathe. After the patient is brought to the emergency room, we will drive back to our station and hopefully have some coffee there.
10:13 am - The next mission's certain to come.
After having a
longer break at the station, the radio beeps again. This time, the beep
goes way faster and louder. There are two different radio sounds: the slower
one tells us that it's not a matter of life and death, but the faster
one does. So we'll finish our coffee quickly and get started.
On our terminal we get to know the following: In the first line the dispatchers tell us that we have to turn our flashing blue light on ("Blaulicht"). The diagnosis says bewusstlos, which means unconscious. In the penultimate line we get to know that a doctor on emergency call is going to be there as well ("NEF 1 ebenfalls").
Since our patient is unconscious, we need to place them in recovery position. I am not going to explain here what the recovery position is about. If you like to read a more detailed explanation how to place someone in recorvery position, have a look at one of my previous blog posts called "How to place someone in Recovery Position". What's more is that we will administer oxygen to our patient in order to make their breathing easier. We'll also cover our patient with a blanket made of aluminum. We don't want them to feel cold, do we?
Generally speaking, since a doctor was sent to the incident location too, he's the one to call the shots. We'll place the patient on the stretcher, of course still being in recovery position, and set off. After dropping the patient off at the emergency room, we drive back to our station and have a break.
12:30 pm - Enjoy your meal!
I'm starving! When volunteers work the day shift, they get coupons to get free lunch at one of the hospitals in Linz. Most of the time, we receive coupons from the "Landes- Frauen- und Kinderklinik" - a hospital that emphasizes on toddlers, children and expectant mothers.This is how a typical lunch in a hospital looks like. What do you think about it? Does it look delicious to you? Would you call it "gourgeous" as Jamie Oliver always does?
04:47 pm - Last but not least.
What we have here is something that we experience in almost every (night) shift: alcohol abuse. No, we're not the ones , but our patient. Sadly, like in every bigger city, there are people living in a poorhouse or even on the street. Actually, we don't transport these kind of patients to the hospital because they have a problem with alcohol. Instead, we bring them there because when they are drunk, they do silly things like sleeping outside or trip and fall. We neither want them to feel cold, nor do we want them to bleed or feel pain.
It can be a bit nerve-wracking to pick up a drunk guy who talks a lot of nonsense or might even be aggressive. In case a patient is aggressive, I call the cops so that they escort us to the hospital. It's a lot more secure for us paramedics to have a police officer on our side.What will we do with this patient?
Well, the most important thing is to, again, bring the patient to the hospital. Before that we'll feel their wrist to check the pulse and take a blood sample so as to measure their blood sugar. If the person had been sleeping outside, we make sure to cover them with a blanket. Otherwise the patient might suffer from hypothermia. What does that mean? Hypo always refers to something that is below a normal frequence or value. In contrast, hyper means that something is above a certain value. "Thermia" refers to temperature, which means that hypothermia is when your body temperature gets low so that it even might endanger yourself.06:45 pm - Exhausted, but satisfied.
Our shift is drawing to an end. For twelve hours we've been available for people in need. We didn't exactly save the world. Instead, we tried to ease people's pain and bring them to the hospital. That's actually a lot. Even when we're quite exhausted right now, we can be proud of ourselves!
If you have any questions on that, please don't hesitate to text me! :-)
image source (1): http://www.roteskreuz.at/typo3temp/imagegallery/450_450_16329_T5%20-%20Seiteneinstieg.JPG
image source (2): http://www.roteskreuz.at/typo3temp/imagegallery/450_450_30703_P4120113.JPG
image source (3): http://www.roteskreuz.at/typo3temp/imagegallery/450_450_16328_T5%20-%20Verbandkoffer.JPG
iamge source (4): http://www.roteskreuz.at/typo3temp/imagegallery/450_450_16331_T5%20-%20Heck%20offen.JPG
image source (5): (c) Manuel PIRKLBAUER
image source (6): (c) Manuel PIRKLBAUER
image source (7): (c): Werner SCHIER
image source (8): (c): Manuel PIRKLBAUER
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